Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Entertainment
EntertainmentFilm

White Director Understands Criticism About Her Directing Movie on 1967 Detroit Uprising, But Says She Felt Compelled to Do So

Posted byBy Kiersten Willis | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is aware of the conversation that’s happening about her helming a film about Black history in the late 1960s.

As a white filmmaker, she says she know’s she’s not the best fit to direct “Detroit,” which chronicles the civil and lawful unrest that emerged in the city in 1967, which included three Black men being killed by white police officers at the Algiers Motel.

“Am I the ideal person to direct this movie? No,” Bigelow tells Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociology professor, in the August 2017 issue of Elle magazine. “Having lived with a certain amount of privilege, how can I truly, truly get into the DNA of somebody who has experienced social injustice?

“Is this a story that needs to be told? Yes. And so I felt like, well, let’s just add more noise to the conversation and, hopefully, there will be many more movies.”

Criticism about a white woman directing a film that largely focuses on the experience of young Black men has emerged online ahead of the Aug. 4 release of “Detroit.”

Dyson also got feedback from cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux, former Ebony magazine senior editor and current vice president of news and men’s programming at Interactive One.

“I’ll admit that I’m automatically skeptical when a white woman is tasked with a story that depicts Black life, particularly as it relates to how Black women are portrayed,” Lemieux said. “What might her lens be? Does she have even a limited understanding of the complicated politics of interracial dating from our side? Will she rely on the comfortable tropes so often employed by her male counterparts — hell, by Black men?”

Bigelow said she knew she had to direct this story when, shortly after Michael Brown was killed by a cop in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, writer and producer Mark Boal pitched the story of the Algiers Motel incident.

“It crystallized the need to add, from my vantage point, more volume to that conversation. Because it’s a conversation that I believe needs to be had,” Bigelow said.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top