Why Are Black People So Loud in Movies!?!

Scandal, Anderson Cooper 360, Steven Spielberg films, Tyler Perry films (especially Tyler Perry films), Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, documentaries, sit-coms…It doesn’t matter what it is, if I’m watching it with Black people, someone is always going to be yelling at the screen. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there like “ Stop.Talking. I guarantee that they cannot hear you.” Don’t get me wrong; I promise I’m not that pretentious. But goodnessssss! I’d like to be able to actually hear the movie!

People talking through television shows and movies is one of my biggest pet peeves. When I watch something, especially a narrative, I want to be immersed in the screen as fully as possible. I want to enter the characters’ world. That becomes difficult when people are talking through movies.  Here’s the issue: I’m Black; I can’t escape it. Now we enter into the world of stereotypes: watermelon, athletic superiority, cerebral inferiority, fried chicken, and, you guessed it, being exceptionally loud when we watch movies. We can trace many stereotypes to systems of White supremacy manifesting themselves through the media. However, even though it gets on my nerves, Black verbal participation in film watching may be able to be traced back to something more positive. 

I am an African-American Studies and Drama double major (well, intended major, but let’s not talk details.) So when I got to college, I was immediately attracted to this class titled African-American Theater. Let me tell you, this class was pure fire. One concept that we focused on was the idea of “call-and-response.” In its most basic form, call-and-response is when one person or group of people says or does something and another person or group of people reacts to it. Fairly simple, right? Although this concept seems uncomplicated, it is something that enslaved Africans carried with them to America from the Motherland, deeply engrained in Black diasporic culture. I first became aware of call in response in the church. “Jesus on the mainline…” 10 bucks says you just sang, “…Tell him what you want.” Call-and-response is even a part of hip-hop. “Say hey!” …I rest my case. 

This African influence is also heavily present in Black theater. Because African and Black theater was first presented as ritual (and still should be), call-and-response is a fundamental part of creating the necessary communal experience. Theater is live for a reason. It is a relationship between performer and audience. As an actor, I can tell you that the audience’s energy can shift the entire tone of a performance. I’ve grown to become more aware and appreciative of this relationship in Black theater. My first college theater experience was working on our production of Marcus Gardley’s Every Tongue Confess. In that play, both the playwright and director truly wanted audience members to respond and talk back to the actors. 

I think that this concept of call-and-response applies to film, too. We are finding a way to turn simply watching into a collective experience. I like to think of film as theater’s first cousin on her mama’s side, so that makes sense. We find call-and-response in our music, our worship, our conversation, and our performance. It is actually very fitting that we would seek to find it in cinema. Community is at the center of Black culture. It cannot flourish with people existing in individual bubbles. Perhaps wanting to block all verbal response to television and movies is counterproductive. I’d like to find a way to incorporate call-and-response into my writing. Connecting with people on a subconscious cultural level can be powerful.

Maybe it’s ridiculous for me to expect my brothers and sisters to sit quietly like church mice because our mice come fully equipped with tambourines. Why should I expect our cultural DNA to disappear every time that I press play?  Yes, there are times to screen quietly, but I’m discovering that the times when the background noise is equal to that of the speakers have value, too. Our varied idiosyncrasies make us who we are. Even though some of them can be annoying, if we look hard enough, there are things within them to love. From now on, I’m going to try to put annoyance aside and appreciate the sideline chatter for the synergetic moments that it can create. It's gonna take some prayer, but I'll try...for art's sake...