Ethnic Notions

Ethnic Notions is a 1987 video essay documentary film directed by Marlon Riggs. It examines anti-Black stereotypes that permeated popular culture from the ante-bellum period until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Content
Ethnic Notions takes viewers on a disturbing voyage through American history, tracing the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-Black prejudice. Through these images, we can understand the evolution of racial consciousness in the United States.

Ethnic Notions exposes and describes common stereotypes (The Tom, The Sambo, The Mammy, The Coon, The Brute, The Pickaninnies, The Minstrels) from the period surrounding the Civil War and the World Wars. The stereotypes roll across the screen in cartoons, feature films, popular songs, minstrel shows, advertisements, folklore, household artifacts, and even children's rhymes. Narration by Esther Rolle and commentary by respected scholars [Barbara Christian, UC Berkeley; Pat Turner, University of Massachusetts, Boston; George Fredrickson, Stanford University; Leni Sloan: choreographer; Carlton Moss: University of California, Irvine; Lawrence Levine, University of California, Berkeley ] shed light on the origins and devastating consequences of 150 years of these dehumanizing caricatures. Widely influenced by Jim Crow, a dance to depict black people which was widely televised, people in small towns who had never seen black people were easily influenced by Jim Crow = dancing black carefree Sambo on television a plantation was depicted as a happy paradise Sambo is a happy black in their proper place.

The documentary touches upon issues of servility, sexuality, appearances, the "noble" savage, and most evidently, the impact of mass media on the image of African Americans—especially the exaggerated physical image of a very dark person with very bright, large lips, very white eyes and large unkempt hair—and how this affects the self-image of the African American. The insidious images exacted a devastating toll on Black Americans.

Reception
Ethnic Notions has become a mainstay of university, high school, and public library collections and the most widely seen of Marlon Riggs’ work. It won a National EMMY Award in 1988.