Why your images matter in the age of Obama

The Japanese are building robots, holograms are appearing on the cable news, and Barack Obama is going to be the forty-forth President of the United States.

Are we living in the future?

Dunno, but what I do know is that pop culture has helped pave the way for the election of America's first Black president. We've seen Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck in Deep Impact, and, more recently, Dennis Haysbert as President David Palmer on "24". I don't mean to overstate their significance (or to minimize the efforts of activists, voters or the candidate himself, for that matter), but we've grown accustomed to the image of a black President thanks to these depictions and others. The election got me thinking about the power of images, and the responsibility filmmakers have to take ownership of the pictures we put out there.

The history of American Americans in films has mostly been a sad one. From D.W. Griffith's KKK-worshipping The Birth of a Nation (1915) to the unconscious racism of a film like Frank Darabont's The Green Mile (1999), movies have offered us one negative, degrading depiction after another. I don't think those images remain frozen on the screen, either. They get into our heads and affect our society in unforeseeable ways.

That's not to say things haven't improved. TV especially has broken new ground in this area. Interracial love stories are now the norm on shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "My Name is Earl." We've seen Black doctors, lawyers and police officers, whereas before we saw mostly criminals and buffoons. Young Americans don't have to walk around with as much racial junk in their heads, and filmmakers deserve at least some of the credit for that.

I think the responsibility starts with the writer. You could blame the director, or even the actor for agreeing to play a stereotypical role, but it's the writer who must take ultimate responsibility for his or her characters. A problem some young writers face is that their life experience is limited. So when they start telling stories, they rely on the images they've already soaked in, and many of those images happen to be negative. I've seen examples of this on Openfilm. I won't name any names, but you know who you are.

Or maybe not, and that's the point. Filmmakers need to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to grasp the meaning of the images they're creating. For a good start, check out Donald Bogle's definitive history of Blacks in films, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks. Educate yourself before you start putting pen to paper and pictures to screen. Among many other things, this election just showed us how big of an impact our work has on the world.