No, 2013 Was Not The Year Of “The Black Movie”

Hate to break it to you. But we’ve been here before.

Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed

It's simple enough to recite the names of many of this year's "black movies" — that is, films directed by black directors and starring black actors. After all, the stories that have declared 2013 the breakout year for black filmmakers always list them.

Fruitvale Station (critical darling). 12 Years a Slave (critical darling). The Butler (huge hit). 42 (huge hit). Oldboy (flop). Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas (money in the bank for Perry). Baggage Claim (widely panned). Tyler Perry Presents Peeples (flop).

But honoring the achievements of black filmmakers by declaring it "their" year does them a disservice. Lumping together heavy dramas with lighthearted romcoms simply because of the skin color of the actors or director prevents these films from being measured against the whiter counterparts that actually share their genre — inadvertently ghettoizing the former and protecting the latter from scrutiny. It's difficult to imagine pulling, say, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, The Great Gatsby, The Hangover Part III, and The Fifth Estate into a story declaring 2013 the year of the "white movie."

Take The Best Man Holiday, which is this year's "surprise" hit. Declared an over-performer by trade papers and mainstream outlets alike, the film made $30 million on its November opening weekend — even beating Thor on Friday night.

But Holiday writer and director Malcolm D. Lee scoffed at the "over-performance" label. "I certainly thought we could do somewhere north of mid-20s, north of 25," he told BuzzFeed.

"It's not that [Holiday] over-performed, it's that folks weren't tracking this audience," said John Ridley, the screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave, the unflinching American real-life story that itself is likely to see a slow burn of success as awards season approaches. Ridley sees Holiday's success as inevitable, considering its main elements: "Likable stars — a grip of likable stars, eight or nine together — in a romantic comedy reunion that's very funny, playing at a time when all the serious films are coming out." (Its A+ grade from Cinemascore means a "regionally balanced and statistically robust sample of opening night moviegoers" loved it.)

And yes, the cast and director are black, as was 87% of the audience. But calling it a black film limits how seriously the industry takes a hit like The Best Man Holiday and privileges features that weren't produced by black filmmakers. And after a number of conversations with directors and writers and filmmakers who all happen to be black, one thing quickly becomes apparent: There is no such thing as a black movie.

Courtesy Michael Gibson / MCT

"'Black movies,'" Lee said bitingly. "What does that mean? That's not a genre." Yet Variety declared, immediately after the success of Holiday, "The box office performance also sends a message to Hollywood: Make more black movies."

"Studios are going around looking for their own Best Man Holiday right now," said Ridley.

But when studios fail to recapture the box office magic with the formula of a previous hit, it casts doubt on all films by black directors. "Jennifer Aniston, Justin Timberlake, Vince Vaughn, they can make a flop — make five flops — and they'll still get hired and execs will say, 'That particular movie doesn't work,'" Lee said.

That kind of nuanced analysis doesn't often extend to movies by black filmmakers, largely because of the limited vocabulary we use to describe those films; in the language of the industry, race (and gender) of the audience and cast typically trump genre. But using "black movie" or "chick flick" as a lens through which we view bona fide hits like The Butler or Bridesmaids — rather than "sweeping historical drama" or "hilarious ensemble comedy" — leads to largely anemic and cynical attempts at improving diverse representation.

"There's a greater magnifying glass on the films that we as African-American filmmakers make," Lee said. "You can't just say, 'Hey, make a bunch of black movies.' There are so many things that go into how a movie becomes successful — timing, tone — that goes for any movie."

The thing that makes any "black movie" good is exactly the same thing that unmakes the "black movie" as a useful construct: A good "black movie" is a film that recognizes black people as humans — not symbols or vehicles for white enlightenment or redemption — and reminds us that it's the mainstream movie industry that doesn't get it, not audiences.

Which is why stepping outside of the studio system seems to be one important path for black filmmakers who want to avoid the "make black movies" directive.

"I don't measure representation by what the studios are doing or thinking," said Neil Drumming, a critic and filmmaker who released his own first feature, the independent film Big Words, this year. "Waiting on them means waiting on a whim. A change in representation is happening right now as a result of African-American independent filmmakers making bold, unfettered choices about what stories to tell."

Some of the success behind this year's projects made by black filmmakers has been due to studios picking up distribution deals for films that they wouldn't actually make. "With film in particular, there is the long lead. Much of what we're seeing now is in reaction to 2007," Ridley said. "Studios typically make maybe 14 to 18 films in a good year, when there's money flowing." With the recession, he said, some studios reduced their projects down to as few as 12 films. "That's a big deal — five or six major [studios] and mini majors each dropping their slates by two or three films."

Ridley and 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen worked on the script in a "spec space," he said. Though it was later distributed by Fox Searchlight after Brad Pitt's production company Plan B picked up the film, "12 Years wasn't going to come out of a studio."


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