On Wednesday 12th
February the Centre for American Studies was pleased to
welcome Dr. Eithne Quinn (University of Manchester) to the department's 2013-2014 seminar series. In what was an illuminating and engaging discussion,
Dr. Quinn examined the role of Hollywood in late-1960s racial relations in her
lecture “In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967) and Racial Politics in
Post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood.”
Diverting from typical
scholarship on the film that focused on the relationship between the
characters of Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) and police chief Bill Gillespie
(Rod Steiger), and the provincial setting of Sparta, Mississippi, Dr. Quinn’s
lecture examined post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood in the context of the
production and release of Norman Jewison’s In
the Heat of the Night. (1967) Moving
from the film’s role within contemporary discussions of a post-racial America
to a post-racial Hollywood, Quinn deftly undermined the Hollywood projections
the film arguably portrayed on the racial politics of the late 1960s,
projections which typically contrasted the provincial, unenlightened and
racially divided South with the progressive liberalism of the North and West Coast. However, as Quinn argues, the post-racial discourses
portrayed by Hollywood productions contrasted startlingly with the racial
discrimination in the mechanisms of the industry. It is through this examination of Hollywood’s
internal mechanisms that Dr. Quinn argued that the film says more about racial
attitudes in the North and West Coast than it does about the South. Hollywood’s
contrast between ideology and industry, exposition and actuality, framed the
centre of Quinn’s lecture.
Dr.
Quinn’s moved on to a discussion of ideas of the post-racial within the culture
of Hollywood’s late-1960s productions. She
noted the rise of Sidney Poitier in 1960s Hollywood, particularly after his performance
as the African-American homicide detective Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night.
Becoming not just one of the most prominent actors of the period, Dr.
Quinn also notes that he became the most bankable African-American actor in
American cinema, a title only relinquished to Will Smith in the noughties. Poitier’s success in In the Heat of the Night, Dr. Quinn comments, exemplifies
Hollywood’s imposition of racial discrimination solely within the isolated southern
states, rather than within a wider national context, marking it as a product
that avoids the complexities of racial attitudes for a narrative of northern
self-congratulation.
The
film’s portrayal of an enlightened North against a racially divisive and backwards-thinking
South was very much at odds with the reality of race relations in the
late-1960s. Most noticeably, Quinn
reminds us that it was within this period of time that Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. was moving his campaign north to protest against northern racial
discrimination, noticeably found in the squalid living conditions of poor black
urban neighbourhoods and a lack of integration in education and
employment. These projects however,
were not readily accepted by many northerners.
Although Quinn does take time to note the amount of northern white
Americans who recognised and sympathised with this discrimination, many were
not ready to accept it was an issue outside of the south. Furthermore,
as Dr. Quinn argued, even those who were earnest about solving the racial
issues in the north could be characterised as being more condescending than
helpful towards African-American activism, with many involving themselves in
the issue with a sometimes paternalistic and unrealistic understanding of the complexities
involved in the issue. This social and
cultural dissonance in the north towards issues of racial discrimination,
either through patronising attitudes towards African-American activism, an indirectly
racist promotion of a colour-blind, laissez-faire ideology held by many white
Americans, and productions that reinforced these attitudes such as In the Heat of the Night, were encapsulated
in what Stephen Steinberg deemed “the liberal retreat from race”, a phrase Dr.
Quinn quoted in this segment.[1]
Dr.
Quinn’s went on to examine the battle between ideology and industry in
late-1960s Hollywood’s race relations. The
progressive rhetoric of Hollywood’s film productions framed in films such as In the Heat of the Night was much at
odds with the racial discrimination inherent in the industry. She made the point that in the wake of the
Civil Rights Act enactment in 1965, Hollywood was particularly slow in
responding to the legislation, and refused to accept black employees in the
majority of its departments. This
contrast was prevalent in racially-conscious productions such as In the Heat of the Night, where behind
the scenes few black workers worked on the film. Additionally, Dr. Quinn interestingly
discussed the development of the early drafts of the film that originally
included certain elements of institutionalised racism in the north. Those elements in the script that questioned
northern racial discrimination were taken out.
Lines originally intended for Poitier’s character Virgil Tibbs were
removed by director Norman Jewison on the grounds that they were too alienating
to Northern audiences, and distracted from the focus on the relationship between
the two main characters. Dr. Quinn noted
at this point how the commercial pressures of a large budget film has a
tendency to create conservative cinema, and it is likely that it was these
pressures in particular that instigated Jewison to remove the lines in exchange
for a softer, more northern-friendly final draft. Additionally, she discussed Sidney Poitier’s
position within Hollywood and its contentious race relations, and how top
Hollywood executives hindered racial integration within the industry by promoting
Poitier as an example of their progressiveness.
She argued that Hollywood’s emphasis on the mere appearance of
progressiveness through the promotion of a black bourgeoisie was a definably
northern liberal approach to issues of race in the late-1960s.
In
the final section of the lecture, Dr. Quinn examined the character of Virgil
Tibbs (Poitier), and how Tibbs was promoted as an example of racial exception
within the backdrop of the late-1960s. Although
Poitier’s performance as Virgil Tibbs, the embodiment of northern racial
enlightenment, served to promote Hollywood’s own progressive stance on race,
this perspective clashed constantly with Poitier’s own experiences. She noted that though Poitier was normally
very reserved about making comments about race, he did acknowledge his own
difficulties working within Hollywood, especially at a time when he was the
only prominent African-American star in a racially discriminatory industry. Dr. Quinn provided an example of the difficulties
he encountered during the production of In
the Heat of the Night when he found himself becoming irritated at his
co-star Rod Steiger- renowned for constantly staying in character as southern
chief Bill Gillespie between takes- making numerous racist remarks during
production. Dr. Quinn pointed to the
fact that the lack of support the film received from the local black population
during production further illustrated this racial disconnect. Her successive inclusion of Poitier’s
comments on Hollywood’s racially-discriminatory hierarchy was very enlightening. Commenting that it was white northern
Americans who organised every facet of the Hollywood industry, from writing,
casting, production and directing, Poitier regarded it as inevitable that issues
of race were softened and misunderstood in cinematic productions. Dr.
Quinn went on to argue that it was this paradox between Hollywood’s ideology and its practise that enhanced Poitier’s performance as Tibbs, with
the raw anger conveyed in his performance borne out of his own racial isolation
within Hollywood. She concluded that
this illustrates the irony of Hollywood’s promotion of a post-racial ideology,
where it used Poitier’s position as a prominent African-American actor to placate
any demands to revise its own racial practises.
Dr.
Quinn’s lecture on racial politics in post-Civil Rights Act Hollywood was
highly-engaging, moving through social, political and cinematic contexts with
ease. Her talk also made for a powerful
revision of traditional treatments, not just of Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night, but of Hollywood’s own treatment of race
issues in the midst of a heated era. Rather
than simply being a film that exposes the racial prejudices of Mississippi, she
demonstrated how it could very easily be turned on Hollywood, and in doing so, expose
the limitations of northern liberalism in its treatment of race. In doing so Dr. Quinn’s lecture illustrated
how the complexities of race issues developed within the northern context of the
late-1960s, but also highlighted its continued significance, and the diligence needed
in monitoring our own forms of complicity with it in the present day.
By
James Nixon
PGR at the University of Glasgow
The Centre’s seminar
series continues with Prof. Martin Halliwell (University of Leicester): “Trouble
or Transcendence? Health, Illness and American Culture in the 1970s.” This will be held on Thursday
27th February 2014
in Room 202, 4 University Gardens, at 5:15pm. All very welcome!
[1] Steinberg, Stephen, The Liberal Retreat From Race, New Politics,
vol. 5, no.1 (new series), whole no. 17.
Web. Last accessed on February 13th. http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue17/steinb17.htm
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