I've just finished polishing an article I've been working on for the past few months, a history of how Hollywood films depicted Africa between 1945 and 1970. What I found surprised me, as other scholars and common sense suggest that dark-skinned Africans were not portrayed sympathetically until the 1960s, when American politics and culture moved to the left. But an examination of both Tarzan and other Hollywood films suggest that Hollywood started taking Africa and Africans much more seriously in the late 1950s. The films in the 1960s didn't make much progress in this regard, and some of them didn't even try (such as John Wayne's "Hatari"). In fact the number of Hollywood films about Africa declined dramatically in the 1960s and especially 1970s, just as Africans (and African-Americans) gained political power. An assessment of
Readers Digest (the most widely read magazine in the world) and of more intellectual authors shows the same trend of declining interest in Africa in the 1960s. This suggests that white Americans lost interest in Africa as black African nations claimed their independence and black people in the U.S. and Africa became more assertive.
hmmmm...I find your collection of observations interesting Del but you lost me when you drew a conclusion at the end. Isn't that something along the lines of 'ex post facto'? Couldn't the loss of interest in Africa in the Sixties have been as much as result of the tension-laced refocusing on the nuclear hair triggers of the Cold War, particularly after the Berlin Wall and Cuba? And was the decline limited to black africa? With the exception of a fascination with Egypt because of the Cleopatra phenomenon, I'd say that the lack of interest in Africa included North Africa as well. I'm guessing that an assessment of the timeframe might suggest other causes too. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteGood point, David, and I admit that my conclusion is more suggestive than definitive. I was prompted in this direction because a scholar who studies intellectual reactions to Africa came to this same conclusion, and it's a conclusion also supported by my reading of Reader's Digest articles from the 1950s and 1960s. But it would be useful if I addressed U.S. perceptions of a wider range of regions.
ReplyDeleteBest,
David