The Cinema of Social Death: Blackhood At-Large

(Hardback)

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Description

In this book, Tryon P. Woods argues that cinematic treatments of blackness which offer explicitly counter-narratives to society's deep-seated racist culture do not escape the trappings of antiblackness and the basic antagonistic relationship between black people and the modern world, but are rather features of it -- all the while posing as anti-racist.

Woods first examines how documentary films that endeavor to expose and indict antiblack racism may, in fact, be the most efficient genre for disguising contemporary culture's parasitic relationship to blackness. The focus of the book then turns to a selection of fictional dramatic narratives by black independent filmmakers, including Tanya Hamilton, Haile Gerima, and Spike Lee to consider the difficulty in telling stories of racial justice that do not fall into the contemporary trap of imposing antiblack notions of gender and sexuality.

Author Bio

Tryon P. Woods is Profess of Crime & Justice Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at UMass Dartmouth. He teaches Black Studies and critical approaches to de-disciplining knowledge.