Black Children in Hollywood Cinema

"Throughout the book, Olson contextualizes her analysis of filmic texts with reference to changing historical attitudes towards black children in the United States, and to the treatment of black children in critical and scholarly discourses. Overall, it is a solid, well-researched and eminently readable book that addresses a significant gap in film and cultural scholarship. While there have been numerous in-depth studies of children and childhood in popular film, particularly centering on Hollywood cinema, to date the study of black children in Hollywood cinema has largely been neglected. In this sense, Black Children in Hollywood Cinema is an important intervention in four international areas of scholarship: film studies, childhood studies, cultural studies, and American studies." (Noel Brown, author of "The Hollywood Family Film: A History, from Shirley Temple to Harry Potter" (2012) and "British Children's Cinema: From the Thief of Bagdad to Wallace and Gromit"< (2016))

This book explores cultural conceptions of the child and the cinematic absence of black children from contemporary Hollywood film. Olson looks at historical conceptions of childhood within scholarly discourse, the child character in popular film and what space the black child (both African and African American) occupies within that ideal.

This book explores cultural conceptions of the child and the cinematic absence of black children from contemporary Hollywood film. Debbie Olson argues that within the discourse of children’s studies and film scholarship in relation to the conception of “the child,” there is often little to no distinction among children by race—the “child” is most often discussed as a universal entity, as the embodiment of all things not adult, not (sexually) corrupt. Discussions about children of color among scholars often take place within contexts such as crime, drugs, urbanization, poverty, or lack of education that tend to reinforce historically stereotypical beliefs about African Americans. Olson looks at historical conceptions of childhood within scholarly discourse, the child character in popular film and what space the black child (both African and African American) occupies within that ideal.