By Malice Intended

In preparation for the release of his latest production Red Tails, which chronicles the exploits of the fabled Tuskegee Airmen, George Lucas has been making the rounds on the talk show circuit.  He’s been discussing the obstacles of bringing this story to the big screen, in particular, Hollywood’s reluctance to put big money behind a film with an all-Black cast.  The press has been treating that last particular bit of information as though it’s some sort of revelation, but Black filmmakers and actors know better.  Lucas is simply speaking openly and honestly about an institutionalized form of racism that stubbornly refuses to die.  Now that Lucas has “exposed” the beast to the light of day, will he be able to strike a mighty blow against it with Red Tails?  If his efforts fail, what will the fallout be?It actually makes perfect sense that Lucas is being so outspoken about this.  He’s always been seen as something of a recluse, to the point of being completely out of touch.  Over the past 35 years he has turned the Star Wars brand into a thriving multimedia empire.  His personal net worth is estimated in the billions.  His casual indifference to the vitriolic reactions elicited by the Star Wars prequels and the latest Indiana Jones film show that he could care less what critics or even fans think.  He’s the only one of his 1970’s peers to achieve anything resembling total autonomy from the major studios.  He’s not as unlikely an ally to Black film as some people may think.

Still, he’s got his work cut out for him.  In the last few decades, foreign box office has gone from being seen as icing on the proverbial cake to being a necessity.  Hollywood staunchly claims that Black movies and Black leads are not economically viable abroad.  There have even been rumors that foreign audiences request that films imported from the states not contain Black people when surveyed.  At home, things aren’t much better.  White audiences are supposedly still apprehensive about embracing Black cinema.  All of the above factors provide all the justification Hollywood needs for the meager budgets Black filmmakers are allotted.

It’s that sort of myopic thinking (supported by half-baked stats) that Lucas faced when trying to get Red Tails made.  The project has been in development since 1988.  According to him, nobody in Hollywood wanted to fund it.  Think about that for a second.  One of the most financially successful filmmakers ever could not find funding for a modestly budgeted (by industry standards) historical epic starring an all-Black cast.  If that doesn’t say tons about the levels of institutionalized racism in the movie industry, I don’t know what does.  To be fair, Lucas might be exaggerating things just a tad.  This is the same guy who claimed that the first Star Wars film was but a sixth of a much larger story. That was a grandiose bit of mythmaking on his part.  A big part of the delay in getting Red Tails made was likely do to Lucas tending to the Star Wars prequels.  Nevertheless, his point about Hollywood’s resistance to the very idea of such a film still stands.

Now that Red Tails is complete and ready for mass consumption, those of us rooting for it must face a horrifying possibility.  What if it isn’t any good, and thus fails at the box office?  Hollywood would surely use that to justify its ongoing bigotry.  Lucas himself has openly addressed the fallout that may result: “I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys (Black Filmmakers) to break out of that [lower-budget] mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”  In other words, if Red Tails crashes and burns, things will be exactly the same as they were before its release.  Since we have nothing to lose and everything to gain, I say it’s worth a shot.

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