BIPOC Film is Still Missing...

Everyone knows that for as long as film has been around, it has mainly starred straight people who are also caucasian. The BIPOC folk are still missing from Hollywood movies and even though we have moved forward a little with the films of Ryan Coogler, Jordan Peele and Ava DuVernay, there is still a long way to go before people stop saying ‘this is not diversity’ when a film has an all-BIPOC cast. There is also a long way to go before films are truly diverse and not just the Hollywood meaning of diverse. Let us first therefore discuss what the Hollywood meaning of diverse is.

The Hollywood meaning of diverse about ten to twenty years’ ago meant having a ‘token’ BIPOC in your film. It meant covering the ‘narratives’ of the typical BIPOC historical story - such as the slave narrative [Django Unchained] or the colonial narrative [Four Feathers, Zulu etc.] and honestly, these are incredibly racially insensitive and may be doing more harm than good. This is because it shows that Hollywood only understands BIPOC folk as their narratives of difficulty and victimisation and not as real people. There is therefore, only one accepted narrative for BIPOC folk and that is incredibly harmful. This is actually because a caucasian filmmaker has no idea what else there is to being a BIPOC and the caucasian actors want to virtue signal by being involved in a film that looks at BIPOC history and then say ‘I care about BIPOC folk…’ as if they actually know. The Hollywood definition of BIPOC is basically anything that fits into what the caucasian filmmaker, writer or actor/actress understands about them and honestly, it is doing far more harm than good and can be interpreted as racially insensitive.

Recently, Ryan Coogler, Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay and others have been attempting to change this by telling their own stories with all black casts and this is something that the world has actually been waiting for. Bar the people who say ‘this is not diversity’ when they would not say the same thing about an all-caucasian cast, these films represent a new step in the correct direction. Notice how these directors are more accurate about the black experience in America. If you want to see something simpler, compare the narrative concentration of “Django Unchained’ as a slave narrative at its core to something like “Twelve Years a Slave” and look at the difference in the narrative of the slave. “Twelve Years a Slave” is directed by Steve McQueen, a black man who would understand these issues far better than any other race ever could.

But there is still a long way to go for BIPOC film and this is because we are still subjected to seeing Hollywood actors ‘virtue signal’ if they are caucasian and supporting the film even though there is a difference between support and virtue signal. First of all, real support for BIPOC cinema is [though I do not agree with Django Unchained’s narrative style of slavery] Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino uses stereotypes in order to satirise them. He supports the BIPOC cinema realm and uses characters from all backgrounds to satirise their own identities and what people stereotypically think of them. Virtue signalling is when a Hollywood actor tweets ‘I support [insert minority here] film…’ without any action. An example of this is many caucasian filmmakers and actors who support the Black Lives Matter movement and then proceeded to do nothing about it.

But then comes the question of how far the BIPOC film movement needs to go and the answer is pretty far. There should not be a requirement to state that something has an all-black cast or a black storyline in order to make it hit the headlines so caucasian Hollywood film folk can look relevant by virtue signalling that they support it. However, when it comes to everyone else who comes under the BIPOC term, we have sort of been ignored. Mexicans are only recently getting recognition. Indigenous people are still being killed and have not been recognised by the majority community in film. Indians and South-Eastern folk practically don’t exist except for the token brown person and finally the Middle East are practically being left out entirely. So Hollywood, it’s good that you’re finding out that BIPOC people exist, but please do better.