Film diversity in 'classics' have improved but not nearly enough for 2022
A generic search of classic movies on Google produces what seems like a replication of the same photocopied, white-male-directed films. Most of these films have solidified themselves as hallmarks of Americana cinema, but can we accept that part of what makes this American fabric is often problematic, exclusive and diminishing to marginalized communities?
Since the advent of the film industry, and the popularization of the medium, the elite film narratives we have grown up learning about have taken a repetitious turn. Evident in the cinematic ages, visions of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick or Quentin Tarantino have marred the pride we take in helming diversity-led contemporaries like “Moonlight,” “Black Panther” or “Crazy Rich Asians.”
Cinematic epics can’t be easily defined, but what these blurry differentiations do is exemplify America’s innate ability to erase underrepresented voices and magnify the narratives that succeed in extinguishing these voices most effectively.
The cinematic ages’ implications on the future of film diversity exemplify the threshold we’ve had for problematic and white-centric stories. While historians don't possess the same exact definition for what constitutes Hollywood's Golden Age, the 1930s and early 1940s are considered some of the best years for filmmaking, financially and creatively.
Golden age icons like Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean dazzled and dominated the cinema sphere during this period. But the black and white narratives in their films are indicative of the Golden Age’s thematic analysis of the times. Movies like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “How to Marry a Millionaire” promote an often problematic view of women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.
One of Hepburn’s most beloved films, “My Fair Lady,” follows the pattern of a white, strict and well-off man patronizing an eccentric, unruly white woman with little economic standing and a funny accent. Professor Henry Higgins’ lessons in gentility provide a direct line to the normalized binaries of the male-female dynamics we see in other movies by leaning on sexist tropes.
Hepburn's also beloved “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is known for its whitewashed Asian character, Mr. Yunioshi, who was played by, Mickey Rooney, who was white, in a stereotypical, racist caricature. These stereotypes, normalized issues in film, have become a pattern in American cinema, and they didn’t slow down at the arrival of New Hollywood.
The New Hollywood film movement that happened in the late 1960s and 1970s was led by film students who were passionate about dismantling the status quo in the film industry.
This status quo we saw during the Golden Age was challenged, and redefined, by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Kubrick or Welles. These white, cis, straight titans have dictated the course of classic films in American cinematic history with their independent, mind-bending films that deviated from the glamorized, American themes of their predecessors.
These filmmakers brought new, radical films to the mainstream with images like the futuristic, extraterrestrial mind-trip that is Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and the mythologizing rhetoric of Spielberg's “Jaws” that catalyzed the fear frenzy around sharks.
The new demographic of incomers added a vibrant and nuanced layer to American cinema and is why we can appreciate the artistic implementations for the culture, but we must criticize the lousy normalization of this white-male-created, white-male-written and white-male-directed prototype.
This resurgence of filmmakers that promoted white-centric narratives and white-casted films with similar themes lasted until the 1980s when a younger generation of repurposed Kubricks populated theaters.
The 1980s and 1990s helmed some more of America’s greatest artistic and experimental films. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” and Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” are among the plethora of culture-shifting masterpieces released in that era.
Yet we must question how we can grapple with the fact that these films were birthed from white-centered binaries that have led to the proliferation of such diminishing narratives. What we can do as audience members is push toward a new generation of diverse films that are hailed as classics by creators, directors and casts that involve people of color and narratives that center them.
Looking between the 2000s till present, a new wave of media has completely changed the trajectory of filmmaking. The introduction of streaming services has destabilized the trajectory of cinema forever and defined the most recent generation’s cinematic experience as something different than it was historically.
The most recent unanimous classics (by definition of popular vote) seem to point to the innate escapism and nostalgic memories tied to our viewing. Franchise legends like “Harry Potter,” “Twilight” and " The Avengers” define what it means to be a hallmark of a generation.
Although there have been many diversity feats here, there have been major downfalls in equal measure — while women of color are present in “Harry Potter,” they exist as one-dimensional, token and stereotypical characters like Cho Chang. These movies are identifiable factors of a generation looking for films that reflect the diversity needs we are aware of in 2021. Yet these flaws point to a bigger question about the culture.
How can a quickly progressing America contend with its decades-long legacy of undiverse movies muddled with the problematic lens we view a lot of their characters and representation with?
Perhaps the answer lies in crafting narratives that don’t rely on sexist, heteronormative or racist tropes. Changing the narratives by engaging with stories from the outskirts will involuntarily change the status quo of what constitutes a “classic.”
The future of cinema is always evolving, but viewer complacency may keep us stagnant in a progressing culture with unprogressive stories. Audiences are indicted in this endemic — and hold the power in our wallets, views and voices.