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- All Subjects: History, Modern
- Creators: Davis, Thomas J.
Description
Hollywood's portrayal of African American men was replete with negative stereotypes before Shelton Jackson Lee, commonly known as Spike Lee, emerged as one of the most creative and provocative filmmakers of our time. Lee has used his films to perform a corrective history of images of black men, by referencing African American male icons in his narrative works. This strategy was evident in his third feature film, Do the Right Thing (1989). Baseball great Jackie Robinson, and freedom fighters, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, were the black male icons featured prominently in the film. The Brooklyn-raised filmmaker's film journals, published interviews, and companion books, have provided insight into his thoughts, motivations, and inspirations, as he detailed the impact of the black male historical figures he profiles in Do the Right Thing (1989), on his life and art. Lee deployed his corrective history strategy, during the 1980s, to reintroduce African American heroes to black youth in an effort to correct media portrayals of black men as criminal and delinquent. He challenged the dominant narrative in mainstream Hollywood films, such as Cry Freedom (1987) and Mississippi Burning (1989), in which white heroes overshadowed black male icons. Lee's work parallels recent scholarship on the history of African American males, as called for by Darlene Clarke Hine and Ernestine Jenkins. The prolific director's efforts to radically change stereotypical depictions of black men through film, has not gone without criticisms. He has been accused of propagating essentialist notions of black male identity, through his use of African American male icons in his films. Despite these alleged shortcomings, Lee's reintroduction of iconic figures such as Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, in Do the Right Thing (1989), marked the beginning of a wave of commemorative efforts, that included the retiring of Robinson's number forty-two by Major League Baseball, the popularization of the Martin Luther King National Holiday, and the rise of Malcolm X as a icon embraced by Hip Hop during the 1990's.
ContributorsHotep, Lasana (Author) / Whitaker, Matthew C. (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Thomas J. (Committee member) / Simpson, Brooks (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation describes the public sphere that coalesced in the Soviet jazz scene during Josef Stalin’s reign. Scholars debate the extent to which Soviet citizens, especially under Stalin, were coerced into cooperating with the regime through terror; willingly cooperated with the regime out of self-interest; or re-aligned their speech, behavior, and thoughts to conform to Bolshevik ideology and discourse. In all cases, citizens were generally unable to openly express their own opinions on what Soviet society should look like. In this dissertation, I attempt to bridge this gap by analyzing the diverse reactions to jazz music in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. I argue that audience engagement with jazz and discussions about the genre in the Soviet press and elsewhere were attempts to grapple with bigger questions of public concern about leisure, morality, ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and patriotism in a socialist society. This jazz public sphere was suppressed in the late 1940s and early 1950s because of Cold War paranoia and fears of foreign influences in Soviet life. In its place, a counterpublic sphere formed, in which jazz enthusiasts expressed views on socialism that were more open and contradictory to official norms. This counterpublic sphere foreshadowed aspects of post-Stalinist Soviet culture. To support my arguments, I employ archival documents such as fan mail and censorship records, periodicals, memoirs, and Stalin-era jazz recordings to determine the themes present in jazz music, how audiences reacted to them, and how these popular reactions overlapped with those of journalists, musicologists, bureaucrats, and composers. This project expands our understanding of when and where public spheres can form, challenges top-down interpretations of Soviet cultural policy, and illuminates the Soviet Union and Russia’s ambivalent relationship with the West and its culture.
ContributorsBeresford, Benjamin J. (Author) / Von Hagen, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Manchester, Laurie (Committee member) / Schmelz, Peter (Committee member) / Moore, Aaron (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017