Andre Seewood's Latest Mischaracterized

I was truly saddened and deeply offended by Arts & Entertainment Editor, Isaac Elster’s tepid review of my book, SLAVE CINEMA: The Crisis of the African-American in Film, (“Andre Seewood’s latest disappoints,” in The South End, Jan. 28th-Feb. 3rd 2009). It was a review which deliberately mischaracterized my work by its use of glib and incorrect summaries of my book’s main ideas and major themes and unsubstantiated conjecture. It was clear to me from reading the review that Mr. Elster did not thoroughly read my book nor did he earnestly comprehend its contents.
For one, I do not define independent cinema as,” films that are made with the creator’s singular vision and often are without the backing of major studios,” as Mr. Elster defines it in his piece. Instead, I define the independence of a filmmaker,” by the heretical nature of the content, theme or form of a specific film or body of work that challenges the status quo; that goes against the generally accepted notions… in an effort to augment humanity’s potential for good.” (pg.31) The opening section of my book explores why it is so difficult for African-American independent filmmakers to practice this heretical operation in their independent films.
Secondly, the second section of my book does not,” explore five stereotypes of African-Americans in film,” as Mr. Elster erroneously described. The second section of my book looks at,” five assumptions [about race that] provide a perceptual frame through which the African-American audience view themselves in film.” (pg.37) For the record, I spent 50 pages in my book discussing major films and the historical and social circumstances that have contributed to these assumptions as well as the major films and filmmakers who have tried to debunk these assumptions. What is insightful about this section is how it shows white and African-American filmmakers breaking these assumptions while simultaneously examining the various dramatic and formal strategies employed by these filmmakers in their films.
Thirdly, it was completely unsubstantiated conjecture for Mr. Elster to state that,” probably because he had not written as much as his editors wanted- Seewood goes off on several tangents,” in reference to the three appendices that close my book. The appendices of my book interrelate to the representation of race, class, sexuality in the media and the role of the African-American artist in his or her own community and are not as Elster glibly describes,” tangents.” It was this type of mean-spirited conjecture that reveals that my book was not thoroughly read and further betrays the negative bias of Mr. Elster against my work that prohibited a fair review.
Where Mr. Elster does begrudgingly praise the third section of my book for being passionately written, he immediately poisons that praise by saying that I am making a point that,” many could discover for themselves.” It is just such an attitude of begrudging praise and hateful rejection that I feel poisons a healthy debate about African-American cinema and contributes to the very aesthetic and ideological problems within the African-American community that I discuss in my book. Finally, I do not pick,” bones with Tyler Perry,” as Mr. Elster states, but instead I examine what factors have contributed to African-American filmmaker Tyler Perry’s recent success and what his success might mean for up and coming African-American filmmakers. Readers were also not told where the book could be purchased on-line or the price of the trade paperback. It is for all of these reasons that I have detailed above that I am certain that my book was not thoroughly read, fully comprehended nor fairly reviewed.
In many ways Mr. Elster's review epitomizes a larger problem within the African-American community today that can be summarized as the intolerance of critical thinking and new ideas that critique deeply entrenched social norms. It leads one to suspect that "the mis-education of the negro" begins at home. For instance, Mr. Elster calls much of my book "filler", but what he is really calling filler is my analysis of various important films that either substantiate my arguments or throw light upon dynamic changes within the American film industry. Films like, MISSION TO MARS (featuring Don Cheadle), JACKIE BROWN, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968 version), THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (John Sayles), IDLEWILD, ATL, MALCOLM X, APOCALYPSE NOW, NOTHIN' BUT A MAN, CRASH, MYSTIC RIVER, and others are discussed in my book because they reflect the advances and retrenchments of American cinema as it concerns African-Americans. In looking over my book, there are a few typos (nobody's perfect), but not nearly as many as Mr.Elster intimates in his review. He mentions the fact that I misspelled Will Smith's film IN THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, but must beg for mercy here because that was a computer spell check mistake. I am inclined to believe that because Mr. Elster was either unable or unwilling to comprehend some of the major concepts I used in my book, he used Occam's Razor to cover for his own ignorance and decided that I had misspelled more words than he understood. Concepts like, Cognitive Dissonance and Heresy are explained clearly and relate directly to the themes of my book, but you would never know it from Mr. Elster's review. I have decided to respond to his review because it was so poisonous that I wanted to post an antidote as soon as possible to counteract the negativity. SLAVE CINEMA: The Crisis of the African-American in Film is available at www.amazon.com, www.xlibris.com, www.barnesandnoble.com. The soft cover is $19.99. The book is 202 pages in length.