Tainted Glory: Truth and Fiction in Contemporary Hollywood

In the earliest days of cinema, the image of the African American on screen matched the off-screen image. When a 12-minute version of Uncle Tom\u27s Cabin (1903) was filmed, Tom shows were the most popular stage shows, the Stowe novel was still a top-seller, and the notion that white southerners were the real victims of the peculiar institution was gaining increasing acceptance in academic circles. When D.W. Griffith\u27s epic and revolutionary Birth of a Nation (1915) depicted a set of stock African-American movie characters — the subservient overweight domestic servant; the indifferent, coquettish mulatto; the savage, sexually driven buck; and the marauding bands of black men with weapons — these images were being promoted in other arenas as well. Woodrow Wilson had refused to integrate the federal work places, and Jim Crow segregation was prevalent throughout the South. Time and space don\u27t permit me to review the entire history of African Americans on screen. As distorted as we know these images to be, we cannot truly indict Hollywood unless we also condemn society at large. In relying on caricatures of African Americans, filmmakers were merely echoing the prevailing sentiments and attitudes about race

Reel Blacks: A Kinder, Gentler FBI

Revisionist interpretations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation\u27s (FBI) role in enforcing civil rights legislation and its monitoring of black activists have proliferated during the last decade. Agents of Repression: The FBI\u27s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Racial Matters by Kenneth O\u27Reilly, and The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. by David Garrow are just a few of the numerous books to chronicle the FBI\u27s somewhat embarrassing record on race-related issues. Given this wealth of documentation in print, it is even more startling that in the world of cinema, the FBI is still being depicted as heroically as it was in the days when J. Edgar Hoover manipulated the agency\u27s public image. Costas Gavras\u27 Betrayal and Alan Parker\u27s Mississippi Burning feature celluloid FBI agents who no doubt would have been sources of great pride to the late director

Reel Blacks: Blacks in Disguise

Gremlins and Little Shop of Horrors are very likeable films. The former is rather charming, and the latter is one of the most originally-rendered musicals ever produced. Indeed, it is the positive surface of the films that makes their underlying message so insidious. Fortunately, the final twist common to both films can give solace to the viewer who would like to see the disguised blacks triumph. At the end of Gremlins the original Mogwi is still alive, albeit back in the capable hands of the mysterious Chinese man, and Little Shop closes as the camera follows Seymour and Audrey into the yard of a model suburban home and then pans from their happy faces to the garden where a seemingly nondescript little Audrey II is nestled in among the blooming flowers. Temporarily subdued by the white heroes, the blacks in disguise might triumph in the future

Reel Blacks: Everything is Not Satisfactual

An unaccompanied black adult female at a matinee performance of Song of the South is about as out of place as Big Bird at a cockfight. However, having encouraged the students in my course on black media images to see the film during its fortieth anniversary run, I felt obligated to reexamine it myself. So there I sat, surrounded by exuberant white pre-schoolers and their parents, watching as animation and live action seamlessly interchanged on the screen in Walt Disney’s adaptation for Joel Chandler Harris’ classic collection of Afro-American folktales

Reel Blacks: The Good Old Days

Like most of my colleagues engaged in film studies rather than film practice, I occasionally allow myself to fantasize about the kind of films I would produce if I were a film maker. Several commercial films popular in the last fifteen years have inspired in me a bare bones scenario. My movie would have an all black “ensemble” cast. The plot would contain flashbacks tracing the events in the characters’ adolescence that solidified their friendship. These flashbacks would be punctuated by rhythmless music performed by white artists, Although no hint of “soul” would be tolerated on my movie’s soundtrack, my black characters would enthusiastically embrace it as if it were their own. I doubt that my film would achieve any real commercial success, in spite of the fact that so many recent movies have portrayed the reverse situation. Ever since George Lucas’ classic American Graffiti broke box office records in 1973, white film makers have endeavored to find innovative ways of turning nostalgia for the late l950s and early 1960s into movie making success in the 1970s and 1980s. The more notable efforts have included George Landis’ raucous view of early l960s fraternity life in Animal House, Steven Spielberg’s time travel adventure in Back to the Future, Francis Ford Coppola’s foray into fantasy in Peggy Sue Got Married, Lawrence Kasdan’s depiction of a reunion weekend in The Big Chill, and Rob Reiner’s glimpse of 1950s coming of age in Stand By Me

Bcl-2 expression is altered with ovarian tumor progression: an immunohistochemical evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy. The ovarian tumor microenvironment is comprised of tumor cells, surrounding stroma, and circulating lymphocytes, an important component of the immune response, in tumors. Previous reports have shown that the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 is overexpressed in many solid neoplasms, including ovarian cancers, and contributes to neoplastic transformation and drug-resistant disease, resulting in poor clinical outcome. Likewise, studies indicate improved clinical outcome with increased presence of lymphocytes. Therefore, we sought to examine Bcl-2 expression in normal, benign, and cancerous ovarian tissues to determine the potential relationship between epithelial and stromal Bcl-2 expression in conjunction with the presence of lymphocytes for epithelial ovarian tumor progression.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Ovarian tissue sections were classified as normal (n = 2), benign (n = 17) or cancerous (n = 28) and immunohistochemically stained for Bcl-2. Bcl-2 expression was assessed according to cellular localization, extent, and intensity of staining. The number of lymphocyte nests as well as the number of lymphocytes within these nests was counted.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While Bcl-2 staining remained cytoplasmic, both percent and intensity of epithelial and stromal Bcl-2 staining decreased with tumor progression. Further, the number of lymphocyte nests dramatically increased with tumor progression.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data suggest alterations in Bcl-2 expression and lymphocyte infiltration correlate with epithelial ovarian cancer progression. Consequently, Bcl-2 expression and lymphocyte status may be important for prognostic outcome or useful targets for therapeutic intervention.</p

Transcriptomic, lipid, and histological profiles suggest changes in health in fish from a pesticide hot spot.

Barramundi (Lates calcarifer) were collected at the beginning (1st sampling) and end (2nd sampling) of the wet season from Sandy Creek, an agriculturally impacted catchment in the Mackay Whitsundays region of the Great Barrier Reef catchment area, and from Repulse Creek, located approximately 100 km north in Conway National Park, to assess the impacts of pesticide exposure. Gill and liver histology, lipid class composition in muscle, and the hepatic transcriptome were examined. The first sample of Repulse Creek fish showed little tissue damage and low transcript levels of xenobiotic metabolism enzymes. Sandy Creek fish showed altered transcriptomic patterns, including those that regulate lipid metabolism, xenobiotic metabolism, and immune response; gross histological alterations including lipidosis; and differences in some lipid classes. The second sampling of Repulse Creek fish showed similar alterations in hepatic transcriptome and tissue structure as fish from Sandy Creek. These changes may indicate a decrease in health of pesticide exposed fish