Burn It Down: Why Hollywood’s Influence Must Be Overturned

Everything is intentional. Our world and views often are shaped by several factors; our families, our communities and what you see on that picture box you keep in your home. Franklin Leonard rightly stated on Twitter, “It is WELL past time for Hollywood to begin to grapple with the extent to which it has and continues to mythologize, valorize, and reinforce white supremacy.” Hollywood has built, sustained and profited off of white supremacy. Brain washing the masses to believe that white cis-gendered heterosexuality is right and everything else is wrong. The way that the media decides to depict Black and brown bodies informs how those Black and brown bodies are to move in this world. The moment that movement does not fall in line with what is “allowed” by the white gaze - there is hell (or life) to pay. Are we inherently dangerous? Are we your sassy best friends guiding you through life? From Birth of a Nation to the nightly news reports showing the long simmering unrest erupting in our country, the interpretation of who we actually are in real life has been poisoned. I’m talking to the white folks at home who have a “Black friend” and just don’t get why all of this is happening? I’m talking to the white folks who can’t see a problem with calling COVID-19 the “Chinese flu.” But the poison of that power structure has extended into something much sinister causing other people of color to hang-on to whatever glorified position they think they hold within the societal social stratus and attack others. White supremacy breeds misogyny and cis privilege, which is what encourages people like Hill Harper to disgustingly think it is appropriate to intentionally misgender Zaya Wade under a birthday message written by Gabrielle Union. 

We have to tear down white supremacy on all fronts. For me, I’m focusing on dismantling those Hollywood systems that uphold those old power structures one brick at a time. Fighting to get more stories told from Hollywood to our living rooms from the people who should be telling our stories: us. 

What can you do? That’s for you to decide. Just know that it’s something.

None of us are free until we all are free and every single one of us has something we can do to get us there.

This essay came out of the BLM protests during Summer 2020