In a section entitled “Waiting to Exhale: Reaching the Black Female Audience,” Bogle describes this motion picture — led by Loretta Devine, Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and Lela Rochon — as “a return of the popular black woman’s film” (337). In examining these actors, Bogle remarks, “Whitney Houston’s film career looked the most promising” (341). Although a biopic about Houston — Kasi Lemmon’s’ I Wanna Dance with Somebody — is coming later this year, the biopic Houston herself wanted to make — in which she would portray Dorothy Dandridge — never came to be (345). Compared to white leading women, Marilyn Monroe biopics are still being churned out as recent as last month. Bogle notes that Houston’s future movie-stardom never came to be either, following “a series of personal traumas, including a highly publicized miscarriage” (345). When compared to black male actors, though, Eddie Murphy’s public misogyny did not stop his climb to the top. Near the end of the chapter, Bogle lists six black male actors that are still household Hollywood names today. Houston’s singing cemented this status too, but Hollywood seemingly wouldn’t have her.
Perhaps the most troubling trend I’ve come across while reading Bogle’s book is the historical tendency for this country (and its economy) to assume that racism is largely a “thing of the past” while actively contributing to racist acts. Bogle mentions several instances in which a studio’s takeaway from a black film performing poorly at the box office is the assumption that the black audience simply no longer exists. Equally present, if not more so, is Hollywood’s tendency to return to “the old types” every so often — as if the industry needs a reminder that stereotypes are still reductive. In the history of African American cinema, every step forward seems to come with several steps back. As demonstrated in last week’s Guardian article, recognition of black actors and filmmakers still remains a massive problem in the industry. The same pattern of colorism, cross-over films, and stereotypical depictions continue to arise again and again. Another Marilyn Monroe biopic, an internet arguing about the casting of people of color in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the new “idea” of so-called wokeness, etc. Bogle is careful to emphasize the small steps forward each time they occur, and they are surely still happening today, but it is quite alarming to discover just how much the roots of racism are still alive in Hollywood today.