From the Violent “Black Buck” Stereotype to the “Black Hero”: Representations of African Americans and Black Masculinity in American Cinema

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the representation of black masculinity in four popular Hollywood movies. In the first part of the paper, the key terms and analytical points are developed, based on the relevant literature from the fields of cultural, film and media studies, African American studies and black feminism. A special emphasis is placed on the transition from a stereotype of the “Black Buck”, a common on-screen representation of a violent, vengeful, highly sexual black male to the “Black Hero”, created in the Blaxploitation movies and further developed in more recent movies. The four movies that are closely analyzed are Sergio Corbucci’s Django from 1966, Gordon Parks’s Shaft from 1971 and their contemporary adaptations, Shaft (2000), directed by John Singleton and Django Unchained (2012), directed by Quentin Tarantino. One of the tasks of the research is to examine how the stereotype of a violent black thug has been deconstructed and modified in more recent movies to usher the “Black Hero” character.