A. One of the first things mentioned within this chapter was the expression “era of tan.” The era of tan was a time within the 1980s when writers and directors took a black character and “shaved down the corners” of their culture and who they were as a person. Thus taking away their internal being. When all of this was shaved away their insides were left to be replaced with white culture. They were made to assimilate into white America. So, while their skin appeared black they were white internally mixing the two colors and creating tan.
One topic I found quite interesting when reading this chapter was that of the “interracial buddy pictures.” Overall, I found it interesting to finally see this dynamic within films put into words. He described it as a white and a black man being “well-adjusted and inseparable professional interracial buddies.” When these types of relationships are shown in films, he said it was an attempt to simplify or ease racial tension that was occurring during the time period. However, the writers and directors still made it a point to show that the white man was in charge within the relationship. The Rocky series was heavily mentioned within this segment due to that exact type of relationship between Sylvester Stallone(Rocky) and Carl Weathers(Apollo). I have never seen these films but this chapter has made me want to go watch them and fully analyze the style of relationship the two have. When I have seen this type of relationship between two men of different skin colors in films from around or before this era, I had never fully recognized the true over arching issue, and never fully knew how to put into words this type of character interaction, but now I can take a step back and recognize the situation.