Fireworks Logo

Trailers...

  • Things Like This
  • Last First Time (The)
  • Sylvia Robyn
  • Sorry, Baby
  • Reset
  • Ramón y Ramón
  • President's Wife (The)
  • Inside
  • Ten Pound Poms
  • Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot (A)
  • Fuori
  • No Way Up
  • Queens of Joy
  • I Don't Understand You
  • Croma
  • Day Iceland Stood Still (The)
  • Reunion
  • Maydegol
  • Stray Bodies
  • Ponyboi
  • Duino
  • Sex in the Soviet Union
  • Invasión
  • Edhi & Alice
  • Familiar Places
  • Assembly
  • Mid-Century Modern
  • My Boyfriend the Fascist
  • All for One
  • Accidental Friends
  • My Boyfriend Is a Sex Worker
  • Museum of the Night
  • Nina & Emma
  • Residence (The)
  • ¡Quba!
  • Cherri
  • Lilies Not for Me
  • She's the He
  • Newborn
  • Klandestin WT

Ethnic Notions

Country: United States, Canada, Language: English, 57 mins

  • Director: Marlon Riggs
  • Producer: Marlon Riggs, Keris Salmon

CGiii Comment

Ethnic Notions is Marlon Riggs' Emmy-winning documentary that takes viewers on a disturbing voyage through American history, tracing for the first time the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice. Through these images we can begin to understand the evolution of racial consciousness in America. Loyal Toms, carefree Sambos, faithful Mammies, grinning Coons, savage Brutes, and wide-eyed Pickaninnies roll across the screen in cartoons, feature films, popular songs, minstrel shows, advertisements, folklore, household artifacts, even children's rhymes. These dehumanizing caricatures permeated popular culture from the 1820s to the Civil Rights period and implanted themselves deep in the American psyche. Narration by Esther Rolle and commentary by respected scholars shed light on the origins and devastating consequences of this 150 yearlong parade of bigotry. Ethnic Notions situates each stereotype historically in white society's shifting needs to justify racist oppression from slavery to the present day. The insidious images exacted a devastating toll on black Americans and continue to undermine race relations.


Trailer...

Cast & Characters

Esther Rolle (as Narrator)
Barbara T. Christian (as Self)
Janette Faulkner (as Cast: Collector (as Jan Faulkner))
George Frederickson (as Cast Stanford)
Larry C. Levine (as Cast: UC Berkeley)
Derique McGee (as Hambone Performer)
Carlton Moss (as Cast: UC Irvine)
Erskine Peters (as Cast: UC Berkeley)
Leni Sloan (as Cast: Choreographer)
Patricia A. Turner (as Self)
Bert Williams (as Self (archiveFootage))