New Generation Learns About Tuskegee Airmen
George Lucas' movie Red Tails, defied conventional wisdom and diminished expectations to take in the second highest haul this past weekend.
The film depicts the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen – American's first black fighter pilots who fought with bravery and distinction in World War II. The movie brought in $19.1 million, second only to Underworld Awakening which raked in $25.4 million.
Lucas, who was Red Tails' executive producer, had hoped the movie opening would produce blockbuster numbers and vindicate the movie in the eyes of critics who suggest that a film with an all-black cast is box-office poison. He invested $58 million of his own money to make and distribute the film and explained on The Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart, that no Hollywood studio would produce the movie.
"I showed it to them and they said, 'No. We don't know how to market a movie like this," Lucas said. "... Red Tails does not feature a white protagonist. It's an all black movie. There's no major white roles in it at all. It's one of the first all-black action pictures ever made..."
While a number of critics panned the movie – which took Lucas 23 years to make – moviegoers like District resident Leo Alexander said he loved what he saw.
"The movie was very well done," said the 47-year-old global marketing and sales executive. "The beginning was a little too slow and not serious enough for my taste. There was too much giggling and laughing for me. But overall, I enjoyed it."
Alexander, a Ward 4 resident, said one of the highlights of his family's trip to the downtown Silver Spring movie theater was meeting some Tuskegee Airmen.
"I met three real life 'Red Tails' and I have never been in any other setting and felt such awe, admiration and pride -- these brothers are giants," Alexander said. "My sons are too young to truly comprehend the significance of meeting these three warriors, but I know who they are. I've heard of their legend and now I've seen their story on the big screen."
"We met them and took pictures. It was a hell of an experience. They are approaching their '90s, looked great, looked sharp. I can only imagine what they went through in the '40s to put their lives on the line but lived in the U.S. as 2nd class citizens. I told my wife I couldn't have done it. To her credit, she said that they were doing it for the future. If that was me, I would have to remind myself of that every day."
In the weeks leading up to the movie's release, the Internet, Facebook and other social media, the press and elsewhere buzzed with discussion about the film, it's merits, the state of black cinema and the tastes of black and white America.
Columnist, critic and media personality Bomani Jones wrote that "if every black person in America goes to see Red Tails, there will not be a long line of big-budget black movies hitting theaters near you."
Hollywood chooses not to make these types of movies because studio heads remain convinced that white people cannot handle the authentic descriptions of blackness, he argues.
"After all, these cats didn't get to where they are by being stupid. And in this economy, I'm not sure who's passing up something one legitimately thinks will make more money," he explained. "But you can take if from someone who's been playing this game for a long time and is fairly close to having face-to-face conversations with real money: the suits tend to be afraid of black stuff and they think the public is too."
Lo'an Sewer, 41, hasn't seen the movie yet but tracked its progress throughout the week and said she was dismayed by how dismissive some critics were.
"I saw an interview of Lucas by Oprah and he talked about the rejections and justifications people made not to make the movie. I also read two reviews written by two white people and they wrote it like people shouldn't go to see the movie," said Sewer, a multicultural marketing expert. "They just totally downplayed all the air mens' accomplishments."
That prompted her to post an observation on Facebook: "Not bad for a film that no major distributor wanted to touch. When you know your worth or your power, you don't need anyone to validate you or your history."
Sewer said she had planned to see the movie on its opening weekend, but "the weekend got away from me."
"I plan to go see it soon, though," she promised.
William T. Fauntroy, Jr., who described himself as 85 years and 10 months old, said Lucas' film is a more faithful re-creation of what he and his colleagues went through during the war than the 1995 HBO movie The Tuskegee Airmen.
"Sixty-five Tuskegee airmen died overseas. Fortunately for the airmen, I was in training when the war ended," Fauntroy joked. "My instructor, Leonard Jackson, shot down three German planes, two of them over two days and he taught me how to fly an AT-6, which is a training plane. I would like to think that I would have been an ace over there because he taught me well. In fact I tell kids when I talk to them that it's because of my class that the war ended. They heard we were coming and everybody quit. General (Benjamin) Davis even laughed at that when I told him."
Fauntroy said he went to a viewing of the movie at the White House last Friday and he was telling his son Robert one of the things that bothered him was "I didn't stop to thank George Lucas."
"He's done something that couldn't be done" by putting up the money for the film, said Fanutroy.
"Nobody has done that. I think this movie will open the door for other movies showing Black men as heroes," he said. "(They) will be made if this movie is successful ... a lot of people, particularly Black kids, don't know about the Tuskegee airmen."
It is that issue Fauntroy raised about whether this movie will open Hollywood's doors and closed minds that is percolating in varied circles.
Alexander, who made a failed bid for mayor in 2010, said black Americans lost a golden opportunity to send Hollywood a message.
"I was reading some of the comments I saw on the movie and I found that Red Tails made $19.1million and it was being compared to Perry's Madea Goes to Jail which made $42 million. What people are doing is comparing a movie with historical value and one with no redeeming value at all," he said. I wondered if this is the state of Black America. We blew an opportunity to really show Hollywood that we want to see more than coons, men in drag and thugs. That's all they think we like. I'm excited and I'm looking forward to the sequel."
Lucas said he plans to produce a trilogy of stories on the airmen. He has argued quite convincingly that the story portrayed in the movie needed to be made, and Lane Wallace in a Jan 20, column in The Atlantic Magazine, agrees.
"I understand why George Lucas became so passionate about telling the story of the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II ... both the story, and the Tuskegee pilots themselves, are extraordinary," Lane said. "At the beginning of World War II, blacks were not allowed to serve as pilots in the military. A 1925 U.S. Army War College report had gone so far as deeming them not just inferior, but also incapable of operating complex machinery. But the country desperately needed more pilots. So a small training program for black pilots was initiated at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It was called the "Tuskegee Experiment" because the Air Corps brass fully expected the men in the program—many of whom were college-educated and quite accomplished—to fail. Some of the early white instructors in the program, in fact, tried to make sure that outcome came to pass."
Lane further explains that some of the pilots told her some instructors volunteered for the program because they believed in it, while others did it in an attempt to block the airmen from succeeding.
The program faced the constant threat of being closed down, said Lane, a pilot, author and entrepreneur. But through the efforts of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the steely determination of General Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr., commanding officer of the Tuskegee fighter pilots in Europe, the "Tuskegee Experiment" survived. In the beginning of 1944, when enough pilots had graduated from the Tuskegee program to form an entire fighter group (four fighter squadrons), they were deployed to Italy, where the 332nd fighter group served as a segregated unit within the 15th Air Force.
Because of their outstanding record of protecting bombers, by the end of the war, there were bomber crews specifically requesting the 332nd Red Tail pilots as their escorts, Lane said.
CNN Commentator Roland Martin offered a scathing critique of the Hollywood whitewash in a Jan 14 opinion piece titled, "Hollywood's Irrational Allergy to Black Films."
"Who knew that 70 years after African-American pilots had to work hard to overcome the prejudices of whites in the U.S. armed services, and the nation having its first black commander-in-chief, the men known as the Tuskegee Airmen would still be doing battle with an entrenched institution of white power brokers, all based on the color of their skin?
You would think that someone considered one of the most powerful players in Hollywood, a man who has made billions with blockbusters such as the "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars" franchises, would have been able to get "Red Tails" approved without any hesitation. Yet many African-Americans have long known that in Tinseltown, the color of your skin -- or that of the people in the story you want to tell -- often falls victim to racial pigeonholing.
Oh, sure, Hollywood is seen as a liberal bastion where folks talk about equality and supporting civil rights, but when it comes to telling stories that have mostly black casts, Hollywood might as well return to the '50s and '60s and erect signs that say "Whites Only."
One moviegoer chided critics who would label the movie a 'black' movie.
"It was fabulous enough for me to go see it every night next week," said Silver Spring, Md., resident Deborah Stepp. "The fact is I know about the Tuskegee Airmen and have heard about them all my life so just to see the story was fabulous. It didn't bother me who the executive producer of the movie was; just for someone to write the story and get it produced, that means George Lucas has an interest in our history. That's what we're trying to do American history, not just Black history."
Fauntroy agrees.
"I have seen the movie three times and hopefully this won't be the last. I get more excited each time I see the movie," he said. "It is not a rinky-dink movie; it is a top-notch movie with top-notch participants, from directing, acting and presentation. Everything is factual. It is very factual. They used a lot of artistic direction in the movie to tell the story."
WI Staffwriter Shevry Lassiter contributed to this report.
