Black Like Me
Directed by Carl Lerner
Written by Carl and Gerda Lerner from a book by John Howard Griffin
1964/USA
The Hilltop Company
First viewing/YouTube
[box] “Nothing can describe the withering horror of this. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you. It was so new I could not take my eyes from the man’s face. I felt like saying: “What in God’s name are you doing to yourself?” ― John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me[/box]
This is the true story of a white reporter who chemically changed the color of his skin so he could experience life for Black people in the deep South. Unfortunately, James Whitmore is an excellent actor but he would not have a prayer of convincing the smallest child that he was really African-American. Kind of ruined the film for me.
Texan reporter John Howard Griffin underwent a series of injections and “sun treatments” that temporarily darkened his skin. The idea was that he would pass for black in the deep South. He traveled throughout the South and experienced and experienced an incredible amount of ingnorance, bigotry and hatred.
I’m still on the fence about this one. Whitmore and the director made no effort to disguise the character’s essential intellectual whiteness. I tend to think that was the right decision but it made me question the credibility of the whole story..
