Satirical comedy is one of my favorite genres, and I was super excited to watch Robert Townsend’s 1978 film, Hollwood Shuffle.
In the very beginning of the movie, one of the actors auditioning was trained in classical theater and his auditioning with a “white voice” was juxtaposed with not being able to “speak hood” and this only reinforces the thought that classical educations are not only more professional, but are always correlated with whiteness or white people. But proximity to whiteness doesn’t make something better or good, and I think that this is what the movie was trying to show within the scene. This problem with the association of accomplishments and achievements with whiteness is seen today — many POC are told that they “act white” or “speak like a white person” when there is no one way to act or speak white or black. Thinking that one can only succeed or be viewed as good when catering to whiteness is simply a problem that white supremacy created and upholds, because if we see the ultimate standard as whiteness or correlating to whiteness, white supremacy will remain strong.
The movie also shows that black men specifically were pigeonholed to very specific and stereotyped roles of the slave, butler, hoodlum, etc. They were often portrayed as savages and the movie portrayals were very inaccurate representations of black life specifically because it catered towards what white people wanted to see and what white people thought black life was. So you get these kinds of roles that are extremely warped and continue to create misconceptions within popular media that then goes outside of the media into the real world and aids in the continued discrimination and marginalization of black communities.
The black acting school really got me, it made me really annoyed and I think that the producer and director did an extremely good job at satirizing these scenes in a way that really pinpointed many problems within Hollywood acting and auditioning while simultaneously entertaining an audience. For example, the white man teaching black people jive talk, how to walk like a black person (as if there’s a specific way black people walk or talk) showed the problems that arise when white people are behind the cameras and writing these storylines.
Another problem with the extreme misrepresentation and underrepresentation of black people within the media is that you get a lot of producers, directors, and even audiences that try to box actors into specific roles and even personalities. For example, the main character dreams that he’d be forced to act like Eddie Murphy when he just wanted to act like himself and be an actor that is separate and independent from other [already famous] black actors. This monolithic understanding of the black community is shown in multiple forms and is emblematic of how many people view the black community today. Because there is very little representation, a lot of audiences who don’t have experience around POC and specifically black people, have very misconstrued understanding and even too broad of an understanding of the multitude of experiences that black people have (and within activism, this is why there is no one solution; not only because the problems POC are fighting for are super multifaceted, but the communit(ies) themselves are so diverse — there can never be just one answer).
One critique that I really liked within the movie was the specific but subtle attack on capitalism shown through the commodification of black experiences and black lives within movies. In the movie, Batty says that “if your character doesn’t die, it’s a good script.” Not only is this showing how there are very few times in which black characters live to the end of the movie, but the need for sequels and the generation of that type of money essentially creates the cycle of churning out media (even if it’s not that good) only for the money. I would say that this is even a form of exploitation because black actors and actresses got paid very little but also because bits and pieces of black life and black culture (like the songs, fashion, and slang) were being used and popularized within movies and subsequently popular media everywhere within a society that continually demonized (and continues to demonize) the same attributes when black people took part in them.
Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and if you get a chace to watch it, I highly recommend you do!
