UCLA

The kiss has played a large role in filmic narrative in American Cinema since the medium’s beginning. Yet, mainstream cinematic representation of romance between African Americans has been limited. Just prior to cinema’s Classical age, Hollywood self-regulators (i.e. the Studio Relations Committee) determined that white actors were not likely to want to see black actors kissing. There was no prohibition on kissing, Black or otherwise. However, there was a restriction on displays of black-white “sex relations” (i.e. miscegenation), instituted by the president of the Motion Pictures Directors and Distributors of America, Will Hays, and within his 1926 list of “Don’ts and Be Carefuls.” Notwithstanding, major Hollywood studios limited the “romantic” depictions of Black characters in Classical Hollywood to instances of infidelity, licentiousness, and even violence in films made between 1929 and 1941—and even these depictions were few and far in between. While Black sexuality was focused on far less often than white sexuality, Black sexuality was predominantly depicted as deviant behavior harmful to American society. Still, Black sexuality was used to help define, contrast, identify, and aid not only concerns about white sexuality’s function in the American society, but was systemically utilized to help solve societal concerns about class, gender, and race, all the while working to uphold depictions of whiteness as a standard to strive toward in terms of behavior and values.