Black Characters: Humanizing Representation MEGAN LORETO
in
question of “why” might seem to undermine the
literature, film, and art have been represented
purpose of a work seeking to investigate nuance
in offensive, harmful, and often dehumanizing
and depth. It might seem like the answer to such
ways. In a culture that touts the power of art
a question is obvious. However, even in this
and representation, the need to subvert the
basic question there is much to unpack. There
stereotypes and literary tropes mirrored
are two primary reasons to justify the ways in
from a society built on the foundations of
which the question of “why” is important to
white supremacy onto Black characters has
pose at the beginning of this investigation into
never ebbed away. To understand the delicate
writing characters. First, that for many, “why” is
balance of realism, characterization, and
posed in the face of questions more simple than
metaphor in writing and film, there is much to
that stated above. “Why do Black lives matter?”
be learned from good contemporary examples.
“Why do we still have to talk about race?” “Why
By examining the Black characters in Dear
are people rioting?” In a recent commercial,
White People (2014), directed by Justin Simien,
Google created a video around the concept of
and BlacKKKlansman (2018), by Spike Lee, my
“why” and one of the searches displayed briefly
intention is to identify some of the ways writers
read, “why black lives matter.” The irony, of what
construct Black characters who subvert tropes
was probably intended to represent the most
and broader stereotypes.
recent wave of Black Lives Matter activism in
HISTORICALLY,
BLACK
characters
2020, detracts attention from the absurdity that I. WHY?
Americans still need to Google the answer to
Why do we need Black characters to humanize
that question to begin with (Google). The second
those they represent? To begin by posing the
reason for posing this question is to allude to the
M EG A N LO R E TO (’21) is a senior English and History double major. Her studies and
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scholarly concentrations center on issues and questions of race, gender, and culture.
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This paper was written for Dr. John Reilly’s class “Portraits in Black and White.”
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