An email from film critic Thelma Adams earlier this week (published below with her permission), reacting to the recent Sundance Film Festival panel, “Critics Cornered,” featuring Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly), Scott Foundas (LA Weekly), Sean Means (Salt Lake Tribune, Mark Bell (Film Threat), and myself…
photo via wireimage.com
From: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Subject: critics cornerered: what’s wrong with this picture? answer: it’s raining men!
Date: January 27, 2008 8:08:16 AM EST
sorry, but the above picture says it all. every year when I host a panel about amazing women in film at the Woodstock Film Festival, we discuss male critics being the final gatekeepers for women’s features entering the marketplace. As someone who has attended Sundance since 1986, and a working critic since 1989, who knows and enjoys the company of Mark, Owen and Eugene, and proudly saw the female-led Frozen River win the Grand Jury Award for Dramatic Feature, I’ve got to ask you with both respect and passion: how does this all-male image of a Sundance critics’ panel strike you?
your colleague,
Thelma Adams
Film & Dvd Critic
Us Weekly
Member, New York Film Critics Circle since 1995 and two-time chairman of that group
Academy Awards show producer Gil Cates has said that he chose Chris Rock as host in the hopes of luring younger males to turn on ABC this Sunday night. Given all the pre-show chatter over whether Rock will somehow lose control on live TV, Cates just may get his wish as viewers tune in to see a potential train wreck.
In a commentary about the strangely simmering controversy over comedian Chris Rock hosting the Oscars this year, David Poland stops short of playing the race card in explaining the undercurrent of ‘concern’ that continues in run-up to the Academy Awards ceremony. But he should play it already, because its being played by the media.
[Photo by Bob D’Amico/ABC APMAS]
In a post Super Bowl ‘04 era, fueled by conservative websites like The Drudge Report, fears of a black entertainer losing control on live, national television are being whipped up. “I’ve been on TV and not cursed before, I’ve been on TV and been funny not cursing,” Rock countered in a conversation with Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” on Sunday. He was forced to further address the matter on the Tonight Show last night.
In a year when black stories (“Hotel Rwanda,” “Ray”) and black actors (Jamie Foxx, Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Morgan Freeman) are nominated for top Oscars, why is the media pushing stereotypes.
Even though Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday (January 15) was declared a national holiday years ago, it increasingly feels like a holiday that many would rather overlook. It is a holiday that we’ve historically observed at indieWIRE and I attempted to take the day off from work, but it turned out that many in the film business decided to maintain business as usual. Numerous publicists called and emailed today, pitching Sundance projects and sending out press releases. A friend at a New York film company told me that it was a regular work day.
Following the death last week of Mark Rabinowitz’ mother Joanne Grant (a woman whose own work was at the heart of the struggle for racial equality dating back to the 60s), I’ve been reading more about the civil rights movement recently. And tonight I watched as CNN marked the birth of MLK, 76 years ago, by replaying in its entirety Dr. King’s speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. on August 28, 1963.
“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment,” King said on that day.I couldn’t help but note that even then he worried that the country would not grasp the importance of change. Americans will “have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual,” he said.
That’s exactly why we need to commemorate MLK Day today, especially during a week when our country will inaugurate a U.S. President.
[Pictured above the cover of a book by Bob Adelman, who shot the iconic cover image as MLK delivered his famous speech.]
The complete text of Dr. Martin Luther King’s August 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech,” as it would later be called, is posted below…
“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro still languishes in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we’ve come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of “now.” This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixth-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But that is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream!
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your crest—quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former salve owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers….I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together!
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day!
This will be the day…this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning. ‘My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring,’ and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom ring! From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring, from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that.
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring, and when this happens…when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
At yesterday’s “Diversifying American Cinema” panel, which I moderated at the Tribeca Film Festival, I began by discussing a survey that indieWIRE has published on the topic. (As I mentioned last week here in the blog, I polled a group of indie film community insiders on the subject of ethnic diversity). In talking about the article, I read a comment from an indieWIRE reader who wrote:
I am a 19 year old African American filmaker, and I first contributed to the film world when I was sixteen. It is so sad that as a filmaker of color you have to worry about so much more, which can take away from your creative process.
I asked the panelists if they felt that same sense of ‘so much more’ to worry about as a person of color witiin the film industry. Their answers to that question, and others, underscored how diverse the viewpoints are within the small network of people of color who work in the movie business. This also comes across loud and clear in the indieWIRE survey on the subject. There is no consensus (and that’s ok).
While Lisa Gay Hamilton powefully advocated that we must seek ‘revolution’ within the industry, Peter Kang advised that talent can and will be recognized no matter what its color, Wayne Wang touted small successes in diversifying even one position on a film crew and Chris Eyre said plainly that he tries not to think the obstacles, focusing his energy on the steps ahead and moving forward.
I’ve had various responses to the article and panel over the past 24 hours, reminding me that there are no simple solutions. But most agree that its an important topic to be exploring further. My only frustration is that the vast majority of the 75 people I emailed on the topic never bothered to respond at all, not even to say that they were too busy to spend the time to answer the questions.
Pictured at yesterday’s panel (left to right next to me): filmmaker Wayne Wang (“The Joy Luck Club”, “Maid in Manhattan”),writer/performer Lisa Gay Hamilton (“The Practice”, “Beah: A Black Woman Speaks”) Fox exec Peter Kang and writer/director Chris Eyre (“Edge of America”).
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