Race, kids and film in Albion
A Detroit-based film historian who's taught the subject and worked in the industry has some advice on talking to kids about race in movies.
Talk to them like they're adults.
"They are able to grasp and understand a lot more than adults sometimes give them credit for," Emmy Perryman said.
Perryman, originally from New York City, is also a photographer and writer. She's in Albion today and Wednesday to talk to high school and college students about race relations in movies and the language of film for a youth workshop.
Perryman said she shows clips of films and engages the students in conversation about the universal themes they contain.
More on battlecreekenquirer.com:
"It doesn’t matter if you’re a teenager in Albion or a grown up in Chicago," Perryman said. "You understand loss, and pain and rejection. There are large themes that I think everyone responds to."
Perryman said she's worked for the Cannes and Sundance film festivals, as well as the New York City Mayor's Film Office, among other accomplishments. But it was the film festivals she and her mom made in their living room that sparked her first interest in the medium.
"We would do MGM musicals, for example," Perryman said. "Or Marilyn Monroe movies. Or Keystone Cops. I got the chickenpox later in childhood, and I remember being home, just watching Keystone Kops and Charlie Chaplin movies."
Now, she's taking her lifetime of film experience and reaching out to students, hoping they can learn something about people from what they see on the screen.
Perryman said the 2014 film "Dear White People" was an interesting example of a way to teach some of those lessons.
Director-writer Justin Simien's 2014 film is a comedy drama about race relations at an Ivy League school; it was adapted into a Netflix series this year.
"You get the perspective of African American students who are clearly intelligent, they’re well-spoken, they’re not stereotype characters, they’re not cliché characters," Perryman said. "They really discuss in a humorous, satirical way, issues that are facing minorities, not just on college campuses, but in the world."
Another film Perryman praised was "Get Out," a 2017 horror and suspense movie from first-time director Jordan Peele. It touches on several issues of race and class in America as a young black man meets his white girlfriend's family, who aren't what they seem.
"I feel like there is definitely a lot of progress being made, if only that the discussion is on the table," Perryman said.
When asked what movies aren't doing a good job dealing with race representations, the answer came sort of difficult, but sort of easy, to Perryman.
"Most of the others," Perryman said. "When you hear that Emma Stone is cast as a Hawaiian, that’s a little concerning."
Perryman was talking about 2015's "Aloha," featuring a white actor, Stone, playing a character who is supposed to be a fourth Chinese and a fourth Hawaiian.
Perryman also pointed to this year's "The Beguiled," directed by Sophia Coppola, which is a remake of a 1971 Southern Gothic movie. The novel the film is based on included a slave character who wasn't included in the new film.
"That’s troublesome," Perryman said, "but at least the conversation is out there."
Contact Andy Fitzpatrick at 269-966-0697 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter: @am_fitzpatrick.