BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMWorkCalendar NAME:RMWorkCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:My Extended Reply to \"Who will solve Black cinema’s marke ting crisis?\" from Maya S Cade DTSTAMP:20250829T205145Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:482-5-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n MY SUMMARY REPLY\n\n\n\n There have been a slew of modern Black box office failures. Who (or what) will solve Black cinema’s (mar keting) crisis?\n\n How many film productions are following Sinners guidel ines? \n\n\n\n What is up with all the trauma in Black film/media?\n\n\n\ n I ask anyone Black who feels to much trauma is in Black media\, what boo ks with stories with Black heroes in mythical or fantastical ways written by Black people were available in their home as kids growing up? \n\n\n\n Why do we need sex on screen?\n\n\n\n The question I always have to any w ho question allusions to fornication is\, what is wrong with allusions\, i ncluding lustful ones\,  to fornication? \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n URL of summ ary reply\n\n\n\n https://open.substack.com/pub/blackfilmarchive/p/who-wil l-solve-black-cinemas-marketing?r=xit0b&\;utm_campaign=comment-list-sha re-cta&\;utm_medium=web&\;comments=true&\;commentId=150489193\n\n \n\n  \n\n\n\n MY EXTENDED REPLY\n\n\n\n There have been a slew of modern Black box office failures. Who (or what) will solve Black cinema’s (mar keting) crisis?\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Well crisis? In the art world no film i s guaranteed success. I know many writers/illustrators/musicians say some formula works\, some formulaic path works\, but I have never seen any vali dity in that. For every film that succeeds being processed one way from pr eproduction to production to post production\, another film failed doing t he same things. Now looking at the most financially example in the most re cent context for Black Films [films I say are produced/directed/written/mo stly starring Black people ] Sinners is the reply. For other films [not pr oduced/directed/written/or mostly starring black people] called Black by m any black people I have nothing to say. I don't consider said films with s ignificant non Black participation Black films. \n\n To me\n\n Antoine Fu qua's King Arthur isn't a black film.[and I like that film]\n\n Black Pant her produced by Disney isn't a black film. [and I like that film]\n\n Shaf t from a white writer isn't a black film. [nice soundtrack and love Gordon Parks or Richard Roundtree rest their souls but not my cup of tea]\n\n Th e Foxes of Harrow written by Frank Yerby is not a black film [it is a blac k book\, yes\, but it isn't a black film\, as a writer if I write a story with mostly white characters that is black fiction\, alongside Devil in a Blue Dress or A Raisin in the Sun but a film from my theoretical book is n ot a black film to me] \n\n So to what I call Black films\, what do we le arn from Sinners? \n\n A movie needs to have a large but accessible budge t [100 million budget returned 300 million]\n\n Having a number of up and coming or well known or brightest thespians to the Black populace who are known outside the black populace doesn't hurt [Michael B Jordan /Hailee St einfeld/Wunmi Mosaku/Jayme Lawson/ Omar Miller/Delroy Lindo ]\n\n Having a one and done focused story [No Sinners 2 is coming\, the story was comple te from beginning of the film to the end\, Black Nightclub in early 1900s southern USA is attacked by vampires\, all characters accounted for ]\n\n Having a genre black people + non black want to pay ticket prices for [how many saws/aliens/movies get made a year\, horror films are a safe genre t o reach all audiences\, must keep the budget wise or danger\, ala Tom Crui se's the Mummy]\n\n How many film productions are following Sinners guidel ines? \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n What is up with all the trauma in Black film/me dia?\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Growing up I remember the People Could Fl y\, High John the Conqueror\, Black Fable collections my parents had\, Sun Man\, Milestone comics\, Daughters of the Dust. And as I got older and Os car Micheaux and Alice Dunbar Nelson and Zora Neale Hurston works\, plays by August Wilson [I have all but Michaeuz in my literature library ] and o thers I have never felt trauma is overwhelming in the Black fiction. I thi nk too many Black parents didn't do what my Black parents did and made sur e a wide array of Black literature was available. Yes\, no shame in having Brother Malcolm's and Nkrumah's words on the shelf for Black kids to see. But also have High John the Conquerer\, and Fables from the Caribbean. I think many black parents simply fail black children in making sure a wide array of media content from black people is present in the home. \n\n\n\n My parents were not rolling in dough or diving in coins\, but they made s ure. Make the effort. Black writers have always existed with uplifting tal es. If OScar Micheaux proves anything\, he proves that. He went from Black door to Black door presenting his stories all with happy endings for blac k characters after only some of those black characters had antagonistic sc enarios from all sorts of antagonist. Black writers have always made uplif ting positive work absent slave whippings by whites or mass rapings by whi tes  or mass destruction by whites. Find them\, show them to black childr en. No excuse.\n\n I ask anyone Black who feels to much trauma is in Black media\, what books with stories with Black heroes in mythical or fantasti cal ways written by Black people were available in their home as kids grow ing up? \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Why do we need sex on screen?\n\n\n\n Do we need fornication on screen? I have to step back and admit. The United Stat es of America\, cross phenotypical lines\, is very religious  in a negati ve way to the issue of fornication. \n\n Lets say for example\, start com merical\, Fade in\n\n Jennifer Lopez/Beyonce/Taylor Swift/Michelle Yeoh st and side to side bare breasted and start shaking their torsos as hard as p ossible and say simultaneously \"Bare Breasted\" \n\n Fade out and on the black screen two hashtags in white positioned side to side #barebreasted #barebreasting \n\n End of commercial \n\n The media world will go crazy . All of these women have fans throughout humanity\, are millionaires\, co ntrol their lives. But if they show their breast many will say slutty \, u nwarranted \, some negative. But\, is it because they are women or because this alludes to a fornicative desires to women?\n\n When Monica Bellucci said while married that she can't promise to only sleep with her husband t hat was a media uproar. Again it isn't that she is a woman but that fornic ation with women in many religions is not equal in openness to men. \n\n Lot slept with his own daughters\, this gets read by many christians of al l ages every year with acceptability. Lot isn't considered a bad guy\, no metoo for his daughters. Samson who runs around killing people with the ne cks of animals hasn't broken any jewish farm girls hearts in the tale but Delilah is a great sinner cause she is beautiful and Sampson is enthralled to her\, not that she is enthralled to him\, even though they slept toget her. It is the inequality in fornication that is the key and it is a human thing. \n\n In Islam women can only be to one man but a man can be to mu ltiple women. \n\n When married male thespians go naked\, women googling at them is acceptable. The desired fornication of a woman running after a male stranger is acceptable. But if an unmarried woman has her nipples sho wing through her dress\, men googling at her is unacceptable. The desired fornication of a man running after a female stranger is unacceptable. \n\ n Both genders or sexes are criminalized when a female stranger is enticin g to a male stranger. While both genders or sexes are accepted when a male stranger is enticing to a female stranger. \n\n\n\n And in such an envir onment\, all fornication is poorly crafted. \n\n The Tan magazine shared has questions: love life of a midget [which is a criminalization of the fo rnication of midgets]\, will hollywood let negroes make love [will hollywo od let anyone make love?]\n\n\n\n I argue that many Black people have to f irst find a more positive place with fornication in their lives before the y start asking about it in films. And I can say the same for the non black as well. A Warm December\, Buck and the Preacher\, Queen and Slim\, if Be ale Street Could Talk\, Mississippi Masala\, Claudine\, Oscar Michaeux's s wing all have scenes in various grades of intensity or style showing love absent nudity or lust. But lust is not evil\, and male lust to the body of a female is not evil. At the end of the day Carmen\, [and I have seen qui te a few variants of Carmen over the years] is a multiculturally embraced story in modernity. Where the men who lust for carmen for her beauty and c armen herself for being beautiful and unbound to any of the men lusting af ter her are criminalized through the fate of the play. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\ n \n\n\n\n The question I always have to any who question allusions to for nication is\, what is wrong with allusions\, including lustful ones\,  to fornication? \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Saidiya Hartman’s curiosities in “S cenes of Subjection\n\n\n\n James Baldwin's review of Carmen Jones are cit ed in the post\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n URL of Article\n\n\n\n https://open.subs tack.com/pub/blackfilmarchive/p/who-will-solve-black-cinemas-marketing?r=x it0b&\;utm_campaign=post&\;utm_medium=web&\;showWelcomeOnShare=fa lse\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n Who will solve Black cinema’s marketing crisi s? by Maya Cade\n \n\n \n … and other questions in my inbox on the 4th anniversary of Black Film Archive.\n \n Read on Substack\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250829 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR