Reflection: Hollywood in the Obama Era

Tadias Magazine
Events News

Press Release

New York – Those who believe in the theory of post-race would argue that the era of a black president would be the most appropriate time to push beyond frontiers and air all issues related to race. For others, the power relations have not changed much, and race is still subject to power and capitalism. Considering the box-office success of recent Hollywood films, (The Butler, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lincoln, Django Unchained, Precious, 12 Years a Slave, and others), some critics may see these films as groundbreaking in their representation of racial issues in America today. Others may describe the same films as controversial, because of their failure to challenge long held racial stereotypes. Some may even define these films as post-racial or as Hollywood’s return to race for profit.

The lecture series “Reflections on the Post: Hollywood’s Representation of Race in the Obama Era” invites a writer/artist/critic to select a single film or a group of films that he/she feel exemplifies an Obama Era Hollywood representation of stereotypical blackness, or a post-racial society.


If You Go:
Oct. 6, 2014
TIME: 6:00 pm
Featuring Stanley Crouch
Jazz scholar, syndicated columnist, social and cultural critic
Author of Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker
LOCATION: D’Agostino Hall, NYU Law School,
110 West Third Street, Room: Lipton Hall,
NY, NY

Oct. 27, 2014
TIME: 6:00 pm
Sapphire, Bestselling Novelist & Poet,
Author of PUSH—the inspiration for,
the Academy Award-winning movie Precious
LOCATION: Greenberg Lounge, 1st floor, Vanderbilt Hall,
NYU Law School, 40 Washington Square South
NY, NY 10012

The programs are free and open to the public.
Space is limited. Please RSVP at (212) 998-IAAA (4222).
For updates and information please visit: http://www.nyuiaaa.org/

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at New York University was founded in 1969 to research, document, and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond.

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