No Black Prince for Disney’s Tiana?

Black women across America gave a collective “It’s about time” when Disney announced pre-production on a film featuring a black princess. Disney has traveled a long road to move from its early caricatures of lazy, big-lipped, bug-eyed, zoot-suited blacks to Princess Tiana, an energetic, smart and in-charge heroine. But as the national release of The [...]

Why Precious is Important (Movie Review)

After I agreed to write a review for the movie Precious I began to wonder if I’m the right person to do so. I say this because I am by no means a big movie-goer. In fact Precious is only the third movie I’ve seen this year — He’s Just Not That Into You and [...]

Movies With Meaning: American Casino, Skin Deep, and TEN9EIGHT

As much as we were looking forward to seeing Chris Rock’s Good Hair, the reviews from the “girlfriend focus group” aren’t very positive. General consensus: Should have gone straight to cable to begin with. However, there are three movies/documentaries opening that have meaning and relevance to our lives and communities: American Casino: Filmed over twelve [...]

Black on Black Neglect: Hook A Brotha Up

AverageBro.com has a guest post by Janks Morton, an independent black filmmaker, on how the “hook a brotha up” mentality is ruining independent black film. Janks, producer/director of Boys To Men and What Black Men Think, begrudgingly makes a plea for African Americans to support independent black film with the $$$ and stop getting bootleg [...]

blackgirlgrown Reading List

Below are some of our favorite reads on a number of issues featured here on blackgirlgrown.  We’d love to hear about your favorite books and how they’ve made a difference in your life.  books available through Amazon.com black women: Maya Angelou’s new book, Letter to My Daughter, is a wonderful book and a quick read [...]

Courtland Milloy: What’s So Funny About Madea?

Courtland Milloy writes in The Washington Post: There is nothing funny about this black man in pantyhose. And where is all of this cross-dressing-black-man stuff coming from, anyway? First, comedians Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence star in high-grossing movies as the fattest, ugliest black women that Hollywood makeup artists can conjure up, and now here’s [...]