Red, White, And the Blues: Translating the Existentialism in Richard Wright's Fiction Into Film (Essay‪)‬

EARLY IN THE NOVEL Native Son, Richard Wright implicates Hollywood as a major force in the intensification of stereotypes and the perpetuation of racial illusions in American culture and society. (1) Likewise, the details and intricacies of Bigger Thomas's imagination and perception of the world have been contoured and seriously injured by the cinema. When Bigger goes to the movie house, he views two different films which contain interlocking ideological perspectives: The Gay Woman glamorizes bourgeois decadence and degrades social and political dissidence; Trader Horn, an African safari adventure movie, perpetuates illusions of Caucasian supremacy and hegemonic Western imperialism. Bigger's responses to the films are significant because he bitterly internalizes these systemic cultural myths. The films reinforce his hatred of his existence and his desire for personal freedom and a luxurious world which are both verboten. These views and these feelings are exchanged in a wishful commentary with his friend Jack: "I'd like to be invited to a place like that just to find out what it feels like," Bigger mused.