Xiongyue Yu’s Black Arts Journal

Watermelon   Woman  - Cheryl Dunye   Watermelon Woman is a classic gay-themed film that is a romantic comedy, with the film's director Cheryl Dunye herself playing the lead role in her own film, the first to be directed by a black lesbian who was open about her sexuality. Such an identity makes the film stand as a challenge to recreate history from a queer perspective and use a unique storytelling style, all of which make this a milestone in queer cinema in American history. watermelon woman is a highly textured film that challenges the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. dunye says many of the characters she plays in the film are autobiographical. But Watermelon Woman's historical references are fictional: "Watermelon Woman was created because there was a real lack of any information about lesbianism and the history of film for African-American women. The name Watermelon Woman may also allude to the watermelon, which often symbolizes life and love, abundance and f...

Original Soul Train Dancers Reminisce  On  What It Took To Dance On Soul Train -  S oul   Train   Soul Train is an American music variety television show that features R&B, soul and hip-hop music, inviting dancers from all walks of life to participate in the show, and thus developing many of its own unique dance forms and styles. Because it has persisted through various changes and restructuring, it has become one of the long-lived TV shows in American history, accompanying the growing years of black Americans in the eighties. As the years passed, Soul Train gradually became an independent tradition. What now seems like an entertainment-oriented television show was a radical move at the time. Because the cultural perspective of African-American music, dance and fashion clothing was never before seen on television as a popular show, it was inevitably susceptible to a lot of opposition. But in this show, many talented black dance artists were able to showcase ...

Pariah  - Dee Rees   The title of the film - the word Pariah in English means lowly person - refers to those who are not accepted by their social group, mainly because they cannot be liked, respected or trusted by people. The protagonist of the film, too, depicts the story of a young black girl of 17 years old who cannot be accepted by the social group she lives in. She experiences a lot of misunderstanding and hurt in her relationship with her family and partner. The teenager Alike eventually wants to accept everything about herself, embraces her homosexuality, and also tries to reconcile with those around her. Although in the end she still does not manage to get her mother's acceptance, she still chooses to live her life. The film is indeed a socially groundbreaking viewpoint set in a delicate and closed social environment, but under the perspective of this female director, there is a more delicate story being told about the emotional world of an ordinary individual. Differe...

Pairs   Is   Burning  –  Jennie   Living s ton   Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid to late 1980s, it documents New York City's prom culture and the African American, Latino, gay and transgender communities that participate in it. A chronicle of the New York drag scene of the 1980s, focusing on prom, voguing and the aspirations and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and energy. In the film, the resilience of these gender non-conforming people gives them the ability to assert self-affirmation in the face of personal and impersonal forces that seek to deny their humanity. The most important impact the film  brings to us, both past and present, is on the concept of intersectionality, as discrimination  intersects in every aspect of our existence, whether it is about race, gender, sexual identity, age, class, or even appearance, body image, or personal ability. With the authenticity un...

Mr . Soul 2018 –  Ellis   Haizlip   In the late 60s and early 70s, he started a program on PBS in New York called Soul, which became a platform to promote the awakening of black consciousness. And the documentary he produced, one of the first series to offer expanded images of African Americans on television, shifted the spotlight from inner-city poverty and violence to the vibrant black arts movement. It was also a way to help the current audience, a predominantly black audience, experience a beautiful black era with a visual documentary. This documentary shows the world the efforts of once active black artists and groups, in all forms and with all their efforts. The music and art confronted the violence, injustice and danger that they experienced in real life. These confrontations and struggles with dark experiences make the film a positive inspiration, a way to feel and strengthen a sense of black ethnicity and to understand the mutual support and love between people. ...

In the Life: Remixing Black Gay History   Since in the 1950s and 1960s, television shows mostly tried not to cover sensitive topics. Because there was no discussion of bisexuality or transgenderism at the time, when gay characters were included, they appeared in stereotypical images. Gay men, for example, were "feminine" and often worked in "female" occupations. Lesbians, on the other hand, are "butch" because they presumably want to be "men. One of the goals of these portrayals is to show viewers the stereotypical identities of gays and lesbians, just as race was once typically interpreted superficially in the mainstream media. In the In the Life episodes, there is talk of a trinity of black queer filmmakers who creatively use existing archives and sometimes invent the past where history exists to challenge the racist and homophobic historical knowledge gap. By allowing more queer identities to appear in film and television, these shows and character...

A b out   Marlon   Riggs   Marlon Troy Riggs is a black queer filmmaker, educator, poet, and activist. His films examine prejudices and stereotypes about race and sexuality in America from the past to the present, and are cultural creations that are intimately connected to both of the topics discussed in our course.   Riggs' work was driven by his own personal experience, realizing while studying at Harvard that he had a different sexual orientation than others. He wanted to gain an understanding and study of this, but since there was no course that supported queer studies, he petitioned the history department and was allowed to independently study "the portrayal of male homosexuality in American fiction and poetry. As he began to research the history of racism and homophobia in America, Riggs became interested in conveying his ideas about these themes through film. While his actions did contribute to the openness and acceptance of black homosexuality, he himself end...

Ethnic   Notions  –  Marlon   Riggs   In Ethnic Notions, a documentary with a difference, it opens with an American animation that was popular in 1941 as an introduction. In this animated film featuring black people, stereotypes of African-Americans abound, both in terms of exaggerated and ridiculous images and negative character traits such as stupidity and rudeness, illustrating the deep-rootedness of such stereotypes in historical deposits. After that, there are sculptures, stories, movies, and even music and dance, which are also full of such anti-black stereotypes. Such stereotypes are not the same as cultural records that amplify basic characteristics, but rather mainstream cultural propaganda with a clear negative connotation of prominence. Confronted with the historical legacy of stereotype culture in the United States, Ethnic Notions' 1987 interrogative documentary reflects on the negative stereotypes of black people that permeated mainstream culture in...

Daughters   of   the   Dust  –  Julie   Dash   Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film and the first feature film directed by an African-American woman. As a female director, Julie Dash creates a soft and languid cinematic rhythm, and puts more detail and clever design into the picture to construct a compelling visual aesthetic. Although this disagrees with the conventional pace and narrative structure of the film, which may make the audience fall into a stream-of-consciousness incomprehension in some moments, it will still let the audience indulge in the poetic visual feast presented by the film.   The plot uses a circular narrative structure to represent the past, present and future of three generations of Gullah women, women of African descent, most of whom are about to embark on the mainland for a more modern, "civilized" way of life. Finding the island's ancient spirituality and localism backward, they couldn't wait to leave for a mo...

D o   the Right Thing –  Spike   Lee   Spike Lee's famous comedy movie, Do the Right Thing, has been released for more than thirty years now, Spike Lee's works in these decades may fluctuate from time to time, but this movie is firmly regarded by many people as a timeless classic. Even in today's film industry, it still has the same charm and unique characteristics, and is ahead of most works of the best.   Because Spike Lee in this film, in addition to the wonderful display of the plot, but also the use of many professional and advanced film performance techniques, from the visual and narrative point of view to enhance the entire film's artistic and expressive power.   While there has been no shortage of films focusing on race in the United States, this film is unique in that it takes a reversed perspective on the issue. Such a perspective adopts a point of view that allows everyone to empathize with the subject of race from the perspectives of many differ...

S he is  Gotta  Have It –  Spike   Lee   She's  Gotta  Have It is a comedy film made in 1986, written, produced, edited and directed by Spike Lee. It also brought him high acclaim as his first feature film and set his career off to a great start. The plot is about a graphic artist named Nola and her three suitors, but unlike traditional love stories, Nola is unwilling to explicitly accept the advances of any of the men, enjoying her sense of freedom in love, in sex, and in herself. Such a plot, even in contemporary times, is still an advanced interpretation and representation of women's right to sexual freedom and the awakening of self-awareness, not to mention a romance film made by an African-American woman in the United States nearly forty years ago. Although in the plot, Nola had also chosen the partner who might be truly right for her under her own torn thoughts. But at the end, her choice remains true to the film's original meaning, not compromis...

The   Story   of   Funk : One Nation Under a Groove   Now there is no music lover who is not familiar with the word funk, but this film not only records the birth of funk music and the works and achievements of those music masters who contributed to the development of funk music, but also conveys that funk is not only a musical style, but also a kind of intuition, common sense and spiritual state of existence for musicians. It also became a celebration of the black people's self, who believed that funk music brought them together and was a symbol of their culture and spirit.   Just like James Brown, who first brought funk to people's attention, his emphasis on the first beat of the rhythm became the foundation of funk, and the sense of rhythm is the most important foundation of funk. This rhythm is the sense of rhythm that will make people unconsciously want to dance to the beat, influencing the subconscious behavior of the listener. They would argue that this i...

Grace Jones :  Bloodlight  and  Bami   Director Sophie Fiennes has spent the last decade making this documentary, a stylish and unconventional look at the Jamaican-born model, singer and New Wave icon, the legendary Grace Jones, who some have called one of the fiercest women of all time.  As the name of this documentary is, it is full of wildness and passion.   White people of that period would even call her a man, they discriminated against her race, her skin color, her behavior and attitude, but now these people are paying the price of regret for their stupidity and prejudice. But Grace doesn't care about that, and through it all, s he has made herself into something truly epic that will live on. Because she was good at breaking all the rules, after she had taken over the public eye, her attitude, her poise, her music, her style ...... were often imitated, but no one could replicate them, because she was a true original and a prodigy beyond her time and h...

The Legacy of Betty Carter (A Jazz Congress 2020 Session)   This Colloquium was held to provide insight into the impact of Berry Carter, the legendary singer, on the world of music as an entrepreneur, educator and mentor. In addition, Dr. Berry Carter received the 2020 Bruce  Lundvall Visionary Award from Kenny Barron in recognition of Dr. Harris' dedication as a jazz mentor to hundreds of artists for nearly half a century. These influential contributions of fame and achievement to this day are a record of Berry's art and life forever.   In addition to her talent and performance on stage, Berry Carter is also remembered for her professionalism and her positive personality, working closely and harmoniously with her team, a professional team that worked together to produce a perfect performance. She treats her friends and audiences with kindness and affection, and this sense of intimacy, more than other famous musicians, makes all who come in contact with her infected by he...

Killer   of   Sheep  –  Charles   Burnett   Realism is one of the most difficult forms of film aesthetics to interpret, and this 1978 American drama film is a classic work of realism aesthetics, which shows a unique realism aesthetics, that is, non-representational aesthetics. Unlike the scenes or things deliberately added by the filmmaker, the initiative of the objective world is also presented in the film, which is one of the unique charms of film as a form of artistic expression, faithfully and actively restoring the story and history of what happened in the world. Although Killer of Sheep is a film that does not seem to receive the recognition and fidelity it deserves, it is still often compared to the works of the French New Wave movement and Italian neo-realism.   The film depicts urban African-American culture in the Watts district of Los Angeles, and the entire film is documented like a documentary in a series of vignettes that align with real ...

Nothing   But   A   Man  –  Michael   Roemer   This 1964 film tells the life story of an ordinary and imperfect black male of that era. The main character, Duff Anderson, works in a difficult environment, drinks daily and meets women with whom he has a mutual affection. He experiences a lot of difficulties in life and relationships, more from his class and race, but he still holds on to his sense of self-respect and is a humane character. Although he ends up unemployed and still lives in a backward town, no one can say his life is a failure.   This seemingly ordinary plot, seemingly ordinary and typical characters, in the primitive culture of the United States at that time, where racial segregation reached a stifling degree, is rare to be expressed in the film. It was through this film that many people of that era first saw the on-screen recording of black love stories, showing the diversity of black professions and highlighting the multidimension...

The Achievement and Significance of Black Women Artists in Black Cultural History and Art Movements from the 1960s to the Mid-1980s   1.  Background   of   Black   Art   Movement Art has always been the popular element most closely associated with politics. The Black Arts Movement, born in the 1960s, was a black nationalist movement that consisted primarily of black artists and intellectuals who were concerned with and wanted to actively improve the problems of black society at a time of great importance and anxiety for the black community. They were involved in a variety of artistic fields including music, literature, theater, and visual arts, and formed the cultural component of the Black Power Movement of the 1960s.  (National Archives, 2022)   While that time of turmoil and panic was filled with sadness, chaos and riots, it also inspired an awakening of black human rights thinking. This sense of autonomy led to the flourishing of black music a...