To Shuffle Hollywood

Most of what I have to contribute to this week’s conversation, on the subject of Hollywood Shuffle, is merely corroborative of Harriet Margolis’ very compelling analysis:  “Stereotypical Strategies: Black Film Aesthetics, Spectator Positioning, and Self-Directed Stereotypes in Hollywood Shuffle and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.” With such an encompassing title as that, and with an even more comprehensive examination within, it’s not surprising that I find it difficult to refute much of what Margolis asserts. She details the machinery of racial stereotyping, what with its cognitive foothold in our lives and that “To be successful, the least that the strategy of using stereotypes to combat negative stereotyping must do is to invoke an ironic response in the spectator, based on an ability to identify with or at least recognize the Other, as well as an inability to stand naively and comfortably in the place of the One relative to the Other” (54). She also pointedly describes the monolithic categorization and streamlining that black filmmakers, unfortunately, have to deal with when any sort of film they create is labelled, ever so broadly, as black cinema; and that “black cinema” is assumed to oblige a communal Black image, for better or for worse.

I had enjoyed Hollywood Shuffle quite a bit. I still do, even after having read Margolis’ argument. However, having been persuaded by Margolis, I now find that the film does fall short of what its self-directed stereotypes set out to do: what all self-directed stereotypes set out to do, the removal of offensive stereotyping. I had thought initially that Shuffle’s stereotypes were well wrought with a foreground of a realistic and traditional narrative being used as a springboard for the irony of the parodic scenes to land suitably in the minds of the film’s target audience.  In this respect, Shuffle succeeds with great aplomb. However, it’s not the landed awareness of the stereotypes that is the issue, it is the audience in which the stereotypes are landing (either an ironic audience that is not in need of correction when it comes to stereotyping; or a white audience, in which Shuffle does not address powerfully enough, because it adopts “a point of view that puts different classes of African Americans at odds with each other” -- being individualistic rather than communal) and it is the way in which negative stereotypes are replaced. As Margolis puts it: “Townsend attacks specific, individually expressed stereotypes more than the process of stereotyping itself” (55). She goes on to say that “Simply replacing a negative image with a positive image does not solve the original problem; it imposes one view of the world over another, leaving that view in turn equally vulnerable to changes to its authenticity” (55). In fact, it substitutes negative black stereotypes with stereotypes like the “unredeemable” white producers and the shallow gay-hairdresser.

Lastly, seeing as though I’ve hardly advanced the conversation here, I believe that Shuffle, while obviously first and foremost a racial commentary, is also a commentary on the artificial -- and frankly, tacky -- condition of Hollywood in general. This is most apparent in Shuffle’s stereotyping, the kind that Margolis’ asserts is undermining Shuffle, of the white producers/writers/filmmakers who are running the auditions and directing as they are portrayed quite negatively. But also, much of this industry ridicule emerges from the fantasy scenes, where famous films are recreated like Dirty Harry. This ridicule sets out to expose such iconic films as being formulaic -- or at least the quality of these films feels deliberately diminished. This makes the racial commentary even more biting because not only do African-Americans need to struggle to secure stereotypical roles, but even if they surpass those roles and achieve more “respectable” ones, those respectable ones are still not always of great quality -- for everyone. This forwards the movie’s cause even more: if the respectable roles can be of crappy quality, then really, there is no reason that African-Americans should struggle to obtain and then be confined to roles that are significantly inferior to that of the “respectable” ones. It’s arguable that Bobby Taylor’s satisfaction as a mailman also contributes to this sleight against Hollywood. However, personally, I don’t think that Bobby is satisfied, and that the ending is one of dissatisfaction, as he has been spurned from his dreams, and committed to contributing to the communal black identity -- a satirical jab at the notion, this audience being black, that all of a black individual’s actions must be conscientious of the appearance of the black community, for a white audience. In a way, being required to fall back on such a menial position, which can come with its own minority stereotypes, is just as confining as limited movie roles.