This document summarizes the portrayal of black people in 20th century movies and television in the United States. It discusses early racist films and characters like Stepin Fetchit. It also covers breakthrough performances by Lena Horne and Sidney Poitier who portrayed black people in more honest roles. The civil rights era brought an end to openly racist cartoons and shows. In the 1970s, black sitcoms and blaxploitation films emerged, though some relied on stereotypes. By the late 20th century, films made progress in showing the black experience in a more authentic light.
11. Paul Robeson made forward strides in choosing roles that had honest portrayals of African American men through out the 30’s and 40’s. Most roles played by blacks at this time were that of servants or characters living under the sharecropper system. Paul Robeson
18. Racist Cartoons and shows like Amos & Andy, were banned by the mid to late 1960’s in large by pressuring from the NAACP filing complaints and forming viewer boycotts.
19. Diahann Carroll Diahann Carroll would follow up Lena Horn with positive African American female roles in the 50’s and 60’s.
27. In the 70’s, Blacksploitation movies would be the dominant source of African American Films. Despite the desire to have people of color in leading roles the stereotypes overshadowed this accomplishment. These movies were heavy on graphic sex scenes, violence, and stereotyped black men as pimps, black women as whores, and criminals.
28. The films eventually generated a backlash led by Black leaders that put an end to Blacksploitation films by 1980. (Padgett)
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32. The Parent Hood These shows would continue to strive for positive African American depictions, but still use minstrel archetypes to create a marketable program.
33. Halle Berry and Denzel Washington would be the two actors of this generation to find honest African American roles portrayed in the movies.