4 19 12 Training Day Denzel Washington s star persona Representations of race and class Ecosystem of Hollywood There are stars and there are movie stars a specific different Rooted in the way in which individuals are recognized and marketed Actors will change characters and personas from one film to the next Movie stars individuals who reach a certain level of fame are recognized by their persona in spite of the character they may be playing Denzel Washington With the exception of Will Smith there are no other black actors with the same status of being able to green light a film A film will be made just because he will star in it Will Smith Has starred in a number of highly popular extremely lucrative films But these movies feature few other human beings They are different from the films Denzel might be associated with Denzel Malcolm X Frank Lucas in American Gangster Recreates the persona of real individuals Dignified and significant His role in Training Day Is not the sort of film people would associate with movie stars More for actors His persona is larger than the film itself Choice to portray a particularly despicable character African Americans representations in film positive or negative Value judgment Took a twist in 2001 A movie star playing a bad cop despicable character Many felt the character contradicted the persona this star head developed Based mainly on positive images Training Day Because there are such a small number of films like this released they are discussed at length If there were more images on a broader spectrum there would be no need to focus on the few that exist Example there are broad representations of white people in Hollywood One negative images is not expected the carry the entire weight of white people People understand that this one image is not representative of all whites Imagine a world in which the only representation of white people were the Three Stooges Reverse that to talk about representations of African Americans One image can come to stand for an entire group of people Denzel would win the Oscar for best actor for his performance in Training Day in 2001 Halle Berry also won for Monster s Ball Sydney Potier was given a lifetime achievement award Important because prior to 2002 no African American had won the best actor since 1964 Denzel made number 2 Hattie McDaniels was the first African American winner for Gone with the Wind She was not allowed in the premier and at the awards she had to sit away from whites Most African Americans won for supporting roles Again the industry trying to promote itself and appear liberal His winning the award created a bit of a controversy in certain communities Training Day based on the Rampart Scandal One cop Rafael Perez who was not much different from Alonzo in the film Planted drugs shot gang members for no reason took drugs from evidence to sell A corrupt cop Implicated in the murder of Biggie Smalls Clearly Alonzo is a bad guy but Jake is also complacent in what happens He is also ambitious wants the money status and material of the American Dream There are many opportunities for him to walk away but he keeps taking the bait In many ways Alonzo seduces Jake Almost like the devil Instead of leaving Jake chooses to smoke He is not 100 pure himself Denzel as Alonzo Both funny and menacing very good at seducing Jake They go deeper and deeper into hell Neighborhoods that are not often represented in Hollywood cinema and use of actual gang members and gang culture Sense of authenticity Alonzo aspires to be like the Three Wise Men Call all the shots and manage things without getting his hands dirty Jake starts to come to terms with who Alonzo is but at that point he can t get out In Hollywood a character like Alonzo cannot be allowed to live The end of the movie The media account of what happened is very different from reality In spite of everything seen in the film his death would be recorded as something honorable Jake returns home What position will he take in moving forward after everything he s seen Sydney Poitier People have often compared him with Denzel The 1960s First African American to win best actor for Lilies of the Field Same year Martine Luther King Jr won the Nobel Prize His career is very closely tied to the advances of the civil rights movement Seen as part of the larger civil rights movement impacting other areas of society not just politics Biggest box office star of that time In the Heat of the Night Poitier plays a Philadelphia detective who must return to his hometown in Mississippi Arrested for murder then gets pulled into solving the murder Relationship between him and the chief of police He leads them in solving the crime because he is more intelligent Though they look down on him because he is black When Poitier slaps the white plantation owner In retaliation Indicative of the changes that were coming about in America Poitier was often linked with dignified roles The ultimate positive image Even this came to be problematic A few years later came Blaxploitation A different political hero black style Poitier s image becomes outdated and out of style Then came Denzel in the 1990s Similarities drawn between the two His acceptance at the Oscars in 2002 How does one judge an acting performance It is very subjective The awards are more of an endorsement of what Hollywood accepts as right than anything else Conspiracy in awarding him for Training Day instead of Malcolm X But in this he was given the opportunity to truly act Rather than just floating through based on his persona as most movie stars do The Oscars are symbolic and representative of what the industry wants to promote