CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
The United States has had a long history with the problems of social injustice and racial disrimination. From the early days of the country’s independence with the issue of slavery to the 1900s with the issue of segregation, it could be seen that the United States has never been disattached with the issue. Even to today, the issue of racial discrimination has not ended, the issue of racism and rampant structural discrimination, such as racial neighborhood inequality, still heavily persists in the country (Firebaugh & Farrel, 2016).
One such example of structural discrimination that is prevailing in the United States is the issue of segregation and police brutality. While it may seem that segregation was an issue that only occured in America’s past, it seems that there’s there is still remnants of the issue left plaguing the American society. In his book “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America”, Richard Rothstein mentioned the issue of racial housing, where in the past American federal and local governments had purposefully used public housing to herd African-Americans into urban ghetto as a creation of a de jure segregation system, an action that had left huge ramifications towards the African American society even to today (Rothstein, 2017).
Aside from racial housing, another issue of structural discrimination against African- Americans is the issue of voter suppression, most prominently the existence of the gerrymandering (or the redistricting) system in the United States, where populations of
African Americans are spread through different voting districts to make sure that their votes are not powerful enough to influence the outcome of election (Okonta, 2018).
It could be seen that from the examples above, the issue of racial discrimination, suppresion, and segregation had always been a vocal issue in the context of the American society, and this context is especially true in the presidency of Donald Trump. Inside his four years of presidency, Trump had been accused of perpetuating a racial discrimination in the country, namely due to a number of incidents in which he has labeled Mexicans as
“rapist”, called for a Muslim ban, and frequently spouted racist remarks when dealing with oppositions from the Democrat Party (Kendi, 2020). The emergence of social movements such as Black Lives Matters, which at first began as a trend in twitter, alongside the many different cases of demonstrations such as Ferguson and The George Floyd riots only serve to maintain the public consciousness of the issue (Rickford, 2016).
Up to the 2020 Presidential Elections, it had been analyzed by many experts that racial issues would become a huge tipping point in determining which party would come into power (Stewart & Harper, 2020) .
Yet while conventional methods of advocacy such as protests and riots plays a huge role in amplifying the messages that these movements are trying to advance, it has to be noticed too that most of the times these attempts of conventional advocacy tend to be sporadic and reactionary, where most of the times these riots would be done as a response to a tragedy that was done by the majority towards the minority in the country, such as the case of George Floyd and the subsequent protests. Yet the problem with this is that many conventional methods of advocacy, such as riots and protests, is very easy to be
denounced by many major figures in the society. One such example is how Donald Trump denounced “Black Lives Matters” as a discriminatory movement that is “bad for black people” (Falconer, 2020).
On the other hand, it could be observed that there has been an emergence of African- American filmmakers that had reached cult status as politically charged filmmakers, where directors such as Jordan Peele, Ryan Coogler, Spike Lee, and Barry Jenkins rose to prominence by producing movies that heavily criticizes the American society (Rose, 2019). By using their own personal experiences, these African-American filmmakers produce movies and films which amplifies the grievances of minorities in the United States, where most of their movies actively includes social and political commentary in regards to racial inequality and discrimination that are being felt by marginalized groups throughout the society as a method of perpetual resistance against the oppression that they endure (Tangcay & Jackson, 2020). This is even amplified by the use of other media by social movements to spread their message, in which of these social movements would use both conventional and non-conventional media such as news and internet platforms to frame and amplify the messages that they are trying to address towards the whole society (Earl et al., 2018).
This expression of resistance could be seen in Spike Lee’s acceptance speech during Oscar for his movie “BlackKklansman (2018)”, in which he openly showed his opposition against Donald Trump’s “racist” presidency:
“Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native
people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus
hate. Let’s do the right thing!” (Deb, 2019)
1.2.Research Questions
Based on all the study cases and the context that has been given on the background above, the writer would try to answer the research question: How does African- American Filmmakers utilize their movies as a way to resist and respond against the oppression that is done by the United States government, specifically through the spread of post-Colonial values to the society that consumes their movies in the pursuit of racial justice?
1.3.Purpose of Research
This research aims to understand the efforts of African-American Filmmakers in promoting racial and social issues in their movies could impact the collective consciousness of the society, specifically through the lense of post-colonialism as a way of resistance against the oppression that is endured by minority groups.
1.4.Benefits of Research
Based on the background and the purpose of the research, hence this literature is expected to have benefits, be it direct or indirect benefits. The benefit of this research is as follows:
1.4.1 Practical Benefits
This research is expected to be a reference for later researchers when they are trying to research a topic similar to this, in regards to post-colonialism and non-violence.
It is also hoped that this research would help activists to better understand an individual’s role in constructing a collective consciousness inside a certain society.
1.4.2 Academic Benefits
From an academic perspective, this research is expected to also become a useful reference in developing the discipline of International Relations, especially in the subject of post-colonialism.
1.5. Analytical Framework
There were past research and literature that has been done in relations to social movements and movies. The first of which is “Framing Social Movements Through Documentary” by John A. Stover III, yet John A. Stover III’s literature specifically focuses only on documentary films that tries to showcase social movements and how they operate back then, and while they highlight activist filmmakers such as New Day Collection, the issues that they highlight are very diverse and organized, unlike this research that would try to focus on African-American filmmakers and the films that these filmmakers produce in an effort to potray the struggle of marginalized communities in the society (particularly African-Americans), which most likely are individually made, was created purely due to the filmmaker’s social consciousness, and are not organized like New Day Collection is. The second literature is “Analisis Tanda dalam Film the Black Panther Karya Ryan Coogler'' by Annisa Anasthasya, yet this literature only
analyzes the movie through artistic lense, trying to decipher the symbolism and signs that are apparent to the audience in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Black Panther (2018), without any explicit correlation to the concepts of post-colonialism and the study of international relations as a whole. Lastly, a past IR research that tried to argue and explain in regards to the usage of films as a way to share value is Eqqi Syahputra’s “Pesan Kemanusiaan Dalam Medium Sinema: Film Hollywood Sebagai Media Penyebaran Nilai-nilai Hak Asasi Manusia Universal” (Syahputra et al., 2021). Yet that research stops at explaining how Western/Hollywood films are used to share a diverse array of human- rights values without criticizing the US government, while this particular research would focus more on the values of racial equality and the movies’ efforts in criticizing the failure of the US government.
In this research, the writer would try to analyze the impact of a number of different individuals, especially newly emerging black filmmakers, as actors of International Relations, where the movies and that they produced are regarded as media for social movements to expand the values that they are currently preaching. This research would analyze how these movies and films acts as “tools of struggle” of the marginalized, in which they introduced the value of post-colonialism while also constructing the minds of communities in regards to the pursuit of racial justice.
1.5.1. Post-Colonialism
The Theory of Post-Colonialism in International Relations is centered on the idea of criticizing Eurocentrism and the infallibility of western views, where in which it tries to highlight the imbalance of power between the Western actors and
marginalized (non-Western) groups in the society, and how the Western actors have been systematically oppressing non-Western Actors.
The most famous book that tries to explore the theory of Post-Colonialism may be Edward Said’s book “Orientalism” (1978). In his book Said explains that the Orientalism is a term that applies to the perspective from which the Western civillizations constructed the Orient (the East), from which the discourse (whether literary or sociological) by the West from which the East would have no counterbalance. Through these texts, Western intellectuals created and constructed the identity of the Orient in their own image without even studying the Orient holistically, where in which Western civilizations constructed themselves to be the superior to the Orient, as to how the West is made to be an enlightened place of science and development while the Orient is simply an uncivilized area. Said believes that Orientalism as a concept is a feature of colonialism, one that functions to justify the occupation and oppression that is done by the Western civilizations towards the East, allowing for stereotypes such as the violent Arabs and the lazy Indian to grow in the minds of the society and further added to the cultural dominance that the West holds over the East (Praveen, 2016).
A further elaboration of this perspective could be seen Frantz Fanon book
“Black Skin, White Masks” (1952), a book that he wrote due to his traumatic experience with racism while he was studying in France. In the book, Fanon conceptualizes the impact of colonialism as an erasure of identity, where Fanon’s identity as a non-Western actor (African-American) is defined as a negative identity
by those who are in a position of power, one in which he is defined not as a “subject”
but only as an “object”. The consequence of this is that many non-Western actors (the colonized) are forced to internalize themselves as a part of the “other”, an identity that represents everything the French are not. Where those who held the French identity are thought of as civilized, rational, and intelligent, the “other” is not, and so it portrays the French colonizers as superior to those whom they colonized. Due to this, those whom are colonized would look down on their “other” identity and seek out to be one with the identity that the colonizers hold. However, those from the “other”
who did try to accept the values of the colonizers would never be accepted by the colonizers anyway, as the “white mask” of the colonizers could not cover the
“uncivilized” black skin of the “other”. For Fanon, colonialism could only end once this idea that differentiates identity could be succesfully falsified (Monda, 2014).
Additionally, this critical view in regards to identity could be seen in Randolph Persaud’s essay in regards to Donald Trump’s anti-immigration stance in the US, where he criticized the American government as doing an act that he labels as
“Americanization”. In this context, Randolph claimed that Americanization is a way for Americans to preserve their “pure culture” from outside influence, and stigmatize those that do not conform to it. Additionally, Persaud contextualizes that this effort of “Americanization” is a way to erase the identities of those that does not fall under the Western umbrella, as this action labels all other identities as “alien” and “threats”
towards the Western identity. As a whole, it could be concluded that racism that has
long grown in the American society contributes to the continuous process of
“Americanization” in the country (Rosyidin, 2020).
To contextualize post-colonialism in the United States, it could be seen that the racial stigmatization and the discrimination that is felt by African-Americans in the US falls under the umbrella of oppression that post-colonialists oppose. Due to that, in this research we would view the African-American Filmmakers and Social Movements as Non-State Actors who are currently representing the non-Western civilizations, which is trying to criticize the United States (Western civilizations) that is actively oppressing marginalized communities inside of their society.
1.6.Concept Operationalization 1.6.1. Conceptual Definition
a. New Social Movements
A few different definitions of Social Movements exists to explain the phenomenon that is Social Movement. In general, Social Movements are defined as a network of informal interactions between a number of different individuals, groups, or organizations that actively engages in political or cultural on the basis of a shared collective identity (Diani, 2017). This explanation could further be read in Charles Tilly’s “Social Movements 1978-2004”, where he defined Social Movements as “an organized, sustained, self-conscious challenge which implies shared identity among participants”. In the book, Tilly tried to review the process of emerging social movements historically, which finally describe social movements as a ‘sustained
series of interactions between power holders and persons succesfully claiming to speak on behalf of a constituency lacking formal representation, in the course of which those persons make publicly visible demands for changes in the distribution or exercise of power, and back those demands with public demonstrations of support”
(Tilly, 2004).
The definitions above also to an extent applies for New Social Movements. As a whole, New Social Movements are social movements that derives themselves from and campaigns on the pre-existing issues inside the “civil society”, with the campaigns also mostly focusing on “postmaterial” values such as gender or race equality. That charactheristic of the New Social Movements concept heavily differentiates it with past social movements, in which past social movements usually campaigns and runs on the platform of more “material” grievances, such as the concept of wage equality without looking at the postmaterial values behind it (specifically racial issues). Thus, this research would be focusing more on the concept of the “New Social Movements”, as we would be looking at the issue of racial struggle from the perspective of Post-Colonialism.
From there, New Social Movements then is categorized by four different definitions: The first of which is that the actors inside the movements does not struggle for a return to a utopic community that is free from all issues and inequality.
Second, the actors of the social movement would be struggling for their own autonomy and plurality without disrespecting the democratic and egalitarian principles of the state that they are struggling against. Third, the actors would be self-
limiting in regards of their own values, learning from the past and able to rationalize and compromise on their values. And fourth, many activists inside of the social movement could accept the existence of the democratic state and the market economy of their country (Cohen, Jean, 2014).
The concept of the New Social Movement is elaborated even more with writing from Tarrow. In his book, “The New Transnational Activism”, Tarrow related the existence of Transnational Activism with globalization, where he mentioned that globalization has impacted activism to be much more wider and spread out. In the book, he elaborated that globalization has caused the two biggest mechanisms of activism, diffusion of movements across borders and international mobilization, to be much easier to be achieved and accessed. This is due to rapid electronic communication, cheaper international travel, diffusion of the English language, and the spread of “script of modernity” (Tarrow, 2005).
Yet what would be highlighted most from Tarrow’s writing in this research is when he explained Social Movement’s use of Frame in raising issues and awareness in the society. Borrowing from Communication Studies, frame is a concept dealing with the relationship between the mass and the media. The concept in essence states that there is a “frame” that generally dictates the behavior of the audience in regards to the responses they are going to make to the said issue (Goffman, 1974). Frame is commonly thought of as a way to depict certain news to connote certain interpretations, usually to benefit the actor that is currently doing the framing (Goffman, 1974).
Connecting to Social Movements, frame is used to diagnose social problems that exists in the society, and thus justify the existence of a collective action inside of a society as a method to quell or fix the problem that is currently ongoing (Tarrow, 2005). This method is usually done through the process of frame articulation and elaboration, in which frame articulation includes the coordination of events, issues, and ideologies, while frame elaboration involves the process of highlighting several events and ideologies more than others as a way to gain emotional response in order for the frame to be justify the campaign for a certain social issue and mobilize the masses needed for the social movements (A. Snow, 2018).
In this research we would view the African-American Filmmakers as actors of International Relations, where through their films they would became outlets for the social movements to mobilize and garner traction through the framing of issues that are included in their films or productions, most of which are racially and socially charged.
1.6.2. Operational Definition
As had been explained before, New Social Movements could be categorized as a movement that advocates for a post-material purpose or goal. The main actors that could be categorized as New Social Movements are all of those that are in the realm of Civil Society, outside of the private (business) and public (governmental) sphere.
This includes the African-American Filmmakers themselves, whom experiences suffering and has had grievances that they wanted to disseminate towards the world.
The advocacy that is currently being done by these African-American Filmmakers is a non-millitant strategy of advocacy, wherein they advocate for their rights through inserting the values and messages that they relate to while they are producing the films, as well as explicit commentaries and criticisms that they elaborated while they are conducting interviews with mass media and the general public.
1.7. Hypothesis
The hypothesis that would be proposed by this research is that African-American Filmmakers would be an influential actor in raising awareness of racial and social issues, through their ability in framing issues to proliferate awareness while also spreading postcolonial values to the audience that actively consumes their films.
1.8. Research Methods 1.8.1. Research Type
This research would be a descriptive research, which tries to portray and depict a phenomenon that is currently occurring in the society (Moleong, 2007). This research would try to answer the research question that is how does African-American Filmmakers utilize their movies as a way to resist and respond against the oppression that is done by the United States government, specifically through the spread of post-Colonial values to the society that consumes their movies in the pursuit of racial justice.
1.8.2. Research Site
This research would be done in Indonesia.
1.8.3. Research Subject
The subject of this research would be African American Filmmakers that are located in the United States, specifically the ones that are focused in the topic of racial issues.
The movies that are going to be specifically looked as subjects in this research are going to be four different movies made by different filmmakers: “Blackkklansman” by Spike Lee, “Get Out” by Jordan Peele, “Black Panther” by Ryan Coogler, and “Moonlight” by Barry Jenkins.
The four different movies are chosen as they have four different levels of significance in the consciousness of the general society. The first movie highlighted in this research is the film “Blackkklansman” that was directed by Spike Lee, a movie that purposedly highlighted the problem of African American community in a cultural level, as it showcased the existence of the Ku Klux Klan, a neo-nazi organisation with roots in white supremacy. The second movie is the critically-acclaimed movie “Get Out” by Jordan Peele, which deals with the problem of structural discrimination and inequality subtly, using allegory and symbolism as a way to emphasize its moral messages. The third movie is Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “Black Panther” that was directed by Ryan Coogler, a movie that infuses the popularity of the superhero genre alongside its characters to portray a message about resistance and inequality. The last movie this research would highlight is “Moonlight” by Barry Jenkins, a movie that highlights a much more grassroot level of struggle faced by African American, as well as spotlighting the intersectionality of race struggle with a struggle of identity that was faced by the main character.
1.8.4. Data Type
Under this research, the type of data that would be obtained is in the form of qualitative data, which includes description and narration from a number of different sources, which would later be analyzed through the techniques of data reduction, data presentation, and verification (Sugiyono, 2008)
1.8.5. Data Source
Meanwhile the source of data is taken from both primary and secondary sources.
For primary sources, the researcher would obtain data from interviews done by the subjects of this research as well as statements that were uploaded on the online web.
Meanwhile, the secondary sources would be newspaper articles, documents available online, press releases and academic journals for the researcher to later analyze and use in their research (Sugiyono, 2008).
1.8.6. Data Collection Technique
The data collection technique that would be used is Desk Research, wherein the researcher would collect data through analyzing data that are available in literatures that are correlated with the topic that the researcher is currently examining, as well obtaining data through internet sources such as articles, news, video, or even social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the like.
1.8.7. Data Analysis Technique
The researcher would analyze the data in this research using the method Discourse Analysis, more specifically Teun Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis. Critical Discourse Analysis heavily focuses its analysis on “Discursive Practices” (the use of
language) in the society, that would later contribute the formulation and construction of the social world, such as social identities and relations. Through the existence of discourse in the society, then social and cultural reproduction, as well as change, would take place. In this method, discourse does not only include written or spoken language, but also visual images (Jorgensen & Phillips, 1999).
This research would try to understand the discourse that are constructed by the African-American Filmmakers and study the language that exists in the films they produced, and finally how the language and discourse is used to help construct the reality of those that consumed it. Finally, the research would try to conclude and analyze the message from the movies that were produced by the African-American Filmmakers as a method of resistance in their struggle against racial equality and oppression.
