The Mediatization of Malcolm X (original) (raw)
Related papers
Considering the Impact of a History of Hype: Analysis of Media & Community Images of Malcolm X
Media Presentation and Representation of Malcolm X This weekend (Feb 6th, 1994) the Cinematheque has presented a loving and sometimes painful exploration of the public face of Malcolm X, with rare glimpses into his private, personal and vulnerable side. We cannot talk about his legacy without addressing the far-reaching effect of media representation and various stereotypes of Black people which have played into the development of public understanding of the legacy of Malcolm X. Consider we must the early representations of Malcolm X as an ethnographic curiosity, then dangerous and militant Black man; then a crazy, unfulfilled Black man; then the dangerous violent Black leader; then the myth and deity that has become Malcolm after death
“Cinematic Jujitsu: Resisting White Hegemony through the American Dream in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X.”
Spike Lee's film Malcolm X (1992) presented Malcolm X's life story using the narrative framework of the American Dream myth central to liberal ideology. Working from Gramsci's notion of common sense in the process of hegemony, I explain how Lee appealed to this mythic structure underlying American popular culture to give a platform to Malcolm X's controversial ideas. By adopting a common sense narrative to tell Malcolm X's life story, this movie functioned as a form of cinematic jujitsu that invited critical consciousness about the contradictions between liberal ideology and the life experiences of racially excluded groups. Other formal devices in Lee's film incorporated Malcolm X's rhetoric within the common sense of mainstream politics and connected Malcolm X to more contemporary racial struggles. This analysis suggests that common sense framings of controversial figures may provide a limited space to challenge institutionalized forms of racism within popular culture.
From homeboy to American icon: Image transformation of Malcolm X, 1965-1999
2010
for their work editing, I owe you big. To O. Reid, thanks for being a great friend and boss; I'll miss our late night parties! To Mani Gilyard, Chithra, Iyaluua, and the MXXC thank you for your help, you're welcoming atmosphere, and willingness to include me in all parts of your commemoration activities. Special thanks to Andre Elizee, Diana Lachatanere, and the other people in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for working to acquire the Malcolm X Papers Collection and to the Shabazz Family for donating the papers and allowing access. Thanks to the Collegium on African American Research (CAAR) for the ability to present and receive feedback on my work, particularly when it was in its infancy. To Irma Watkins Owens, I will be forever grateful for your example, help, faith and constant unwavering support. I pray that one day I will be able to do for one person what you did for me. To anyone else I forgot, please forgive me. The mind is not what it use to be! v
From Black Revolution to "Radical Humanism": Malcolm X between Biography and International History
Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, …, 2012
This essay both reviews Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention and reflects more broadly upon Malcolm X’s political trajectory and human rights activism in the context of American, African-American, and international history. The essay seeks to analyze the meanings of Malcolm X’s rhetoric, social background, and global ambitions, in particular vis-à-vis the civil rights movement, the geopolitics of the Cold War, and the place of the United States in the wider world. The essay also focuses on the strengths and limitations of Marable’s approach to Malcolm X’s career and on the distinctions between humanizing Malcolm X and historicizing him. The essay concludes with some speculations on the implications that Malcolm X’s life and death might have for understanding public affairs today.
In Excess(es). Ed. Mounir Guirat. Sfax, Tunisia: CAEU Med Ali Editions, (ISBN: 978-9973-33-476-3) pp. 19-33, 2016
The purpose of the present paper is an attempt to bring support to the hypothesis that ethnic identity when jeopardized in a context of social adversity tends to be strategic and manipulative. The paper shows how religious conversion counted among the strategies of ethnic identification used by Malcolm X, the late 1950s and early 1960s Black Muslim leader. The paper analyses a passage from The Autobiography of Malcolm X; it uses the Cultural Studies commentary techniques for Civilization— culture and history—documents to reflect how the ethnic discourse adopted by the then mouthpiece of Black Muslims relied on both social visibility and the demonization of the white man, as excessive forms of ethnic expression to preserve/defend ethnicity.
"A Complex Revolutionary: Remembering the Multi-Dimensional Malcolm X"
NewBlackMan (In Exile): The Digital Home for Mark Anthony Neal - Blog, 2019
Consummate activist, gifted communicator, introspective strategist, master teacher and Pan-Africanist revolutionary are all but a minor list of descriptors that have been used in the attempts to adequately capture the complex life of Malcolm X. For many Black Americans, his life's trajectory meant much. To the transnational audience that Malcolm X attracted through his university lectures, radio & television programs, and public debates, Malcolm X had grown to mean more as his exposure increased beyond the borders of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the United States. Though the life of Malcolm X was cut drastically short on February 21, 1965 at the age of thirty-nine, the popularity of Malcolm X for young people increased and transcended political movements, trends of popular culture and the many attempts to either minimize or distort the impact of Malcolm X to the 'glocal' Black world. Nonetheless, the general public continues to perceive Malcolm X as the chief agitator and antagonist to the likes of the more socially accepted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though over 930 books, 360 films & internet sources and 350 sound recordings have been excavated by scholars such as the late Manning Marable, the memory and education of Malcolm X becomes either muddled and/or reduced to his popular catchphrase, "By Any Means Necessary".
Malcolm X and the Search for the Universality of Blackness
2012
This biography of Malcolm was more than a decade in the making. It was written by Manning Marable, who died on April 1, 2011, shortly before the publication of his reevaluation of Malcolm’s life and politics. Marable was one of the foremost scholars of Black politics in the United States. Here Marable has crafted a compelling intellectual history of Malcolm in which he shows how Malcolm’s thoughts grew out of social and religious movements that first emerged within the black community during the nineteenth century.
In the volatile American society of the mid twentieth century, Malcolm was born. Like every other black youth, he felt the pain of segregation, but unlike many who where born before him and those who were his contemporary, Malcolm strongly desired a change. He knew that something was happening, he knew that something must have to be done, and he also knew that he could do something but how was not quite clear. When he eventually decided to read law in order to acquire a basic education for his course was when his father Early Little, preacher and an organizer for Marcus Garvey's universal Negro Improvement Association was murdered thereby bringing an economic strain that cut short his dream of going to the university. He became mischievous, a burglar, an armed robber and so on all targeted at the whites; it was his own little way of living his childhood dream. Providence that directs the way of great men, however landed him in a prison cell where he met with great influence and transformation. Thus, the man, Malcolm Little who went in a ruffian emerged a great force of change Malcom X that was to awaken the consciousness of both the living and the unborn.
From Confinement to Enlargement: The Shift in Malcolm X's Rhetoric
InternationalJournal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 2024
This comparative study between Malcolm X's speech "The Ballot or the Bullet" and his Ford Auditorium address reveals a shift in rhetoric. Malcolm X's rhetoric changed from being separation-laden, calling for a black counter-cultural hegemonic orientation of black nationalism, into being more inclusive of all races and advocating for the "brotherhood of all men." This paper explores the process, the reasons, and the implications of this shift in rhetoric.