The author of this article talks about the movement how Hollywood uses different techniques to contain the masculinity represented in the black masculine body, thus containing the black masculinity in the background. There are several techniques that Hollywood uses, ranging from using the black male detective as a totally supressed protagonist, to moving him as a sidekick, i.e.the role of a buddy and moving his character to a frontend protagonist with a buddy of his own, but interestingly enough this buddy takes the form of a white woman.

Self representations of black masculinity in the United States are structured in history by and against the dominating discourses of masculinity and rac, in other words whiteness. For example, jazz music holds a great significance in this. Artists of the 1950s and 1960s, most notably Miles Davis and fellow musician John Coltrane, can be viewed as emblamatic of the whole complexity of the social relations issue (pertaining to class, race and sexuality) and also political culture views which surround the construction and representation of the black masculinity in the public. As modern innovators in musical aesthetics, cultural vision, and personal style, these men challenged dominant cultural assumptions about masculinity and whiteness.

How strong is this cultural embedding that it permeates our cultural associations of blackness far beyond the visual (e.g. music, language, sporting culture etc)?