Why So Few Movies About the Civil Rights Movement?

That’s the question Ann Hornaday asks today in the WAPO. I think that is a very good question. Coming of age in the 50’s and 60’s the two defining issues of the time were the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-War Movement. These two movements also came together quite often.

Peace and Civil Rights Protests of 1967

Posted Aug 11, 2005

Demonstrators protest the Vietnam War from Central Park to San Francisco to Rome, featured alongside Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, though these movements were integral to our cohort’s experience they have not been treated exactly equally in the mass media and by that I mean Hollywood’s exposition.

Soon after Vietnam was ended there were several Big Main Stream Movies about our Nation’s experience in that War. In 1978 there was The Deer Hunter, and in 1979 there was Apocalypse Now. Then in the Eighties there were more Big Main Stream Movies. In 1986 we got Platoon, in 1987 there was Full Metal Jacket and in 1989 we had Born on the Fourth of July. There is in fact a site for the Vietnam War Movie Genre.

Yet for movies about the Civil Rights Movement which is, I would proffer, far more important to our Country’s History not only is there no such compilation and genre site, there also are few and far between any movies about one of the most central events in our history.

The two major movies about that time are by Spike Lee. First in 1992 is his Malcolm X and then in 1997 is 4 Little Girls. Both of these films were exceptional. Now I point to these and not others as the main characters in Lee’s films are actual Black folks and not White folks as the movers of the narrative. Now it is possible that I am giving other movies short shrift. If so let me know. But these are the two that stood out for me. There are others I am sure but not major movies which were backed by the Main Stream Media in the same way Big Movies about our Vietnam experience were.

So, why the difference in the treatment of two of the most important movements in our country which coincided in the 60’s? Is it because of race and the American Corporate Media is afraid to deal with it? And how can it be that there is no Big Main Stream Media Movie about Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Read Ms. Hornaday’s piece. It is well worth the time and the questions that she raises.

I remember Roots in 1977 and that seemed to be a Blockbuster. But maybe it is different if you can sit in your own home and not pay for a ticket?

Do you have any answers?