Colorism in The Entertainment Industry

This is the twenty-first century.   Blacks have made magnificent strides in Hollywood since the 1930s.   During the early period of Hollywood from the 1910s to the 1940s,  Blacks in Hollywood were next to non-existent.  If they were cast in acting roles, they are often denigrating roles such as the shuffler, mammy, and maid.    Blacks were seldom cast in professional and intellectual roles.    However, in the 1940s and beyond,  Blacks were cast in more professional and intellectual roles.   Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge was cast in less stereotypical Black roles.   However, Ms. Horne and Ms. Dandridge were not dark-skinned Blacks but were light to medium-skinned.   Dark-skinned Black actors even in the 1940s continued to play stereotypical Black roles.

In the 1950s, dark-skinned Black actors oftentimes played stereotypical Black roles.  In the movie, PORGY AND BESS, Brock Peters, a dark-skinned Black actor played a rapist.  Sidney Poiter, also a dark-skinned Black actor played a stereotypical role although it was a leading role.  Mr. Poiter portrayed a downtrodden man who was physically challenged.    In the movie, THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE,  Mr. Poiter portrayed a teenage thug.   

During the 1960s, Black actors of all complexions became more mainstream in Hollywood.   Mr. Poiter started portraying more professional, middle class, and mainstream characters.   Mr. Poiter’s character portrayal were nonstereotypical and no nonsense.  I remember a scene in the movie IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT in which a Caucasian man slapped him and Mr. Poiter’s character alias Mr. Tibbs abruptly slapped him back.   I remember how everyone applauded loudly.    In the late 1960s,  Richard Roundtree, a dark-skinned Black actor, burst on the scene as John Shaft, the no nonsense detective.    Although in the late 1960s, old Black stereotypes were dying, there were replaced by resurrected Black stereotypes such as the badass,  the new buck, and the supersexy Jezebel.    It seems that in the late 1960s and early 1970s,  the Blaxpolitation movies presented these stereotypes in bounds.   

In the middle to late 1980s, there was a broadening of Black representation in Hollywood.  Spencer Lee known as Spike Lee created movies about variations of the Black experience from lower class to upper middle class.   Mr. Lee used Black actors of various shades in his movies.    In the movie SCHOOL DAZE,  Mr. Lee adequately represented the Black collegiate experience in terms of the colorism on the Black campus.    Mr. Lee liberally used dark-skinned Black actors in nonstereotypical Black roles such as  Wesley Snipes and Bill Nunn.