Black Cops, Spies and Overseers

Programmed by Steven W. Thrasher and Jesse Trussell

The silver screen is replete with Black cops who make us laugh (Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop, OJ Simpson’s Officer Nordberg in The Naked Gun, Cleavon Little's Bart in Blazing Saddles) and Black spies who question the American empire (Tamara Dobson in Cleopatra Jones, Lawrence Cook in The Spook Who Sat by the Door). Are these films “only a movie” or “just funny”—or are they policing the boundaries of our imaginations? Inspired by Steven W. Thrasher’s book The Overseer Class, this series of 12 American films made over 70 years challenges our assumptions about the performance of dramatic Black police (Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night, Denzel Washington in Training Day), outright overseers (Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained, Poitier in Band of Angels), and even queerbaiting undercover spies (Al Pacino in Cruising).