Racism in Film

We've recently finished Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, and  Edward Zwick's Glory.  If you remember, I asked you to pay attention to the story that was being told and also who was telling said story.  Lee depicts day in the life of a city block in Brooklyn that is dealing with racial tensions; Spielberg depicts the heroism of Oskar Schindler in saving nearly 1200 Jews in occupied Poland; Zwick tells the story of the 54th Massachusetts from the perspective of their commander in the Civil War.  I asked you to notice the story being told and also to notice the directorial choices based on this story: does the director's ethnicity and religious background affect the story?

In his article "How Hollywood Depicts Race," Jared Wright suggests that the director's background does influence the film.  As I think about authors such as John Grisham (a lawyer who writes legal thrillers), Kyle Mills (the son of an FBI agent who writes thrillers centered around FBI agent Mark Beamon), George Pelecanos (a Greek-American living in DC who sets his works in the city with a Greek-American protagonist), and Les Roberts (although born in Chicago has adopted Cleveland as his hometown and sets his most popular detective series here).  So if authors' backgrounds influence their work, why would directors' backgrounds not?

Your task is to utilize the films that we viewed (I also suggest referencing the three sports films: Glory Road, Remember the Titans,  and 42) and explain how the films would be different if the director was of a different race, ethnicity, or religious belief.  Would Do the Right Thing be a powerful and thought provoking if Lee was white (Juju Chang and Lauren Effron's 2014 article for ABC News discusses why the film still resonates twenty-five years after it's release)?  Would Schindler's List be as successful in it's depiction of the Nazi's oppression and elimination of the Jews if Spielberg was a German Catholic?  Would Glory focus on Robert Gould Shaw nearly as much - rather than the lives of those in the regiment - if Edward Zwick was black?