African-Americans In Hollywood

In a world where the paleness of one's skin determined success minorities, especially African-Americans, seldom have the opportunity to prosper in the industries of today, such as Hollywood. Hollywood has grown into a pivotal commodity of the human society that not only entertains us as audiences, but shapes our beliefs and views as well. Hollywood racism, despite the denial of its existence, presets itself through the underrepresentation of African-American talent as well as the repeated recognition of said figures solely in racially discriminating roles, thus deterring societal advancement by fueling the prejudice of the “ideal” black person. With the ever-growing rise of minorities,especially African-Americans, in American population demographics it would be within good reasoning to expect an increase in blacks on the big screen. African-Americans roughly make up 12.2% of on-screen speaking characters which, some might argue, balances with the 12.4% of blacks making up the overall American population (Smith et al.). However, when reviewing the recognition of black talent through the Oscars, we see these statistics
Motion pictures featuring more than one black character are often associated with dehumanizing roles and centralized around themes of slavery. In Disney’s animation, Song of the South, slavery is presented through jolly plantation worker Uncle Remus and his stories depicting many black stereotypes. Song of the South features its sole black character,Uncle Remus, as slow and downright idiotic. The black characters of the animation are represented through negative bodies such as a fox and the more racially upsetting “tar baby”. Song of the South, which was geared towards child audiences, was quickly pulled from public eye by Walt Disney Studios and never turned into a source of revenue due to its controversial