David Garrett Izzo is professor of English at Shaw University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul (2011) and Huxley’s Brave New World: Essays (2008).

• IntroductionDavid Garrett IzzoPart I: Resonance from the Past: Experience Is Learned Backward But Must Be Lived ForwardChapter 1 - “I Really Need a Maid!” White Womanhood in The HelpKwakiutl L. DreherChapter 2 - Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville and Tate Taylor’s Jackson: “Art hurts. Art urges voyages—and it is easier to stay at home.”Blake G. HobbyChapter 3 - If Django and Lincoln Could Talk: James Baldwin Goes to the MoviesRobert McParlandChapter 4 - The Exceptional N*gger: Redefining African American Identity in Django UnchainedRodney M. D. FierceChapter 5 - Blaxploitation in the Age of Obama: Black Dynamite, Django Unchained, Racial Reasoning, and Racial CapitalismBrian E. ButlerChapter 6 - Between The Butler and Black Dynamite: Servility, Militancy, and the Meaning of BlaxploitationAndrew GrossmanChapter 7 - Rednecks, Racism, and Religion: King and Darabont’s Precarious Prophecy of Obama’s ComingVictoria McCollumPart II: The Present Is an Eternal Now Connecting Past and Fut

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 as the US's first African American president was a remarkable historic event. In the euphoria of the moment certain pundits imagined that the US had entered a postracial age, and racism was over. The deaths of Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin soon shattered the myth of a new golden age in race relations. The films that have emerged in the supposed postracial 'age of Obama' show that the US is still haunted by the ghost of racism, and that the land is troubled by issues of class and corporate excess. It is profoundly ironic that in an era that imagines we have transcended race the film industry produced Django, 12 Years aSlave, The Help, The Butler, and Fruitvale Station. Popular discontent with the great recession and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1 percent is reflected in futuristic films such as TheHunger Games. Rebellion against tyranny can be inferred in the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Izzo has put together a superb, compelling collection of film criticism. Atour de force. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

David Garrett Izzo is professor of English at Shaw University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul (2011) and Huxley’s Brave New World: Essays (2008).

• IntroductionDavid Garrett IzzoPart I: Resonance from the Past: Experience Is Learned Backward But Must Be Lived ForwardChapter 1 - “I Really Need a Maid!” White Womanhood in The HelpKwakiutl L. DreherChapter 2 - Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville and Tate Taylor’s Jackson: “Art hurts. Art urges voyages—and it is easier to stay at home.”Blake G. HobbyChapter 3 - If Django and Lincoln Could Talk: James Baldwin Goes to the MoviesRobert McParlandChapter 4 - The Exceptional N*gger: Redefining African American Identity in Django UnchainedRodney M. D. FierceChapter 5 - Blaxploitation in the Age of Obama: Black Dynamite, Django Unchained, Racial Reasoning, and Racial CapitalismBrian E. ButlerChapter 6 - Between The Butler and Black Dynamite: Servility, Militancy, and the Meaning of BlaxploitationAndrew GrossmanChapter 7 - Rednecks, Racism, and Religion: King and Darabont’s Precarious Prophecy of Obama’s ComingVictoria McCollumPart II: The Present Is an Eternal Now Connecting Past and Fut

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 as the US's first African American president was a remarkable historic event. In the euphoria of the moment certain pundits imagined that the US had entered a postracial age, and racism was over. The deaths of Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin soon shattered the myth of a new golden age in race relations. The films that have emerged in the supposed postracial 'age of Obama' show that the US is still haunted by the ghost of racism, and that the land is troubled by issues of class and corporate excess. It is profoundly ironic that in an era that imagines we have transcended race the film industry produced Django, 12 Years aSlave, The Help, The Butler, and Fruitvale Station. Popular discontent with the great recession and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1 percent is reflected in futuristic films such as TheHunger Games. Rebellion against tyranny can be inferred in the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Izzo has put together a superb, compelling collection of film criticism. Atour de force. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

David Garrett Izzo is professor of English at Shaw University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul (2011) and Huxley’s Brave New World: Essays (2008).

• IntroductionDavid Garrett IzzoPart I: Resonance from the Past: Experience Is Learned Backward But Must Be Lived ForwardChapter 1 - “I Really Need a Maid!” White Womanhood in The HelpKwakiutl L. DreherChapter 2 - Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville and Tate Taylor’s Jackson: “Art hurts. Art urges voyages—and it is easier to stay at home.”Blake G. HobbyChapter 3 - If Django and Lincoln Could Talk: James Baldwin Goes to the MoviesRobert McParlandChapter 4 - The Exceptional N*gger: Redefining African American Identity in Django UnchainedRodney M. D. FierceChapter 5 - Blaxploitation in the Age of Obama: Black Dynamite, Django Unchained, Racial Reasoning, and Racial CapitalismBrian E. ButlerChapter 6 - Between The Butler and Black Dynamite: Servility, Militancy, and the Meaning of BlaxploitationAndrew GrossmanChapter 7 - Rednecks, Racism, and Religion: King and Darabont’s Precarious Prophecy of Obama’s ComingVictoria McCollumPart II: The Present Is an Eternal Now Connecting Past and Fut

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 as the US's first African American president was a remarkable historic event. In the euphoria of the moment certain pundits imagined that the US had entered a postracial age, and racism was over. The deaths of Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin soon shattered the myth of a new golden age in race relations. The films that have emerged in the supposed postracial 'age of Obama' show that the US is still haunted by the ghost of racism, and that the land is troubled by issues of class and corporate excess. It is profoundly ironic that in an era that imagines we have transcended race the film industry produced Django, 12 Years aSlave, The Help, The Butler, and Fruitvale Station. Popular discontent with the great recession and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1 percent is reflected in futuristic films such as TheHunger Games. Rebellion against tyranny can be inferred in the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Izzo has put together a superb, compelling collection of film criticism. Atour de force. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.