Cinema serves as a crucial form of representation that shapes our shared reality : a look at the importance of the Black List, and Franklin Leonard’s declaration that “I want a culture that looks like the world.”

Set up in 2005 by Franklin Leonard, the Black List provides an annual shortlist of the most popular un-produced screenplays based on the aggregate preference of industry professionals. Leonard acknowledges cinema’s power to influence society by championing diversity and meritocracy in an industry renowned for patriarchal nepotism. In diversifying the architects of cinematic storytelling, the Black List plays an important role in the evolution of cinema away from its foundations forged, in part, by the first American blockbuster; DW Griffith’s 1915 Birth of a Nation (BOAN).

Between 1915–1946 it is estimated that over 200 million people viewed BOAN (Pitcher, 1999, p.50), which portrays a factually incorrect account of the Reconstruction era in which black people were presented as a danger to the American way of life. The film enforced pre-existing racial stereotypes and its nefarious fear mongering was used by the Ku Klux Klan as propaganda, making BOAN “the midwife in the rebirth of the most vicious terrorist organisation in the history of the United States” (Franklin, 1979, p.431). Despite outcry from progressive liberals and African Americans, Griffith’s polemic was a critical and commercial success that “set the foundation for today’s dog whistle narrative about race and race in politics” (Boyce and Chunni, 2019, p.138). This enduring legacy emphasises that “all political struggle in the postmodern era necessarily passes through the simulacral realm of a mass culture” (Shohat and Stam, 2014, p.6).

By “parading…dominant ideas as truth rather than as opinion” (Boyce and Chunnu, 2019, p.125), BOAN used cinema as an ideological tool to both enforce and empower racist ideology that translated into the socio-political realm. Stuart Hall refers to identity as a “production” (Hall, 1989, p.68) rather than “an already accomplished historical fact” (Hall, 1989, p.68). Cultural products therefore contribute towards the creation of our individual and collective identity. Leonard himself surmised, “if you can see it…you can be it. Less is made of its corollary [that] if you see it enough, it’s going to affect how you see the world” (Leonard, 2018, Vanity Fair). Representation is therefore crucial considering that “cultural productions have material [and] political effects on and off the screen” (Olund, 2013).

Within these cultural productions, cinema is undoubtedly influential as “the spectator is duped into taking image for reality” (Bordwell et al, 1988. p.7). BOAN demonstrated the importance of a balanced perspective; if things are one sided film can affect society’s Manichean notion of what is right and wrong. Unfortunately, Hollywood’s coded genres that “routinely repeat a stereotyped product”(Bordwell et al. 1988, p.5) are informed by the success of films like BOAN, both in terms of content and the drive for profit. So despite the evolution of socio-politics, in this case race relations, the rules in place in the film industry remain entrenched in racist paradigms thanks to a retrospective notion of what viewers want, and therefore what generates profit. Furthermore, hyper commercialisation has led to inflated production costs, making studios focus on franchisable stories with multi market exploitability that require investment from equity partners (Curtin & Sanon, 2017, p.34). Thus stories written by unknown authors about realities that have no cinematic precedent are high risk endeavours, unappealing to the studio exec. This rooting in capitalist thinking has homogenising consequences that perpetuate old world ideologies and make “movies based on original screenplays…an endangered species” (Curtin and Sanson, 2017, p.34). The Black List flips the script, “asking a different question than the market…We’re asking what scripts people love.’” (Wagner, 2017) Instead of the idealism of Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino’s Third Cinema that demands a rejection of the industry as a whole, Leonard’s radical pragmatism disrupts the status quo using its own bottom line; “there is a viable, profitable business in making films that are representative of the diversity that exists in the country and the world” (Cox, 2017).

A Black List film that caused significant disruption was Slumdog Millionaire, which won multiple awards including 8 Oscars, grossing nearly half a billion dollars having cost $15 million (Sharma, 2012, p.197). The stratospheric success of this film was revolutionary in that Hollywood had never seen a blockbuster with an Indian protagonist before, so its success was unexpected. The ignorance of this outdated mode of thinking was further highlighted by the fact that the film’s fan base was majoritively white. Criticised for its white director and screenwriter despite it being an Indian story and cast, Slumdog Millionaire was not devoid of cultural mishaps. For example, the use of the invented word “slumdog” was offensive to Hindus for whom dogs are unclean. Despite definite issues that highlight how far the movie making process is in portraying authentically diverse stories, the success of the film represented a watershed moment in terms of disproving the notion that a diverse lead negatively affects profitability.

Importantly therefore, the capitalist ideals of white supremacy upheld by Hollywood are proven to be not only culturally reductive, but also bad for business. Leonard acknowledges the importance of using writers that are “chromatically literal” (Shohat and Stam, 2014, p.190), and in recent years has made efforts to promote different demographics within the list he is responsible for publishing. Clearly tokenism is not enough; “an epidermically correct face does not guarantee community self-representation” (Shohat and Stam, 2014, p.190), as demonstrated in the criticism of Slumdog Millionaire. There is undoubtedly work to be done, and it is important for multiculturalism to be carried forth in every level of the production process. But the Black List’s work to subvert the status quo provides a much needed opening in order to work towards truly representative filmmaking.

Leonard’s Black List positions itself in opposition to the “capitalist exploitation of film [that] obstructs the human beings legitimate claim to being reproduced”(Benjamin and Jennings, 2010, p.27). This drive for representation connects to a socio-political motive that transcends the culture industry; “more than a response to a demographic challenge, [multiculturalism] is a long-overdue gesture toward historical lucidity, a matter not of charity but of justice.” (Shohat and Stam, 2014, p.359). It is only by acknowledging profit seeking ideology that the Black List has achieved the beginnings of a shift in perspectives. The global influence of Hollywood paired with the power of cinema to shape social narratives, as shown through the enduring effects of Griffith’s polemic, emphasises that the Black List’s work to disrupt the rules of Hollywood is not only important for the culture of cinema, but also vital for the progression of social equality.

*

Essay written as part of Masters course entitled Global Culture and Creative Industries at SOAS university.

Module : Global Film Industries.

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