African American Stars
- LAST REVIEWED: 02 August 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0124
- LAST REVIEWED: 02 August 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0124
Introduction
African American “stars” describes conspicuously public individuals of great social, artistic, and/or political presence, if not competence. These stars have garnered significant media consideration and subsequently have emerged as trailblazing figures with substantial acclaim, acrimony, and/or reverence in the public sphere. The construction of stardom that remains most salient here highlights black-identified persons who serve as objects of reference and who bring a cultural economy to blackness (tropes of history, experience, cultural practices). This entry seeks to delegitimize the focus on stars as persons who achieve fame primarily through film and television roles, or simply due to celebrity status. African American stars are constructed here as those individuals who have gained significance and achieved cultural capital within the African American community and have been cast as objects of desire and identification, working to formulate ideas about what it means to be black in American society. This article draws on an understanding of stardom as a phenomenon that invokes critical social, political, and economic resonance. Unfortunately for the great majority of black stars, their renown has not (yet) translated into significant and sustained attention in the scholarly literature. This is especially the case for those whose stardom rests outside the realm of entertainment roles on the big and small screens, and it especially holds true for women. While media award winners are, frequently, “star” benchmarks, it is important to remember that there is a long line of change-agent stars of the press, such as Ida B. Wells; of recorded sound, such as Dick Gregory; of film, such as Paul Robeson; and of television, such as Oprah Winfrey. Researchers might consider other frames such as watershed cultural-historical periods as the nadir, post-reconstruction, the era of the Civil Right movement, and beyond, thereby gaining access to more than one hundred years of star fodder. This article on African American stars should be read, first, as a sampling of the available literature on black stars as change agents. The intent here is not to be encyclopedic or exhaustive. Rather than further expound on stars such as Oscar Micheaux and Spike Lee, who have already received significant scholarly attention, we use this article to draw attention to stars who are commonly overlooked. Second, and perhaps most importantly, this article should also be read for its absences. That is, one should take careful note of the (startling) gaps in the literature for a star of great relevance.
Stars of Print
The black press may be described as a revolution in print, just as easily as it might be described as an early experiment in black capitalism. As investigative journalists, creative writers, editors, and publishers, the stars of black print have documented the black experience in a collective record that would intervene in mainstream discourse and motivate the black masses. Historically, the personal stakes were high for leaders who often took on divisive issues like lynching. Few journalists know this level of sacrifice as intimately as Ida B. Wells, who continued her work despite assassination attempts. Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois were editors whose bold personalities intertwined with their publications. These leaders, who made critical contributions to the print industry, were not just courageous communicators; they were also daring entrepreneurs. Robert S. Abbott and John H. Johnson grew their publications and simultaneously built their personal fortunes in Chicago. Collectively, they helped build a media infrastructure that took black audiences seriously, and they created models for black marketing that forged a space for numerous publications still in circulation.
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Article
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Accounting, Motion Picture
- Acting
- Action Cinema
- Adaptation
- Advertising and Promotion
- African American Cinema
- African American Stars
- African Cinema
- AIDS in Film and Television
- Akerman, Chantal
- Allen, Woody
- Almodóvar, Pedro
- Alphaville
- Altman, Robert
- American Cinema, 1895-1915
- American Cinema, 1939-1975
- American Cinema, 1976 to Present
- American Independent Cinema
- American Independent Cinema, Producers
- American Public Broadcasting
- Anderson, Wes
- Animals in Film and Media
- Animation and the Animated Film
- Anime
- Arbuckle, Roscoe
- Architecture and Cinema
- Argentine Cinema
- Aronofsky, Darren
- Art Cinema
- Arzner, Dorothy
- Asian American Cinema
- Asian Television
- Astaire, Fred and Rogers, Ginger
- Australian Cinema
- Auteurism
- Authorship, Television
- Avant-Garde and Experimental Film
- Bachchan, Amitabh
- Battle of Algiers, The
- Battleship Potemkin, The
- Bazin, André
- Bergman, Ingmar
- Bernstein, Elmer
- Bertolucci, Bernardo
- Bigelow, Kathryn
- Biopics
- Birth of a Nation, The
- Blade Runner
- Blockbusters
- Brakhage, Stan
- Brando, Marlon
- Brazilian Cinema
- Breaking Bad
- Bresson, Robert
- British Cinema
- Broadcasting, Australian
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Burnett, Charles
- Buñuel, Luis
- Cameron, James
- Campion, Jane
- Canadian Cinema
- Capra, Frank
- Carpenter, John
- Casablanca
- Cassavetes, John
- Cavell, Stanley
- Censorship
- Chan, Jackie
- Chaplin, Charles
- Children in Film
- Chinese Cinema
- Cinecittà Studios
- Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
- Cinema and the Visual Arts
- Cinematography and Cinematographers
- Cinephilia
- Citizen Kane
- City in Film, The
- Cocteau, Jean
- Coen Brothers, The
- Colonial Educational Film
- Color
- Comedy, Film
- Comedy, Television
- Comics, Film, and Media
- Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
- Copland, Aaron
- Coppola, Francis Ford
- Copyright and Piracy
- Corman, Roger
- Costume and Fashion
- Cronenberg, David
- Cuban Cinema
- Cult Cinema
- 3D Cinema
- Dance and Film
- de Oliveira, Manoel
- Dean, James
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Denis, Claire
- Deren, Maya
- Design, Art, Set, and Production
- Detective Films
- Dietrich, Marlene
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- Directors
- Disability
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- Doctor Who
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- Downton Abbey
- Dreyer, Carl Theodor
- Eastern European Television
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- Ecocinema
- Eisenstein, Sergei
- Elfman, Danny
- Epic Film
- Essay Film
- Ethnographic Film
- European Television
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- Exploitation Film
- Fairbanks, Douglas
- Fan Studies
- Fantasy
- Fellini, Federico
- Festivals
- Film Aesthetics
- Film and Literature
- Film Guilds and Unions
- Film, Historical
- Film Noir
- Film Preservation and Restoration
- Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
- Film Theory Before 1945
- Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
- Finance Film, The
- Ford, John
- French Cinema
- Game of Thrones
- Gance, Abel
- Gangster Films
- Garbo, Greta
- Garland, Judy
- German Cinema
- Gilliam, Terry
- Global Television Industry
- Godard, Jean-Luc
- Godfather Trilogy, The
- Godzilla
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- Griffith, D.W.
- Hammett, Dashiell
- Haneke, Michael
- Hawks, Howard
- Haynes, Todd
- Hepburn, Katharine
- Herrmann, Bernard
- Herzog, Werner
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- Homeland
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- Horror-Comedy
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- Immigration and Cinema
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- Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
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- It Happened One Night
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- Italian Cinema
- Japanese Cinema
- Jazz Singer, The
- Jews in American Cinema and Media
- Keaton, Buster
- King Kong
- Kitano, Takeshi
- Korean Cinema
- Kracauer, Siegfried
- Kubrick, Stanley
- Lang, Fritz
- Latin American Cinema
- Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
- Lee, Ang
- Lee, Chang-dong
- Lee, Spike
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
- Los Angeles and Cinema
- Lubitsch, Ernst
- Lumet, Sidney
- Lupino, Ida
- Lynch, David
- Mad Men
- Marker, Chris
- Martel, Lucrecia
- Marxism
- Masculinity in Film
- Media, Community
- Media Ecology
- Melodrama
- Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
- Metz, Christian
- Mexican Film
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Ming-liang, Tsai
- Minnelli, Vincente
- Miyazaki, Hayao
- Méliès, Georges
- Modernism and Film
- Mészáros, Márta
- Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
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- Music, Television
- Music Video
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- Native Americans
- New Media Art
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- New York City and Cinema
- New Zealand Cinema
- Opera and Film
- Ophuls, Max
- Orphan Films
- Oshima, Nagisa
- Ozu, Yasujiro
- Panh, Rithy
- Pasolini, Pier Paolo
- Passion of Joan of Arc, The
- Peckinpah, Sam
- Pedagogy
- Philosophy and Film
- Photography and Cinema
- Pickford, Mary
- Planet of the Apes
- Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
- Poitier, Sidney
- Polanski, Roman
- Polish Cinema
- Politics, Hollywood and
- Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
- Pornography
- Postcolonial Theory in Film
- Potter, Sally
- Prime Time Drama
- Psycho
- Queer Television
- Queer Theory
- Race and Cinema
- Radio and Sound Studies
- Ray, Nicholas
- Ray, Satyajit
- Reality Television
- Reenactment in Cinema and Media
- Regulation, Television
- Religion and Film
- Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
- Renoir, Jean
- Repo Man
- Resnais, Alain
- Romanian Cinema
- Romantic Comedy, American
- Rossellini, Roberto
- Russian Cinema
- Saturday Night Live
- Scandinavian Cinema
- Scorsese, Martin
- Scott, Ridley
- Searchers, The
- Seinfeld
- Sennett, Mack
- Sesame Street
- Shakespeare on Film
- Silent Film
- Simpsons, The
- Singin’ in the Rain
- Sirk, Douglas
- Soap Operas
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- Soderbergh, Steven
- Sound Design, Film
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- Spanish Cinema
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- Spielberg, Steven
- Sports and Media
- Sports in Film
- Stand-Up Comedians
- Star Trek
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- Stardom
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- Streaming Television
- Sturges, Preston
- Surrealism and Film
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- Talk Shows
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- Theater and Film
- Theory, Cognitive Film
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- Touch of Evil
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- Trinh, T. Minh-ha
- Truffaut, François
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- Von Sternberg, Josef
- Von Stroheim, Erich
- von Trier, Lars
- War Film
- Warhol, The Films of Andy
- Waters, John
- Wayne, John
- Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
- Weir, Peter
- Welles, Orson
- Whedon, Joss
- Whiteness
- Wilder, Billy
- Williams, John
- Wire, The
- Wiseman, Frederick
- Wizard of Oz, The
- Women and Film
- Women and the Silent Screen
- Wong, Anna May
- Wong, Kar-wai
- Woo, John
- Wood, Natalie
- Yimou, Zhang
- YouTube
- Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
- Zinnemann, Fred
- Zombies in Cinema and Media