Black Is Not A Genre is a film series highlighting the under-examined and under-appreciated contributions of black cinema to genre film. The title is a play on the paradoxical existence of black cinema. The acknowledgment of shared aesthetic and cultural languages across the Black film diaspora is integral to a deeper understanding of its value. However, the persistent marginalization of Black art and racist assumptions about marketability have pigeonholed the Black films into a commercial monolith, a commercially artificial "genre" that makes a spectacle of their Blackness and ignores the specificity of their craftsmanship. As a result, Black films are only discussed in relation to other Black-made films and are excluded from essential, canonical discussions about genre that fundamentally shape the way we view what’s good, what’s good, what holds value.
In collaboration with Hyperreal Film Club, with the goal of illuminating new perspectives on Black genre filmmaking, the first edition of BINAG will recommend four Black-directed films for viewers to screen at home over the course of four weeks in July 2020. The emphasis will be on under-exposed films, films that have been largely miscategorized and warrant re-contextualizing, and films that have made major cinematic contributions to their genre. Each film will be accompanied by a weekly podcast in which series programmer Graham Cumberbatch will discuss the week’s movie and genre with a different featured guest.
For Week 1 of Black Is Not A Genre, we explore "camp." We’ll be viewing Robert Townsend’s B*A*P*S* (1997) together and reimagining the genre of camp to include Black culture’s essential contribution. Our special guests are:
Ronnita L. Miller
Film school dropout, Comedian, actor, writer Ronnita L. Miller has played lead roles in the short film Beta and the We Are short film series featured on the Issa Rae Presents YouTube channel. She is also a founding member of the award-winning comedy group Damn Gina!, Texas’ first all-Black-woman-identifying improv troupe.
Brooke Burnside
Born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, Brooke Burnside has written essays on and conducted research in TV, film, and mass media culture. Having studied film and made several shorts in college, she eventually moved to Texas to pursue a graduate degree in an effort to further develop her skills as a creator of media and is a recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. Brooke is also a practicing artist whose work includes drawing, printmaking, and digital college. And, she is a 2020 recipient of the Big Medium Art Residency at The Line.
For Graham's full essay on B*A*P*S and the Camp genre visit: https://hyperrealfilm.club/reviews/binag-baps
