Sorrowful Black Death is Not a Hot Ticket and Seduction and Betrayal Es

Sorrowful Black Death is Not a Hot Ticket and Seduction and Betrayal    Toni Morrison and bell hooks share the same views on how white America envisions blacks.   In bell hooks' essays " Seduction and Betrayal" and " Sorrowful Black Death is Not a Hot Ticket" she focuses in on the portrayal of African Americans on the big screen.   In "Seduction and Betrayal"   hooks uses   Spike Lee's Crooklyn to demonstrate how invaluable the life of a black person is.   In " Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket" she claims the Bodyguard and The Crying Game illustrate the notion that blacks, especially black females, are inferior to whites. In Toni Morrison's introduction to Birth of a Nation'hood , she suggests these same views by looking at the O.J. Simpson case.   Through the use of these movies and courtcases, hooks and Morrison suggest that blacks are viewed as worthless, violent criminals, who are subordinate to the white race. hooks believes, " The racial politics of Hollywood is such that there can be no serious representation of death and dying when the characters are African-Americans" (99). By stating this, she implies that black life in movies is thought of as useless.   She finds that the majority of black death in movies is done through violence. An example of such a   film is Paris Trout in which a young girl is brutally murdered and her relatives "too cowardly to save or avenge her life, ...willingly show the lawyer who will defend her killer the blood stains left by her dragging body, the bullet holes in the walls.   Her life is worth nothing"( hooks, 100).   Not even the girl's own family could find worth in her life. Her relatives cared so little that they were willing to accept money to show her kil... ...al of black life are the views shared by the majority of Americans.   Their views on this portrayal of blacks in America can be summed up in a quote taken from Melville's Benito Cereno, "We will see what the American...wanted to see: the head of the Negro 'fixed on a pole in the Plaza" (27). Works Cited hooks, bell.   "Seduction and Betrayal." Writing as Re-Vision: A Student's Anthology.   Ed.   Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster Custom   Publishing, 1998. 108-111. hooks, bell.   "Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket." Writing as Re-Vision: A   Student's Anthology.   Ed. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights:   Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1998. 99-107. Morrison, Toni. Introduction. Birth of a Nation'hood. Ed. Toni Morrison and Claudia   Brodsky Lacour.   New York: Pantheon Books, 1997.   7-28.