The Black Experience in Hollywood

[solutions]

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Subject: The Black Experience in Hollywood
From: Solutions
Date: Thu September 5, 2024 11.32 pm PDT
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
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Dear John,

Earlier this evening, I watched on Turner Classic Movies –

(1) Carmen Jones which I’m sure you know was Otto Preminger’s 1954 Hollywood Musical bringing to the Silver Screen Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1943 Broadway Musical which put Bizet’s famous opera “Carmen” (one of opera’s famous ABC’s for newbies – Aida/Bohème/Carmen) in a then-modern American setting featuring African-Americans with an all-Black cast including Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte and Pearl Bailey, and

(2) The wonderful introduction and conclusion comprising TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz interviewing the person he said he had interviewed most frequently during his 21 years with TCM, Donald Bogle, on The Black Experience in Hollywood from his perspective as a Black film historian and author of eight works on the subject from his vantage point on the faculties of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the University of Pennsylvania.

With your life-long love of opera and your life-long crusading for civil rights, I would have thought that “The Black Experience in Hollywood” would have been featured (or at least mentioned) in your Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz – since Prof. Suber ignores the issue.

Your friend,

Solutions

PS – Wikipedia’s description of Donald Bogle’s works –

Bogle's first book, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in Films, was published in 1973. In it, he identified five basic stereotypical film roles available to black actors and actresses: the servile, avuncular "tom"; the simple-minded and cowardly "coon"; the tragic, and usually female, mulatto; the fat, dark-skinned "mammy"; and the irrational, hypersexual male "buck".[2] In the second edition of the book, Bogle identified a sixth stereotype: the sidekick, who is usually asexual.[2] Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks was awarded the 1973 Theatre Library Association Award.[3]

Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America's Black Female Superstars was published in 1980.[4] It was the basis of "Brown Sugar," a four-hour PBS documentary that aired in 1986.[5]

Bogle published his third book, Blacks in American Film and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, in 1988.[6]

Bogle's next book, a biography of actress Dorothy Dandridge (1922–1965), caused a sensation before its 1997 publication.[4] It sparked renewed interest in Dandridge's life, and several Black performers raced to make a film about her.[7] Whitney Houston acquired the rights to produce a movie based on Bogle's biography,[7] but Halle Berry brought Introducing Dorothy Dandridge to fruition.[8]

Bogle published Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television in 2001. In it, he argued that television lags behind film in reflecting the social realities of blacks.[9]

His next book, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood, was published in 2005. It tells the story of black actors and actresses in the film industry during the first half of the 20th century.[10]

In 2011, he published Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters, which examines the personal and professional life of singer and stage performer, Ethel Waters.

His most recent book is titled, Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed which was published in 2023, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive and lavish biography of Hollywood’s first African American movie goddess, Lena Horne.



---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Re: The Black Experience in Hollywood
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Fri September 6, 2024 7:02 am MDT
To: Solutions
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

The Defense pleads Guilty As Charged!!!

And yes, I watched Carmen Jones last evening for the umpteenth time and enjoyed immensely Donald Bogle’s comments!!!

Thank you for your invaluable suggestion for expanding the discussion at our Sep 18 Zoom meeting.

Your friend,

John K.