bell hooks
Also Known As: Gloria Watkins, Gloria Jean Watkins
Biography: Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 - December 15, 2021) better known by her pen name as bell hooks, was a professor, social activist, public intellectual, cultural critic, feminist and author of 40 books, including Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, Black Looks: Race and Representation, Reel to Real, and All About Love: New Visions. In 2014, the bell hooks Center was founded at Berea College in Kentucky. In 2021, hooks died of kidney failure at her home, following a brief period of illness.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Hopkinsville, Kentucky, USA
Adult: No
Deathday: December 15, 2021
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BaadAsssss Cinema
Overview: With archive film clips and interviews, this brief look at a frequently overlooked historical period of filmmaking acts as an introduction rather than a complete record. It features interviews with some of the genre's biggest stars, like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree. Director Melvin Van Peebles discusses the historical importance of his landmark film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. For a contemporary perspective, the excitable Quentin Tarantino offers his spirited commentary and author/critic bell hooks provides some scholarly social analysis.
Genres: Action Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-08-14
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My Feminism
Overview: In an era of antifeminist backlash, this articulate documentary by the makers of Thank God I’m a Lesbian forcefully reminds us that the revolution continues. Powerful interviews with feminist leaders including bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, and Urvsahi Vaid are intercut with documentary sequences to engagingly explore the past and present status of the women’s movement. Discussing the unique contributions of second wave feminism, they explore their racial, economic and ideological differences and shared vision of achieving equality for women. Anessential component of women’s studies curricula, My Feminism introduces feminism’s key themeswhile exposing the cultural fears underlying lesbian baiting, backlash, and political extremism.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-10-17
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I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America
Overview: Award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt explores what it means to be a Black man in America. Traveling to more than fifteen cities and towns across the country, Hurt gathers reflections on Black masculinity from men and women of a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and a host of leading scholars and cultural critics. What results is an engaging and honest dialogue about race, gender, and identity in America. Features bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, John Henrick Clarke, Kevin Powell, Andrew Young, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, MC Hammer, Jackson Katz, and many others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-08-04
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Happy to Be Nappy and Other Stories of Me
Overview: Today there are more reasons than ever for families to explore and celebrate diversity. Our ever-expanding world is full of differences in abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, family structures, religious faiths, interests and cultures. This documentary introduces your family to children who are not only celebrating how they are unique, but who are also learning from and appreciating the differences in others.
Genres: Animation Family Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2004-02-24
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Becoming bell hooks
Overview: Explore the life and legacy of Kentucky-born author bell hooks, who wrote nearly 40 books and whose work at the intersection of race, class and gender serves as a lasting contribution to the feminist movement. Learn how bell’s childhood in Hopkinsville and her connection to Kentucky’s “hillbilly culture” informed her views and her belief that feminism is for everybody. Becoming bell hooks, a one-hour documentary, features selections read by Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and interviews with feminist activist Gloria Steinem, Kentucky writers Crystal Wilkinson and Silas House, bell’s younger sister Gwenda Motley and many others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2024-02-27
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Hillbilly
Overview: A documentary that examines the cultural stereotype of the people of Appalachia and how that has affected America's relationship with its rural communities.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-05-19
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bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation
Overview: bell hooks is one of America's most accessible public intellectuals. In this two-part video, extensively illustrated with many of the images under analysis, she makes a compelling argument for the transformative power of cultural criticism.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-01-01
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Black Is… Black Ain’t
Overview: African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-06-01
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bell hooks: Dialogue on Transgressive Sexual Practice
Overview: An open dialogue at The New School (Eugene Lang College) moderated by renowned feminist author bell hooks in conversation with Samuel “Chip” Delany (acclaimed Sci-Fi author of: Nova; Dhalgren; Times Square Red, Times Square Blue), M. Lamar (composer, video artist, and sculptor), and Marci Blackman (award-winning author of Po Man's Child: A Novel and Tradition). The discussion examines how engaging in transgressive sexual practices can provide a space in which one may work through the traumas inflicted by the oppressive forces that constitute, as hooks terms it, the system of "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy."
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-08-15
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