I know this was Manhattan, not Atlanta, but I had to wonder if the number of blacks in the movie was plausible for the time. Carnegie Hall? The party?
Doesn't matter--sure doesn't hurt the movie, which we quite enjoyed--but??
No blacks allowed in high society
shareUse it in a sentence?
Srsly, what were you trying to say?
The only thing I can think of...is...
Everyone went ballistic one year ago at 2016 Oscars when not a single nominee was black. Jada Pinkett Smith called for a boycott and #OscarsSoWhite became the hot hashtag when nominees were announced.
In truth, FFJ's handling of this "politically incorrect" reality of today...totally turned it around as to actual history! I find that insulting to African Americans -- especially considering the indignation forced on HATTIE McDANIEL at the Oscars for 1939!!! Hattie was a nominee for Best Supporting Actress playing Scarlett O'Hara's "Mammy" in GONE with the WIND. McDaniel was FORCED to enter the venue through a back door...she had to sit at the back of the auditorium...even when the poor woman died, she wanted to be buried in a certain Hollywood cemetery -- which rejected her. Because she was black.
Historically, this happened only 5 years prior to FFJ's performance at Carnegie Hall in 1944!
When I was watching the movie and the saw the gratuitous "placement of African Americans" in the crowd shots...I thought it was a sort of ridiculous mea culpa weirdly sanctioned by Brit Stephen Frears. It was just plain historically inaccurate. I shook my head. The Industry is so stupidly ignorant...
EveryDayFriend: Nicely put. I think you expressed my concern very well: if it's not realistic, then it *is* insulting (to everyone, really, but especially to African-Americans) to stuff random black people in just to make things look more...something.
But then, most millennials probably don't believe just how segregated things were -- and how recently.
It's probably more accurate than you think in that while Federal legislation outlawing discrimination didn't come into law until the 60's, state laws mandating it quickly began breaking down during the 40's.
Furthermore, Jenkins' lived in the world of the private clubs, so she and her flock we're exempt for de jure segregation laws within the clubs themselves.
As for Carnegie, she chartered the Hall but more so, the African Americans who attended the performance were military and Federal laws have existed since the Revolutionary War that statures a man who has fought to preserve freedom can not have laws the restrict his freedoms invoked against him.
Jenkins had a lot of money, was well connected and could have got it done.
I'm not suggesting that FFJ was a civil rights advocate, but rather the artistic community and members of New York's high society were fully aware of the Renaissance that was happening at that time in Harlem. Understandably, they wanted to be a part of it and mingling of the two separate worlds was common amongst them.
Well, that's kinda what I was wondering about. But I know that blacks in the military weren't exactly equals, no matter what the law said, so I still wondered. At least it was in the North, so it's at least maybe plausible--as opposed to the South, where it would have been ridiculous far longer.
sharetrue and true, the South was under Jim Crow laws until the mid-sixties, however as it came up under another tread, Carnegie was privately owned, never segregated and a large number of the tickets given away by Jenkins did go to African American servicemen.
Regarding the South, the Carnegie Winter estate here in Georgia, Dungeness, which the family acquired and built in the late nineteenth century, was also always inclusive, (it's hard to enforce segregation laws when you own the entire island), so the Carnegies do have that history.
If no AA are in a film, then lots of complaining. If there are, then lots of complaining.
They are plenty of movies where no whites, Latinos or Native Americans appear. Minorities have their very own networks.
I personally don't care about what race appears in which film- I watch films for entertainment purposes PERIOD!
I have many favorite actors who are different races than myself.
Some of my favorite (living):
Denzel Washington
Viola Davis
Jack Nicholson
John Cusack
Eva Mendes
Mark Wahlberg
Jane Fonda
Sissy Spacek
Kate Winslet
John Leguizamo
Julianne Moore
Amy Adams
Michael Peña
Morgan Freeman
Tommy Lee Jones
Tahmoh Penikett
John Trudell
Louis CK (fave stand up)
Chris Rock(Fave stand up)
Benicia Del Toro
Just off the top of my head.