1. How ‘race’ is constructed in British and Hollywood social problem films Small Scale Research Project 1
2. 2 Focus film: Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959) Second film: Flame in the Streets (Roy Ward Baker, 1961) Third film: Pinky (Elia Kazan, 1949)
3. What is a social problem film? “…the social problem films of the late 1940s and 1950s are commonsensical texts… Sensitive to changes in the culture and in the industry, the social problem film is also a distant relative of neorealism and of docudrama.” “The social problem film was particularly sensitive to the “news of the day and to immediate social issues that were identified with journalism, social science research, and legislative-political developments.” “Films such as Sapphire (1959) dramatized the social problem of race…” (Landy in Landy, 2001:149) 3
4. The construction of‘race’ and Sapphire A CONSTRUCT – ‘an idea or theory resulting from a synthesis of impressions, learned facts, or study…’ What we find in Sapphire is that ‘race’ tends to be less constructed through learned facts or study but rather a synthesis of impressions Stuart Hall writes “…we know that ‘stereotyped’ means ‘reduced to few a essentials, fixed in Nature by a few simplified characteristics’” (Hall in Hall 1997:249)
5. The construction of‘race’ and Sapphire Sapphire constructs and communicates ‘blackness’ through: Music “The film links card playing and music and dancing to blacks, blacks to sexuality, and sexuality to violence.” (Landy 1991:477) Clothes Red taffeta and exotic underwear in a locked drawer, things that Sapphire wanted to keep secret, presented in this ways ‘blackness’ is constructed through sexuality and seen as something that Sapphire was ashamed of Long standing historical stereotypes “The Tragic Mulatto – the mixed raced woman, cruelly caught between ‘a divided racial inheritance’… whose partly white blood makes her ‘acceptable’, even attractive to white men, but whose indelible ‘stain’ of black blood condemns her to a tragic conclusion.” (Bogle in Hall 1997:251)
Editor's Notes
- For my small scale research project I have chosen to look at how race is constructed in British social problem films
My focus film will be Sapphire by Basil Dearden who is well known for his British social problem films, much of my research will come from this film and the contextual issues that arise from it. The central character in the film is Sapphire who is a mix raced woman who passes for white and is murdered Key to this film is the representation of ‘Blackness’ and how it’s communicated and also through some of the other characters blatant racial stereotypes and prejudiceFlame in the Streets is a good film to go along with Sapphire as it was made during the same period, and follows on with the theme of prejudice, also from this film I am also to focus a little on the construction of ‘Whiteness’ especially through the representations of the female characters.Lastly I have a Hollywood incarnation which I have recently come across, it was made before the other two but again follows a character who passes for white, but in the film a white actress plays the mixed raced woman, this can say a lot about the time the film was made.
Social problem films were supposed to be films that documented what was happening at the time, the term commsensical refers to having or exhibiting native good judgment, so the views expressed in the film were in a way right for the timeSocial problem films were quick to pick up on what was happening in the news for example before Sapphire was made there were several large race riots in Notting Hill link to the influx of immigrant coming to England from the West Indies which in turn had an effect on legislation.Film such as Sapphire and also Flame in the Street dramatized the social problem of race, but often these film were left open ended with no sense of closure on the societal ideologies presented within them
Throughout the film we find that many views of ‘blackness’ are not constructed through known facts or things that you can see but through stereotypes, essentialism and hearsayThis is exactly what occurs in Sapphire blacks recognised through ‘simplified characteristics’Philosophy one of a number of related doctrines which hold that there are necessary properties of things, that these are logically prior to the existence of the individuals which instantiate them, and that their classification depends upon their satisfaction of sets of necessary conditions
Click on picture for example of musicDiscuss example provided for clothes – what happensAnd elaborate on historical serotypes – also the issue that in social problem films something bad always happens to a black person
