NC State’s College of Design and Department of Media Arts, Design and Technology, with the help of NC State University Libraries, welcomed Mia Mask, a professor of African American cinema at Vassar College, to present at “Overlooked Black Narratives of the American West,” hosted at Burns Auditorium on Feb. 22.
Derek Ham, the department head and associate professor of Media Arts, Design and Technology, started the proceedings with a quote from James Baldwin, a Black civil rights activist and author.
“‘It comes as a great shock … to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance … has not pledged allegiance to you,’” Ham said, quoting Baldwin. “‘It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.’”
This quote highlights one of the messages from the presentation: Classic Westerns have historically propagated negative stereotypes of minority communities. Mask said what distinguishes Black Westerns is their portrayal of a more nuanced perspective on the challenges faced by early settlers, notably by not singularly casting Native Americans as the antagonists.
“What we gain [in Black Westerns] is a sense of, ‘Wow, some of the threats that were out on the frontier were not only supposed native savages threatening white homesteads,’” Mask said. “They were actually the klan trying to intimidate … exodusters and wagon trains to threaten them to go back to Southern plantations, but that threat is never discussed [in traditional Westerns].”
Another presentation theme focused on the systemic exclusion of Black actors from roles in Western films. Ham said excluding Black actors from Westerns provided an inaccurate representation of cowboys.
“One of four cowboys were Black,” Ham said. “Why did you edit out that whole moment where we can go into fiction? We could have dreamed of being heroes and sheriffs.”
Ham said this exclusion often results in Black narratives being disproportionately centered on historical suffering and adversity while overlooking the broad spectrum of Black experiences.
“Look at the animation, look at Bugs Bunny, and there are cowboys in the back; … you won’t find a Black person,” Ham said. “I’m like, that’s a shame because that was an opportunity to say, ‘Here’s a Black character … that didn’t have to be the slave or a civil rights worker and could be a bold hero on a horse riding around.’”
Mask said this trend is fortunately changing with the rise of the popularity of streaming services, and provided an example through the recent movie “The Burial,” starring Jamie Foxx.
“[The studio] knew that it really wasn’t going to do that well from their metrics, so, they said, ‘Look, if we get it onto Amazon, it has the ability to be seen by millions of people.’ So I do feel like streaming platforms have made a difference in terms of accessibility.”
To find more events like this one, visit NC State University Libraries’ events page. Mia Mask’s book “Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western” delves deeper into the history of Black Westerns.
