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TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 I. THE EVOLUTION OF BLACK FILM 4 1.1. Blackfacing and Film Shorts 4 1.1.1. Early Vignettes 5 1.1.2. The Coon 6 1.1.3. The Tom 9 1.1.4. The Tragic Mulatto 10 1.1.5. The Mammy 11 1.1.6. The Reportorial Film 12 1.2. The Birth of a Nation 13 1.3. The Jesters in the 1920s 16 CONCLUSION 18 PICTURES Fehler! Textmarke nicht definiert. BIBLIOGRAPHY 24 INTRODUCTION Film images reflect and illuminate American culture in a characteristic way. Successful and popular films are designed for audiences and so they have to be reflections of what can be understood and accepted by people of the time in which the film was produced. Afro-Americans have overall been more incisively affected by film than any other racial group. The black image, though not always a presentation of cultural realities, is often a reflection and description of cultural legends, myths and fantasies. This is especially true for Afro-Americans who have always been negative values in American society. The Afro-American image in film may have been the widespread image of blacks in America, but this image had little or nothing to do with reality.One should always keep in mind that it was predominantly for Anglo-Americans