Black’s in Hollywood

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The presence of African Americans in major motion picture roles has stirred controversy since Hattie McDaniel played Mammy, the house servant, in Gone with the Wind. “Through most of the 20th century, images of African-Americans in advertising were mainly limited to servants like the pancake-mammy Aunt Jemima and Rastus, the chef on the Cream of Wheat box.”^[1]The roles the African-American community were generally offered usually fell into three themes; a tale of rags to riches, thug life, or segregation. “Many researchers argue that media portrayals of minorities tend to reflect whites’ attitudes toward minorities and, therefore, reveal more about whites themselves than about the varied and lived experiences of minorities”, and though these are one group’s (white peoples) opinions it still seems to dominate mainstream media.