HOLLYWOOD BOY'S CLUB ...the next generation

Angelina Jolie tapped to play Cleopatra with so many beautiful Arab actresses available for casting in the role, do audiences honestly have to suspend disbelief as Hollywood continually passes over talented minority actors?

Major film studios that make up the motion picture industry in Hollywood and its environs have shown on screen where "Tinseltown" has done well in mitigating abject racism in the movies since the so-called "Golden Age" when African-Americans and other minorities were either ignored or marginalized as caricature. But the film industry equally makes aware how the business has fallen short of an informed nation evolving culturally into the 21th Century.

Missing out on the increasingly polarized job market inside "the industry" (particularly now as the economy contracts) are women and minorities shunned by formal recruitment for internships and job placement, increasingly becoming a back-door system for white males with certain "affiliations" which have them well-placed and better connected.

Blaxploitation is that subset of film genre, homegrown in the United States during the 1970s, when movies were explicitly targeted for African-American urban audiences; the word itself is spun from "black" and "exploitation" because films so labeled prominently featured black actors in low-budget or no-budget fare largely written, produced and directed by white males—"the Hollywood boy's club" that financed Shaft (1971) is credited for starting this subspecies of action/adventure.

Hollywood, in practice, is not all that concerned about being politically correct as evident with the Blaxploitation motif. Any examination of the industry, therefore, must conclude that the top professions in the movie factory remain closed to all but the young, white, often gay and Jewish but mostly male executives, producers, writers, directors as well as technicians and tradesmen.

Although there is evidence of widening access for Arabs, Pakistani, and Hindi-Indians to high-status positions, no grooming of minority filmmakers so far is part of the Big Studio agenda, which leaves African-Americans, Asians and Latinos standing in line, a queue that by now is long and storied with little career advice coming from the front office to boost ambition. Little social, professional and artistic mobility also exist for white women but especially black women within the insular film community—even after 100 years. Must be because women at large and minorities overall are not bringing money or prestige to the table.

Even though a handful of women and minority filmmakers are fully formed, have something to show to their credit upon entering the crystal halls of the seven sacred studios, the glass ceiling has only been raised a bit with a few hairline cracks showing but no one has clearly broken through. There persists a willing "closed-shop mentality" which has become more (not less) exclusive over time, while the latest generation of minority hopefuls "assume the position" of grabbing their ankles.

Racially stereotyped "hip-hop" gangsters, Asian chop-socky, and Latino drug lords is a commonly accepted reboot of blaxploitation (now in yellow and brown) but not the answer. It's racism. Despite the new wave of direct-to-DVD exploitation fare in which minorities not only appear on screen but on occasion write, produce and direct these films, nearly all the production jobs and managerial positions behind the scenes are not being filled by women and minorities.

Perhaps in another 100 years...maybe.

Expectations for a professional career in the motion picture industry should not rely upon "gonzo" filmmaking. Although being relegated to the "ghettoes" of Hollywood is now more the product of "runaway" productions with many film companies leaving the studio system for other parts of the country (and the world) to reduce cost, the Hollywood Boy's Club has constricted production slates, rededicating itself to the endless effort in producing more cartoons, comic-to-films, white-bread romances and vanilla comedies while looking out for "their own."

Minorities need not apply.

What needs to be done? Oh, boy, well ...an opportunity for those shut out of the studio system allowed to put in the time, pay their dues and power through the learning process. The honest truth: most work is "on the job training" for those sincerely committed to the art and craft of filmmaking.

If the American moviegoer expects more from the major studios this century, the real answer is that there is no answer because the truth is ...racism sells, at its most nuanced. The film industry since BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) has been a reflection in the mirror of the American Zeitgeist and the nation's cultural interests.

If you don't like what you see, that's where you make a change.

Frederick Louis Richardson

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