Carrie Brandon’s interesting blog post discusses portrayals of African American experience by white artists. She mentions John Howard Griffin’s 1961 Black Like Me, which came up again today in class. Waldo Martin echoed Carrie’s point that teaching this book is problematic: If you want students to know what it’s like to be black in America, why not have them read the work of black people? In her post, Carrie applied this same concern to the film we watched this afternoon, Nothing But a Man, which was written and directed by white men.
I’m very sympathetic to Carrie and Waldo’s point. In my African American Voices class, I try to use works by African Americans as exclusively as possible. I feel that doing so is especially crucial since I myself, as the teacher, do not bring to the course a firsthand experience of being black. I believe it’s important to put a multiplicity of black voices in front of students so that they can see that there’s not just one “black perspective” on things. Given how racially segregated our city (St. Louis) is, I think that my white students (who are the majority even in my African American Voices class) all too often go through their lives without encountering black perspectives on the world.
Having now seen Nothing But a Man, however, I would like to give this issue some further thought because I think this would be a great film to use in my class, for several reasons.
First of all, the film presents a stark yet nuanced depiction of how white supremacy was maintained at a particular time and place. The black men in the novel must make a choice between relatively lucrative, unionized, but itinerant employment on the railroad gang and low-paying stationary jobs, in which they are subject to constant reminders of their inferior racial status and to bodily harm without compensation, as seems to have happened to Duff’s father. Middle-class black leaders like Rev. Dawson make delicate bargains with the white power establishment in order to prevent lynchings. Everyday social encounters between whites and blacks are governed by an unyielding code of dominance and subservience that is reinforced with economic reprisals as well as physical violence.
Secondly, the film presents black characters who are well-rounded and complex in their motivations and conflicts, offering many avenues for class discussion: Why does Josie defy her family for a life with Duff? Why does Duff choose marriage despite his friends’ attempts to dissuade him? How do this man and woman navigate their differing expectations of each other? The romantic relationship between Duff and Josie is developed with great sensitivity and realism, as well as humor and a real erotic charge. Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln have great chemistry on screen. The scenes when Josie calculates how many times she’s been kissed; when she elbows Duff after he deflects her questions about how she measures up to the other women he’s known; when they spar playfully with each other out among the clotheslines in their yard—these are brilliant depictions of human love. The film also dramatizes convincingly the stresses that the racial regime of the Jim Crow South put on black family relationships. When Duff pushes the pregnant Josie to the ground, full of anger and shame at his predicament, our hearts break for both of them.
Third, the film’s use of Motown tunes in its soundtrack offers an interesting point of departure for a discussion of black music in general (the contrast between the sacred and the secular is driven home through the juxtaposition of the pool hall and church scenes) and Motown in particular. For students to whom Motown may feel old-fashioned and overly familiar, I think this film will place it in a refreshingly new context. It’s jarring and thought-provoking, for example, to hear “You Really Got a Hold On Me” playing in the background at the gas station while a car full of white men harass Duff, asserting their power over him. The scene puts the title in an ironic light, yet it also highlights the paradox of Motown: the crossover popularity of black music in an era of intense racism.
For all these reasons, Nothing But a Man would be a great fit for the classroom. I doubt many of my students have seen or even heard of it before. I hadn’t. Yet I do hesitate when I consider that the film’s writer and director were white.
On the other hand, it’s important to consider all the black artists who collaborated in the creation of this work—Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, and the other actors; as well as the musicians whose work is included. It’s not necessarily fair to subordinate their performances, to see them as less important auteurs than the white director and writers (Michael Roemer and Robert Young). Particularly interesting is this clip, available on YouTube, in which Ivan Dixon talks about how much he loved the script, how true it seemed to him, and how proud he is that he was able to be a part of this film.
In fact, this issue may provide one more interesting topic of conversation about the film. Why was Ivan Dixon so proud to be a part of this film? How many black actors had to (and maybe still have to) accept roles that they could not be especially proud of? What sorts of stories about black people get told in mainstream movies, in the past and today? Why isn’t Nothing But a Man itself more widely known? What issues are involved when whites create stories about blacks (or vice versa)—or when men create female characters, etc.?
While writing this blog post, I seem to have convinced myself that I should teach this film in class this fall. But I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts, either on this blog or in our class discussion. Do the educational possibilities of this film outweigh the problematic nature of teaching the work of a white filmmaker in a class on African American literature and culture?
—Frank Kovarik
