Caught Between a Thot and a Hard Place
Caught Between a Thot and a Hard Place
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陷入困境
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发表时间：
2018
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通讯作者：
April D. Lundy
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作者：
April D. Lundy
作为一个对媒体有着贪婪胃口的黑人女性，我在电影和电视的幕后工作了25年以上，我已经消费了大量的移动图像内容，其中大部分都将黑人女性降级为刻板印象。我还参与了其中一些宣传材料的制作。制作和导演独立故事片，商业广告，音乐视频和真人秀电视节目给了我一个经验，使我对移动图像媒体的机制和功能有了全面的理解。我在电影行业的职业生涯已经跨越了三十年，三个黑人妇女拥有的电影制作公司。1992年，我从格鲁吉亚州立大学获得新闻学学士学位后，我对电影制作的兴趣就开始了。我发现自己不再对新闻事业感兴趣，我对一对年轻的当地黑人电影制片人产生了兴趣，他们以独特的方式在银幕上正式代表黑人音乐艺术家。我找到了他们，并提供了我作为实习生的免费服务，这样我就可以学到更多关于电影制作的知识。他们拥有并经营着西区故事，这是当时唯一一家获得亚特兰大主要唱片公司委托工作的当地全方位服务的黑人电影制作公司。“全方位服务”意味着公司处理电影制作周期的所有阶段的每一个方面，从内容的概念化到成品。一年之内，我从实习生迅速晋升为西区故事的制作协调员。在担任了一年的制作协调员后，我决定投身于最深处，并离开了公司，成立了自己的全方位服务的电影制作公司。在西区故事工作激励我以自己的名字导演和制作黑人形象。在我的制作公司，我开始制作和指导音乐视频。再次，我迅速晋升到制作和导演广告、纪录片、独立黑人电影项目，并最终制作和导演真人秀节目。在我作为音乐视频制作人的后期阶段，在20世纪90年代，有一天我经历了一次顿悟，开始了我的觉醒，并改变了我职业生涯的轨迹。当我在亚特兰大制作一个城市说唱音乐视频的时候，坐在一辆我作为视频道具的老式雪佛兰黑斑羚上，我比平时更仔细地阅读了我与委托音乐视频的主要唱片公司签署的合同，当我遇到一个条款，要求我交付，高于音乐视频处理中提到的所有其他元素，“老式汽车和视频女孩”在最后削减的音乐视频。这一命令令我震惊，也说明了唱片公司高管是如何将视频中的女性表演降级为“女孩”，而不仅仅是道具，
As a Black woman with a voracious appetite for media and who has worked behind the scenes in film and television for over 25 years, I have consumed a plethora of moving image content, much of it relegating Black women to stereotypical depictions. I have also been a participant in the production of some of those depictions. Producing and directing independent feature films, commercials, music videos, and reality television programming has afforded me an experience that has resulted in what I consider a holistic understanding of the mechanics and function of moving image media. My career in the film industry has spanned three decades and three Black women-owned film production companies. My interest in filmmaking began just after I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Georgia State University in 1992. I found myself no longer interested in a career in news and I became intrigued by a pair of young, local Black filmmakers making an impression on the music video genre with their unique approach to cinematographically and formally representing Black music artists on screen. I sought them out and offered them my free services as an intern so that I could learn more about filmmaking. They owned and operated Westside Stories, the only local full-service Black film production company garnering commissioned work from major record labels in Atlanta at that time. “Full service” meant that the company handled every aspect of all phases of the film production cycle, from conceptualization of content to finished product. Within a year, I quickly advanced from intern to production coordinator at Westside Stories. After serving as production coordinator for a year, I decided to jump in at the deep end and left to form my own full-service film production company. Working at Westside Stories had inspired me to direct and produce Black imagery under my own moniker. Within my production company, I began producing and directing music videos. Again, I swiftly moved up the ranks to producing and directing commercials, documentaries, independent Black film projects, and eventually reality television programming. During the latter stage of my days as a music video producer, in the 1990s, I experienced an epiphany one day that began my awakening and changed the trajectory of my professional career. While on the set of an urban rap music video in Atlanta that I was producing, sitting on a vintage Chevy Impala I had secured as a prop for the video, I read more closely than usual the contract I had signed with the major record label that commissioned the music video when I came across a clause that mandated I deliver, above all other elements mentioned in the music video treatment, “vintage cars and video girls” in the final cut of the music video. This mandate shocked me and illuminated how the label executives had relegated the women performing in the video to not only “girls” but merely props, on a par with