Black Film Through A Psychodynamic Lens

by Dr. Katherine Marshall Woods

Black Film Through a Psychodynamic Lens delves into the nuanced character development and narrative themes within the struggles and successes presented in Black films over the last five decades.

In this pioneering book, Katherine Marshall Woods looks at Black cinema from a psychological and psychoanalytic perspective. Focusing on a decade at a time, she charts the development of representation and creative output from the 1980s to the present day. She deftly moves from analyzing depictions of poverty and triumphs to highlighting the importance of cinema in shaping cultural identity while considering racial prejudice and discrimination. Adopting theoretical viewpoints from Freud to bell hooks, Marshall Woods examines the damaging effect on cultural psychology as a result of stereotypical racial tropes, and expertly demonstrates the healing that can be found when one sees oneself represented in an honest light in popular art.

From Do The Right Thing, The Color Purple and Malcolm X to contemporary classics like 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther and American Fiction, this book is an essential read for those interested in the intersection between Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Film Theory and African American cultural identity.

Paperback | 146 pages | Routledge; 1st edition | 2024

Dr. Katherine Marshall Woods, Psy.D. is a media psychologist and licensed clinical psychologist in Washington, DC. She is a member of core faculty with The George Washington University Professional Psychology Program and is in private practice serving those with a history of trauma. Dr. Marshall Woods spearheads PsychMinded Media that affords her the opportunity to work with actors, screenwriters, producers, and directors and collaborate with film festivals in the US and abroad. Dr. Marshall Woods co-leads the Psychoanalytic Takes on Cinema with the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and is developer of Cinematic Imprints with American Psychological Association’s Division 39, Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology.