How Film and TV Can Solve Racism with Ellen E Jones and film screening: The Associate (1997)

The Associate, starring Whoopi Goldberg, is a hugely entertaining, but now largely forgotten ‘90s comedy about what it takes to make it on Wall Street, and how, what it takes — if you’re a Black women with dreads — is inventing an entirely fictional rich white man to impersonate, using prosthetics and lots of cigar-smoking. 

This screening will be followed by a talk with Ellen E Jones, Guardian journalist, BBC Radio 4 broadcaster and author of Screen Deep: How film and TV can solve racism and save the world. She’ll discuss ‘whiteface’ in the movies; why The Associate was so despised by critics after its original release, Whoopi Goldberg’s own various race scandals and why she remains an important figure in the history of the civil rights movement on screen, from The Colour Purple (1985) to Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) and last year’s incredible Till.