Se hace un análisis somero de lo que implica el nuevo cine de las negritudes en Hollywood, en parte, a la luz de la visión que tiene de él, Viola Davis.
This paper critiques the representation of black masculinity in Marina Mayoral’s short story, “La belleza del ébano,” which centers on the brief interracial relationship between Teresa, a middle-aged Spaniard, and Pierre, a younger... more
This paper critiques the representation of black masculinity in Marina Mayoral’s short story, “La belleza del ébano,” which centers on the brief interracial relationship between Teresa, a middle-aged Spaniard, and Pierre, a younger African student. Mayoral’s text subverts old codes of female sexuality in such a way as to produce a fulfilled and active female desire. However, this emancipatory gesture is predicated on racist regimes of representation, which fetishize black masculinity under a white female gaze. The temporary nature of the interracial relationship, and the ultimate reunification of Teresa with her ex-husband, point to a framework in which black men in Spain are still viewed as transitory and impermanent. The intertextual references that Mayoral weaves into the story as part of the representation of black masculinity, such as African-American film stars and the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, become a focal point with which to more deeply examine racial stereotypes, Africans in Spain, and interracial couples in contemporary Spanish society.
The figure of the assassin on commission, contract killer or hitman in jargon, has always had success at cinema, from the beginning within the west Euro-American one to the explosion of the Asian one. The figure of the killer crosses over... more
The figure of the assassin on commission, contract killer or hitman in jargon, has always had success at cinema, from the beginning within the west Euro-American one to the explosion of the Asian one. The figure of the killer crosses over many human fundamental themes such as death, evil, solitude, willpower, narcissism, rationality, dealing with an high-tech equipment. In a metaphysical perspective this can be translated into the theological discourse about God’s point of view, in a special theodicy with confused moral contours but with deep contents. The killer then assumes the role of almighty God or demiurger, charged by a contractor, in turn showing divine or too human traits. The present work aims to show the validity of the starting point by analyzing two figures of movie killers of the new millennium: Vincent from Collateral (Michael Mann) and Creasy from Man on Fire (Tony Scott). It was decided to adopt a synoptic reading in nine areas; within each one the scanning follows the timing of each movie.
A metacharacter is an evolutionary construct or the abstratized entity accounting for the unified sum of all the film roles a respective actor has played. It is a liminal being which exists between fiction and reality, fine-balancing its... more
A metacharacter is an evolutionary construct or the abstratized entity accounting for the unified sum of all the film roles a respective actor has played. It is a liminal being which exists between fiction and reality, fine-balancing its life on and off screen. Once a character gets depicted on-screen, its life does not end once the film’s theatric life-span is over. When the curtains are down it keeps residing as a discursive flow surrounding an actor depicting it. It is a flux which develops and grows waiting for its next point of actualization. Every next role thusly is just one of the numerous possible intersections of the flux, its momentary evolutionary state. While off-screen the metacharacter flow becomes inseparable from the actor him/herself. It is not only because the character played influences the personal life of the actor, but moreover because the character played becomes the extension of the private life. The metacharacter arises only once the on-screen character can be understood as a natural extension of the actor’s off-screen presence. This liminality between film and reality, between a dream and vigilance where every state is conditioned by the other makes the metacharacter a superior being bearing mythic power. It has a multipersonal semantics, but the ontology of oneness. It is at the same time a being and a narrative and this twofold nature is used by the industry of entertainment to promote and idolize its own causes.
Let us introduce the example of Denzel Washington and the evolution of its metacharacter: from a sergeant Nicholas Styles in The Ricochet, Malcolm X, Rubin Carter in The Hurricane to major Ben Marco in The Manchurian Candidate and Eli in The Book of Eli. A metacharacter Hollywood grew out of Washington is none of the formerly mentioned characters. It is all of them at the same time. It is the construct evolved not from a role of a sergeant to the one of the last prophet, but a persona which has by fighting for justice actually travelled the road from the legendary boxer to the savior of human faith. This development has been as real as Washington’s own personal upbringing: from the modest origins in Harlem to the Oscar-winning hero. His very growing up, as well as patriotic semantics of his name is inseparable part of Washington’s metacharacter. His own personal life odyssey becomes therefore the trait not of the way he portrays Eli but the trait of Eli as he is.
A metacharacter is thusly a potentiality of unified narratives existing as a discursive flow of power being actualized, as per hegemonic need either in the form of a film character or a personal life story of the actor depicting it.
