Short discussion of Robert Townsend's 1987 film Hollywood Shuffle, with particular attention to how the film poses critical questions to putting Black bodies, Black people, and Black life on the screen. I also talk about how the resonance of Hollywood Shuffle might tell us as much about our own consumption patters as it does about the reality of cinema. What does the message of Hollywood Shuffle look like if we think about African film, other and less attended to African American film, and Caribbean film? In that way, the course's theme is brought into focus: in what ways is and is not "black Atlantic cinema" a name for a tradition, with all the meanings "tradition" might have for us?
What is Cinema of the Black Atlantic?
Podcasted process pieces from my course “Cinema of the Black Atlantic” at University of Maryland.