bell hooks

Black Is … Black Ain’t

Marlon Riggs

Marlon Riggs, bell hooks

African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.

My Feminism

Laurie Colbert, Dominique Cardona

bell hooks, Gloria Steinem

In an era of antifeminist backlash, this articulate documentary by the makers of Thank God I’m a Lesbian forcefully reminds us that the revolution continues. Powerful interviews with feminist leaders including bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, and Urvsahi Vaid are intercut with documentary sequences to engagingly explore the past and present status of the women’s movement. Discussing the unique contributions of second wave feminism, they explore their racial, economic and ideological differences and shared vision of achieving equality for women. Anessential component of women’s studies curricula, My Feminism introduces feminism’s key themeswhile exposing the cultural fears underlying lesbian baiting, backlash, and political extremism.

BaadAsssss Cinema

Isaac Julien

Larry Cohen, Tamara Dobson

With archive film clips and interviews, this brief look at a frequently overlooked historical period of filmmaking acts as an introduction rather than a complete record. It features interviews with some of the genre's biggest stars, like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree. Director Melvin Van Peebles discusses the historical importance of his landmark film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. For a contemporary perspective, the excitable Quentin Tarantino offers his spirited commentary and author/critic bell hooks provides some scholarly social analysis.

Hillbilly

Ashley York, Sally Rubin

Billy Redden, Silas House

A documentary that examines the cultural stereotype of the people of Appalachia and how that has affected America's relationship with its rural communities.

I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America

Byron Hurt

Byron Hurt, bell hooks

Award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt explores what it means to be a Black man in America. Traveling to more than fifteen cities and towns across the country, Hurt gathers reflections on Black masculinity from men and women of a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and a host of leading scholars and cultural critics. What results is an engaging and honest dialogue about race, gender, and identity in America. Features bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, John Henrick Clarke, Kevin Powell, Andrew Young, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, MC Hammer, Jackson Katz, and many others.

bell hooks: Dialogue on Transgressive Sexual Practice

bell hooks

An open dialogue at The New School (Eugene Lang College) moderated by renowned feminist author bell hooks in conversation with Samuel “Chip” Delany (acclaimed Sci-Fi author of: Nova; Dhalgren; Times Square Red, Times Square Blue), M. Lamar (composer, video artist, and sculptor), and Marci Blackman (award-winning author of Po Man's Child: A Novel and Tradition). The discussion examines how engaging in transgressive sexual practices can provide a space in which one may work through the traumas inflicted by the oppressive forces that constitute, as hooks terms it, the system of "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy."

bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation

Sut Jhally

bell hooks

bell hooks is one of America's most accessible public intellectuals. In this two-part video, extensively illustrated with many of the images under analysis, she makes a compelling argument for the transformative power of cultural criticism.