What Black Panthers taught Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles didn’t have the typical upbringing of his San Francisco schoolmates.
When he was young, his father, filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, would take him to Black Panthers meetings in Oakland. There, the actor said, he was taught “the power of imagery,” such as, how the Panthers settled on their iconic black berets.
“The Black Panthers, they said the Oakland Police Department are not really here to protect and serve but patrol and control,” Van Peebles, 67, recalled during a virtual news conference from the RBA Creative fine art gallery in Oakland on Monday, April 29. “They’re the occupier. So who stood up against the Nazis in France? The French Resistance, with their black berets. A black beret is resistance to the colonizers.”
The reason Van Peebles was back in Oakland was to present his new film “Outlaw Posse,” as writer-director-star in which the film’s hero wears a black hat, similar to the chapeau of choice for a 19th century Panther. The film had two screenings on Tuesday, April 30, at the Grand Lake Theatre and is now available for rental or purchase online.
“Outlaw Posse” is what Van Peebles calls “edutainment,” a genre tale that compares and contrasts the regressive nature of 19th century society with today. The movie is an ironic nod to spaghetti Westerns — the specialty of Clint Eastwood, who cast Van Peebles in his first important role in the 1986 film “Heartbreak Ridge” — but veers into more enlightened territory.
The film co-stars Van Peebles’ son Mandela Van Peebles, with small roles filled by Whoopi Goldberg, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward James Olmos and the late M. Emmet Walsh.
Van Peebles’ father was Melvin Van Peebles, a San Francisco cable car operator before he became a social-issues-oriented blaxploitation filmmaker (“Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song”). His mother, German-born actress Maria Marx, was a free-spirited hippie who went to UC Berkeley, got him his first stage role at age 11, and took him to see bands such as Jefferson Airplane.
“My mother showed me the mountain,” Van Peebles said. “My dad showed me how to climb it.”