When (mostly white) critics say old movies/Scorsese/period films/pre-code cinema/&etc were “made for white people” or “the elites” do they realise how that language erases the many POC who enjoy, critique and write excellently on these films?

If POC critics could only enjoy and write on films made for POC we’d have little to cling to. Cinema, as a medium, is white. We negotiate our relationship with cinema. POC can see ourselves in film without seeing ourselves on screen. (The same is untrue for many white audiences.)

Critiquing whiteness in cinema is essential. But dismissing X facet as “for white people” shuts POC critics out because we aren’t allowed to write on those films because they’re not for us. Those old movies? “They’re for white people.” Like new cinema is so diverse. Yeah right.

Meanwhile some of the most insightful investigations of Kate/Audrey/Bette/Orson/Marty/Barbra/Barbara/etc etc has been my POC writers. Sure, it wasn’t “made for us”. But that’s not going to stop us from making it for us.

Old movies may not be made with many of us (POC/queer/Global South) in mind. But look how our love for it has made discussions of it richer. You don’t have to be white to like them. And you don’t have to be white to write about them.

(Hire POC critics who like old movies.)