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June 1998, Week 3

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From:
gloria monti <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:02:45 -0400
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        After suffering through three hours of CBS broadcasting last night,
here are my thoughts on this thread:
 
On Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:51:49 -0500 Kino International Corporation wrote:
 
Unfortunately many people in the film business as well as archivists are
justifiably afraid to say anything publically for fear of offending studio
people and most journalists are only getting one side.
 
        It's the same story in academia, I am afraid, especially around job
market time.
        However, what I found truly disturbing beyond the inevitable
selection of one film that excludes another, is the oppressive whiteness
that informs these 100 best American films.  The only references to race
were white folks in blackface (*The Jazz Singer,* *Birth of a Nation* -- a
truly scandalous choice, when aesthetic considerations mask political
considerations) or the familiar stereotype of the black domestic laborer
(*Gone with the Wind* making the top 10, another abomination).  Oh yes,
*Guess Who's Coming to Dinner:* "an elite black [invited] into the club of
the truly human, but always on white terms," as Robert Stam and Louise
Spence have brilliantly pointed out.
        *Singin' in the Rain* and *An American in Paris* but no *Malcolm X....*
 
        Gloria Monti
 
 
 
 
 
______________________________
 
gloria monti
lecturer & director of undergraduate studies
film studies program, yale university
53 wall st., #116, new haven, CT 06510
voice mail: 203-432-0152
fax: 203-776-1928
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~godard/index.html
 
"Ou est donc la verite?  De face ou de profil?"
               Jean-Luc Godard
 
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama.

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