Khasm13 : Beyond ‘Game of Thrones’: Exploring diversity in speculative fiction

[Khasm13]

that would have been a true statement in 1985.. but not in 2013. The Internet is worldwide distribution.. and the old days of hoping to "get published" are over. But if you survey black film, literature and music.. you find the black world focused right here on earth. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's really a matter of culture.

thas the only thing thas getting run in the movies...disappearing acts/madea etc...it's not really about what we write...it's about what makes it to the mainstream...and anything thas out of hollyweirds comfort zone is not accepted there...thas the reality of the situation....

sophia stewards' the third eye was white washed to be made acceptable for hollyweird...
we have sci fi writers...they just haven't been able to find a market yet....unfortunately...

one love
khasm

 

[Alarm Clock]

thas the only thing thas getting run in the movies...disappearing acts/madea etc...it's not really about what we write...it's about what makes it to the mainstream...and anything thas out of hollyweirds comfort zone is not accepted there...thas the reality of the situation....

sophia stewards' the third eye was white washed to be made acceptable for hollyweird...
we have sci fi writes...they just haven't been able to find a market yet....unfortunately...

one love
khasm

 

[candeesweet]

thas the only thing thas getting run in the movies...disappearing acts/madea etc...it's not really about what we write...it's about what makes it to the mainstream...and anything thas out of hollyweirds comfort zone is not accepted there...thas the reality of the situation....

sophia stewards' the third eye was white washed to be made acceptable for hollyweird...
we have sci fi writes...they just haven't been able to find a market yet....unfortunately...

one love
khasm

Time will tell.

 

[Khasm13]

can't see any youtube videos at the gig...i'll have to look at them when i get home....

one love
khasm

 

[skuderjaymes]

i'll give u that...
but moreso to my point...u can see the bias nature of hollyweird when u realise that not one of octavia butler's books have been made into a motion picture....



Octavia E. Butler is considered the first black woman to gain national prominence as a science fiction writer, so why haven’t any of her books ever been turned into a movie?
I mean, its not like her work is too hard to translate visually: Butler’s last novel Fledging, the first in a series which was released after her untimely death in 2008, is actually told from the point of view of a 53-year-old vampire who happens to look like a 10-year-old black girl. Can anyone say Twilight or Let the Right One In? Kindred, her first novel, is a time travel story revolving around an African-American woman in 1976 Los Angeles who is pulled back in time to the 1800s and has to reconcile the two eras. Hello? That’s just like Back to the Future. And let us not forget The Parable of the Sower/Talent, in which Butler shares a coming of age tale about a black woman, weaving and surviving her way through post-apocalyptic California. Well that’s just like The Road, The Book of Eli and just about ever post-apocalyptic films, which has come out in the last twenty years or so.
- See more at: http://madamenoire.com/122807/why-havent-octavia-butlers-work-been-adapted/#sthash.uS0z8311.dpuf

indeed..

But hollywood no longer holds a monopoly on the film industry.. there are all types of other avenues available that were not available 20 years ago. There are tried and true independent routes paved originally by Melvin Van Peebles.. then later.. more successfully by Spike Lee.

Hollywood films are about money. You see that white girl they wrote into the Book Of Eli.. you can see that she's almost an afterthought.. just a way to make it not an all the way "black" film.. al green song scene and all.. for fear of shrinking the potential audience. But even in that film.. the lead character turns out to be some holier than though spirtually clean messenger of Jesus.

I think.. on some level.. the "black" thing comes into conflict with the "fantasy" thing. it reminds me of something Ivan Van Sertima said in one of his lectures about the colonization of the imagination.. Where folks can't even dream outside of these racialized/politicized histories/lies and identities.

that said..

I haven't read any of Octavia Butler's work.. but most books.. black/white/asian/other.. do not make it to film. But if her stories were to make it to film, it would most likely need to be done by black people.

Tyler/Oprah.. etc..

Ideally, Black people would have some cultural institutions that support film and education.. etc. And those organizations would give grants/awards to filmmakers working toward certain ideals. Sort of like what TD Jakes did with that film he made.. I know there had to be some Tithes in that.