From Mammies, Mulattos, and Pickaninniesto

Superwomen, Bitches, and Hos: Permutations in the media's construction of African-American

Femininity

By Sybil DioNe

Original Paper,Work in Progress

Ant 6933 Women, Gender, and Change in the African DiasporaDr. Irma McClaurin

Fall 1998Watching and waiting for the real Me

I still remember the contagious excitement that my

parents exhibited,

when they saw a Black face on television. We were so

accustomed to being invisible in the media that we were

mesmerized by the chocolate versions of sitcom characters

and when these images of ourselves came to life on the

silver screen we were so excited that we never questioned

how these images were being constructed. I, as many

Americans my age, am an avid television viewer and moviegoer

and these facts have inevitably influenced my construction

of reality. I grew up believing that Jane Kennedy was the

epitome of Black beauty but that Brooke Sheilds was the

ultimate beauty. I wanted Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, even

though she didn't want people like me wearing them; And I

believed that later in life I would be able to, " bring home

the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, never, never,

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let you forget you're a man--cause I'm a woman." I would

grow up and be a Black woman, quintessentially.

Well, here I am the quintessence of Black woman hood

and although my beauty ideals have changed, I no longer

support products that don't support my people, and the only

bacon I fry is for me -- I am still enthralled by the images

of Blacks that are broadcast on the silver screen. However,

I now question the content of the characters presented to me

for consumption and I don't like what I am being fed; thus,

I sieve through films with a strainer constructed of Black

feminist theory and I am suspicious about the innovation and

mazeway reformation I see occurring throughout the African-

American community. I keep asking myself, "Don't we

remember who we used to be? Don't we see who they say we

are? Don't people realize that watching this stuff makes us

believe that eventually we should do it too? " (See,

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg on perception triggering

behavior in line with activated constructs 1998).

Karen Perkins (1996) specifically discusses the

detrimental psychological affects that television and film

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may have on African-Americans. Perkins points out that

Blacks are rarely the unit of analysis when psychologist

study the media's affects on personality and self-concept,

so it is unclear whether or not beauty concepts among

African-American women are defined by the dominant culture

or internal factors. However, considering Dijksterhuis and

Perkins work together, allows me to conclude that the media

does influence these perceptions in women regardless of

their racial backgrounds. And what makes more sense if you

are practicing cultural domination? The best way to

propagate cultural domination is to create a paradigm where

the subordinates are all aspiring to be like the members of

the dominant class. This becomes a construct, which

pleasantly controls the members of the subordinate class

while reinforcing the value of dominant rule (Jackman 1994).

Sweetly, silently, and swiftly the masses convert themselves

and pay homage to the dominant paradigm; this is the essence

of mazeway reformulation and innovation.

Historically African-American women were constructed as

Pickaninnies, Mammies, and Tragic Mulattos and many people

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believe that these stereotypes died with the popularity of

overt racism. However, I assert that just as racism has

become an unconscious and covert process, so has, the

marginalization, subjugation, and dehumanization of African-

American women in film. Mammies, Mulattos, and

Pickaninnies have not died; instead, they have been reborn

in the modern film genre as Superwomen, Bitches, and Hos.

Method

In order to understand the world around us African-

Americans are forced to look deeper into things, past the

obvious and into the sub-terrain of reality. We are forced

to deconstruct reality because we have been excluded from

reality for so long that our absence seems natural to

everyone but us. And when we are faced with our presence,

we are often so delighted that we don't examine the subtext

associated with our being. This occurs daily as African-

American women readily listen to rap songs that call us

Bitches and Hos. The openly misogynistic nature of rap lends

itself to academic discourse, however, when the medium is

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film this same discourse is often verbal and only expressed

among friends. For example in her article, The Oppositional

Gaze: Black Female Spectators, (1994), bell hooks points out that,

It is difficult to talk when you feel no one is

listening, when you feel as though a

special jargon or narrative has been created that only the

chosen can understand. No wonder then that Black women

have for the most part confined our critical commentary on

film to conversations (297).

For far too long African-American women have declined to

write about their experience as spectators and this paper is

an effort to document the sentiments on our film image as

revealed to me through conversations I participated in over

the past few years. Theory building starts from the ground

up and thus it must begin within the people (Gwaltney 1993).

Through personal conversations, Black women deconstruct the

stereotypes forced upon them, and these practices result in

theory building. I have culled these deconstructed

realities and formed a paradigm of stereotypes, which can be

used for further study and comparison. Still, analyzing an

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artistic endeavor is difficult and I turned to the fields of

sociology and social psychology to assist me in decoding an

art form.

To guide me in my deconstruction of these films I

reviewed Karl Mannheim's work entitled, On the Interpretation of

Welthanschauungen (1959), that suggests a method for

comprehending artistic products. Mannheim advises that

artistic analysis should be conducted on three levels; first

describe the objective meaning or discuss the work in fact;

second describe the expressive meaning or explain the

beliefs and outlooks that emerge from the work and; finally

conduct an interpretive analysis of the work and attempt to

reveal its' deeper meaning (81). This is the format that my

film analysis will follow, by using excerpts from the video

release boxes I will introduce the reader to an objective

description of the film, then I will discuss the expressive

meaning of the film, and finally I will provide my

interpretive analysis of the film. However, I conduct this

analysis with the use of my self-constructed stereotypes;

the Superwoman, the Bitch, and the Ho. But, these images

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have foremothers whom we must discuss in order to clarify

their internally coded modern images.

A History of the Stereotypes

The media began the construction of the Black female

image as a subplot to the Black male image. In his book,

Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, and Bucks (1994), Donald

Bogle outlines the history of the Black image in film.

Bogle documents the creation of the Uncle Tom, a good Negro

that was more likely to kill his own children than turn

against his white master; And his naughty alter ego the

Coon, which is a stereotype made up of the Pickaninny and

the Uncle Remus. For my analysis I am focusing on the

Pickaninny which is a, "harmless, little screwball creation

whose eyes popped, whose hair stood on end with the least

excitement, and whose antics were pleasing and diverting"

(Bogle 1994: 7). It is this image of the Pickaninny that

served as the media's initial coded depiction of Black

womanhood. This image is created by using Black female

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children as Pickaninnies in cartoons, and eventually in

film.

In the modern film genre, the Pickaninny has become the

Ho. The Ho is woman with loose morals, she is crazy

acting, stupid, and comedic. Just as her predecessor the

Pickaninny, the Ho is engineered to produce laughter,

thereby indicating her contentment with the system and her

place in it. The next and probably the best known image of

the African-American woman in film is the Mammy.

The Mammy is a dark skinned, fat, woman with a rag on

her head that runs the master's kitchen and her husband's

life, if she has one. Her cantankerous, independent, and

militant nature is only tolerated because of her domestic

skill. She is a Coon in a dress but, eventually she becomes

Aunt Jemima , the wife of Uncle Tom, when she abandons her

domineering ways and wedges herself into the dominant white

culture (Bogle 1994:9). As Aunt Jemima she gave up her

bossy ways and became a sweet tempered polite servant. In a

subtle combination of these two stereotypes, Hattie McDaniel

became the first African-American actress to win an Academy

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Award as Best Supporting Actress, for her role as Mammy in

David O. Selznick's 1939 production of Gone with the Wind.

In popular culture, the Mammy has transformed herself

into the myth of the Black Superwoman. She has a full time

job, or maybe two, she runs her household, takes care of her

kids, and she doesn't have a husband because her total self-

sufficiency has made him obsolete. The Black Superwoman is

almost asexual, she never cries, and she may even pack a

gun. She is the Mammy with a briefcase, a cellular

telephone, and a BMW. However, the Mammy-Superwoman is

often forced to share the limelight with her sister the

Mulatto-Bitch.

The Mulatto is the third historical figure in this

pantheon of Black female stereotypes and she is often

characterized as the bi-racial offspring of some lascivious

Black woman and a weak white man. Or a throwback to some

genetic mishap that involved slave masters being lured into

sin by a slave girl's charms. Eventually, the Mulatto became

the Tragic-Mulatto as films repeatedly showed that her life was

doomed because of her genetic background. For example,

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director John Stahl's movie Imitation of Life (1934) epitomizes

the doomed plight of the Tragic-Mulatto. The Mulatto, Peola

rebels against her visibly Black mother in an effort to pass

as white and doing so only causes her heartache. Eventually

she returns home to find her dead mother being pulled by

white horses to her grave. Obviously these circumstances

would make anyone a Bitch and that is what the Tragic-Mulatto

has evolved into in modern film.

The Bitch is just as independent and beautiful as the

Superwoman is however, she is not nice. She screams, plays

her music LOUD, and cusses people out if they get in her

way. In some ways, she is closely aligned with pure

stereotypical Mammy, because she is cantankerous and

militant. However, she does not become a Superwoman because

she does not pleasantly obtain her independence. She

screams for it, she probably has an Afro and a Black power

afro-pick (read Angela Davis), despite her implied genetic

mixture, which says that she has straight hair. The Bitch is

the stereotype most likely to cross over into real life

because, more often than not, everyday Black women are

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characterized as Bitches by the music industry. I am a

characterized as Black Bitch. This common use of the word

Bitch as a code word for Black women, only serves to

reinforce the stereotypical images associated with the word

itself. It is this type of encoding that I will attempt to

deconstruct through interpretive analysis in this paper.

We don't Love them Hos: Data Analysis

Sensuality has often been an oxymoron where the Black

female's media image is concerned. Sex was something white

women had in the movies and Black women were only allowed to

express their sexual and social frustrations by singing,

cooking, and eating. However, the modern film industry has

allowed Black women one sexual domain, the prostitute.

While white woman hood is held up as the embodiment of good

and pure clean sexual desire, Black woman hood reins as the

evil, dirty, sexual secret in the woodpile (read

miscegenation). Black female sexuality in film is best

described by Jacquine Jones (1994) when she points out that,

"In the 1987 film Angel Heart, Mickey Rourke's figurative

descent into hell is marked by his sexual liaison with Lisa

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Bonet as a blood-drinking voodoo priestess" (253). Jones

analyzes this thematic device as it relates to the power of

outside controls exerted over Bonet and Rourke; however, my

analysis focuses on the construction of Bonet's sexual

favors as pathway to hell. This imagery evokes a code that

reads, "sex with Black women is the pathway to hell, they

are dirty, undesirable, and bad." Who wants to go to hell?

More recently, this code has been reworked to include a

comedic element reminiscent of the original Pickaninnie, now

sex with Black women isn't just bad its stupid. It is

stupid because they are stupid and being with them makes you

look stupid. A prime example of this stupidity is evidenced

by the film directed by Robert Townsend named B.A.P. 's (1997).

The video synopsis of the film B.A.P.S: Black American

Princesses, which starred Halle Berry and Martin Landau

reads,

These women are pretty and clueless. Nesi (Halle

Berry) and Mickey (Natalie Desselle) are two waitresses at

a crossroads. Underpaid and unappreciated they dream of a

combination restaurant/hair salon. There's a problem:

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they're broke. So when the chance to audition as dance

girls for a music video pops up, the girls head out to LA

They fail to get the part, but Nesi lands in the most

improbable role of all, impersonating the granddaughter of

an ailing billionaire's (Martin Landau) long lost love

for $10,000 and full use of his Beverly Hills

estate...Anything's possible when you're B.A.P.S!

Now most people I know won't admit to having seen this

movie. I did, I even saw it in the theatre, and I can't

really say why. Perhaps it was the lure of the imagery

surrounding the code word B.A.P.: Black American Princess,

and my misguided belief that the movie would offer some

validation of this alternative stereotype thus, exalting the

Black woman. NOT. Perhaps in some ways, the movie

reflected the outlooks and beliefs of uneducated and

unemployed women that may have been Black in the artist

mind, but in the filmic expression, the characters simply

emerged as low class Hos. Even here, using the coded word

Ho implies that these women were of African descent because

in popular culture Hos are envisioned as Black. An

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interpretation of this movie reveals that the coded meaning

behind B.A.P. 's , which was originally synonymous with

J.A.P.'s, Jewish American Princess, has been restructured

through the presentation of Nesi and Mickey as uneducated,

scheming, loud talking, and loud dressing social misfits.

B.A.P.'s is re-coded in this film to evoke an image of a

woman with big hair, long fingernails, gold teeth, and no

education. Nesi and Mickey are Pickaninnies providing

entertainment and not challenging the construction of power

that was the original intent behind the notion of a

B.A.P.'s.

Similarly, Jada Pinkett Smith co-stars with Tommy

Davidson in a film directed by Daisy V.S. Mayer, called

Woo which New Line Home Video describes as:

Woo, is sexy party girl who knows what she wants---and

always gets it! When a psychic tells her she's about to

meet her match, she takes a chance on a blind date with

Tim (Tommy Davidson) a mild-mannered law student who is

more like Clark Kent than Superfly...When you see Woo,

you say WOOOO!

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Now what this objective description provided by New Line

Home Video doesn't say is that Woo is crazy. I mean the

character seems to be absolutely nuts. She rants and raves

about colognes, she throws things for no reason, she stands

on chairs in restaurants, she starts fights --in short she

acts irrationally at every turn. Perhaps the director and

the writer felt that this was a reflection of Black women's

actions in high society, however; I strongly disagree.

Interpreting Woo's actions is difficult because the movie

never provides any logical explanation for her irrational

behavior. She is a caricature of the blonde bombshell, but

she is without blonde-ness to justify her stupidity. Again,

we see the Black female image being coded as a Ho and this

time it is Crazy Ho. So although the character is allowed

to be aesthetically pleasing her bizarre behavior still

codes her as an unacceptable and potentially dangerous mate.

The next set of women are so caricaturzed that they

barely merit names in the I got the Hook Up (1998),which stars

Master P and Aj Johnson, where:

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They're a pair of small-time hucksters who go mobile--

upwardly mobile--when they turn a scammed truckload of

cellular phones into more money and beautiful, sexy

girls than they ever thought possible!

Women are again coded as objects and Hos. In this

misadventure however, we see a glimpse of the Superwoman as

the freaky sex partner of Master P. that actually works in

the security section at the cellular Phone Company.

However, her devotion to bizarre sex acts, and illegal

assistance of the Heroes/thieves, codes her as a Ho.

Several other female characters fall into the crazy Ho

arena after purchasing a television from the Heroes/thieves

and they are forced to demand a refund. These women are

easily placated by some lie provided by the Heroes/thieves,

because they are supposed to be stupid Hos, and they go away

with no resolution. Again, a closer analysis of these

characters reveals an encoded message about Black woman

hood. The one executive type was a sexual dynamo and she

was willing to risk her job and imprisonment in order to

secure a sexual relationship with Master P.. If that

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doesn't translate into a message that even if you are a

professional, you too can be a stupid Ho, I don't know what

does. The string of Ho movies seems to be never ending,

but the length of titles only shows that this is an

enduring stereotype that the media and consumers are

supporting.

The movie Booty Call (1997) starring Jamie Foxx, Tommy

Davidson, Vivica Fox, and Tamala Jones is billed as being

about:

…the one thing men and women both want: each other.

After weeks of dating, Rushon and Nikki think they

might be in love. And they know they are in lust.

There's just one problem---Nikki insist on double

dating with her best friend Lysterine on the night

Rushon has reserved for romance. So Rushon brings his

rude, crude, sex obsessed best boy Bunz to keep Lysty

busy, and turns Nikki's double date into a hilarious

date with disaster.

Well stupid things can be funny and so this film was a

commercial success. Additionally, it received many kudos

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because of the characters adherence to safe sex. But,

Lysterine, the Ho must constantly be reminded of this

requirement by her good girl friend Nikki, the Superwoman.

Even the name of this movie is coded with meaning. Among

Black College students, a booty call, refers to a

clandestine tryst, often made between individuals that are

not romantically involved on a social level. They are

simply secret lovers that don't necessarily speak in the

daylight. So based on this imagery many Black moviegoers

predetermined the movies content prior to an actual viewing.

Because of the coded title, many black moviegoers expected

to find a Ho, and they did in Lysterine, as one of the main

characters. So although the movie served as a public

service announcement for safe sex in the Black community,

the image of the Black woman as a Ho rings clear.

The final entry, although unfortunately not the final

film to portray Black women as Hos, into our pantheon of

Hos comes from Spike Lee with his film Girl 6 (1996) where,

An attractive, talented actress discovers that the only

job that she can get is working as a fantasy telephone

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operator, she decides to make the most of it. As Girl 6

she soon becomes the most popular girl in town.

What this objective description fails to point out is that

Girl 6 participates in a delusional relationship with one of

her white callers, she is eventually disappointed by this

man, and then she is stalked by yet another man. To me this

was a horror movie. Girl 6 was one step up from walking the

streets at night, however, the propaganda surrounding the

film's release characterized the movie as a comedy. I

can't really remember the funny parts because my judgment is

clouded by depression and doubt experienced by the Girl 6

character, who seems to be looking for self-affirmation from

the voices of strange men. Furthermore, the depiction of

the stalker, made my hands sweat. An interpretive analysis

of this movie must begin with how it was marketed. In my

opinion, this movie was not primarily a comedy and

characterizing it as such reduces the negative experiences

of self-doubt, low self-esteem, and the stalking of a Black

woman to an afterthought. Her pain is marginalized and she

is made into a joke. I am reminded of the cartoons and

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postcards prevalent during the beginning of this century

which often depicted little Pickaninnies sitting in the

mouths of alligators, or in other dangerous situations, but

being totally oblivious to their predicament. Decoding this

movie reveals that it is acceptable to stalk Black women

because they are Hos anyway and that it may even be funny.

Additionally, the entire issue concerning her low self-

esteem and her need for white male affirmation is lost

within Spike's attempt to turn this into a comedy. Had a

white woman been in this role, it would have aired on

Lifetime: the channel for women, as a heart wrentching story

about overcoming poor working conditions, low self-esteem,

and poverty. But, because it is a Black movie, with Black

women as actresses, it cannot be expected to support serious

drama. Decoding this message tells us that the industry is

not interested in portraying Blacks in serious situations,

unless they are busy saving whites. However, Pickaninnies

and Hos is simply one aspect of the Black female film

persona, once these women overcome their economic

disadvantages they turn into Superwomen.

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I'm not Your Superwoman

The myth of the Black Superwoman is not unfamiliar.

She is that single mother with an advanced degree, and a

partnership track job. Her hair is always done, she never

needs a break, and she certainly never needs any help. She

is the Aunt Jemima ex. Mammy that has learned to run her

own household and make it in the white world. Oprah was a

Superwoman, but then she got conscious, rich, thin, and

cocky and now she is construed as a Bitch. Black Superwomen

occupy a dubious position in the dominant film culture. On

one hand she is efficient, independent, and dependable (read

like a white man) on the other hand she is affable,

gregarious, and personable(read like a secretary). She is

the mythological perfect worker that doubly fills the

affirmative action quota, does a good job, and is a pleasant

workmate. I wish she worked for me. The first Superwoman

we will review is found in the film What's love got to do with it?

(1993), directed by Brian Gibson where:

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Ike and Tina Turner--whose turbulent relationship

eventually forces Tina to leave and face the fear, pay the

price, and find the courage to believe in herself.

The deconstruction of this movie also begins with how it was

depicted by the advertisement. Instead of being primarily a

story of abuse, the press focuses on how this abuse urged

Tina forward in her career. This focus implies that without

her abusive husband she would have not become the legendary,

"Private Dancer." This construction of Tina's reality is

simply a reflection of the prevalent belief in popular

culture that women need men to make them complete. Even

though in Tina's case she needed to get away from the man in

her life to achieve true success, the media codes the video

release of her movie, and conveys the message that she

needed him to become the super star that she is today. The

notion that without him she might have gone further, sooner

perhaps even being the female version of Michael Jackson is

never broached. Yet, even my comparison of her potential

stardom to the male superstar must be decoded to read--women

need to measure themselves against men in order to gauge

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their true success. So although she is a Superwoman, the

code reads that subconsciously she requires male validation.

Similarly, in Eve's Bayou (1997) Trimark Home Video

Describes the film as follows:

Roz Batiste (Lynn Whitfield) is a beautiful and

dedicated mother of three, who is forced to admit that

her family is falling apart due to her philandering husband

Louis (Samuel L. Jackson). Her younger daughter, Eve,

witnesses one of her father's infidelities. Struggling to

make sense of what she has seen, Eve turns to her older

sister Cisely, who dismisses her in fear of the truth,

and then to her Aunt Mozelle (Debbie Morgan), a known

psychic and rumored Black widow.

The expressive meaning in this movie can be characterized as

a nostalgic reflection on the stereotypical life of African-

Americas in the Old South. The setting is in Louisiana, in

the 1950's, and it is completed with images of voodoo and

mulattos. Roz is a Superwoman, and she manages to have a

husband as long as she is willing to permit his

philandering. However, a closer inspection of the

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characters reveal that Mozelle is also Superwoman, as she

buries husband after husband, and still manages; through

bouts with depression, to run her own business. Mozelle is

a combination of the Superwoman and the Ho, because her love

inevitably seems to lead to death. Interestingly the image

of the Superwoman is even wrapped around the child Cisely,

who fights the reality of her father's adultery with denial

and anger.

However, in The Associate (1996) starring Whoopi Goldberg,

the Black Superwoman goes one step further when:

Whoopi plays a fast-track executive who starts her own

company after a backstabbing co-worker (Tim Daly) nabs

her promotion. But when she's locked out of the stuffy

corporate world, she invents a dazzling male business

partner to sell her idea! Her wacky plan soon spins

wildly out of control, however, when her bogus

"associate" becomes Wall Streets hottest financial

whiz---and Whoopi herself must impersonate him!

So, instead of simply acting like a white man, she actually

transforms herself into a drag impersonation of a white man.

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This movies expressive meaning reflects a societal belief

that women must don a white male persona in order to succeed

in big business. However, for African-American woman the

interpretation is coded with images of the Black Superwoman

who is so good at doing her job that she can pass as a white

man and does. She is freed from her subconscious

requirement for a man by becoming a man, however, even the

act of becoming a man in order to validate her business

opinion reeks with the coded message that she must aspire to

be like a man in order to succeed. In overcoming the man,

she actually succumbs to him by allowing him to remain her

standard marker of success. Despite its prevalence, the

Black Superwoman myth has recently been over taken in the

media, by images of the Ho and the Black Bitch.

The Black Bitch emerges from the Superwoman image when

the media learns that the character has a will of her own.

Being vocally independent, aggressive, assertive, and

demanding are all the traits of the Black Bitch. The word

Bitch has been further encoded through its use in hip-hop

music. As mentioned previously, "Bitch Better have My

26

Money" are the acutal lyrics in a rap song (1990), comedians

unabashedly call women Bitch on BET's comic view, and movies

are not hesitant to use the word when referring to Black

women. In part the Super-Black Bitch image comes from Pam

Grier, and her stint in the blaxsploitation films of the

1970's.

However, Quentin Tarantino has seen fit to revive this

image in his movie Jackie Brown (1997) which is described by

Buena Vista Home Entertainment as follows:

What do sexy stewardess (Pam Grier), a street-tough gun

runner (Samuel L. Jackson), a lonely bail bondsmen

(Robert Forester), a shifty ex-con (Robert De Niro), an

earnest federal agent (Michael Keaton) and a stoned-out

beach bunny (Bridget Fonda) have in common? They're six

players on the trail of a half million dollars in cash! The

only questions are ...who's getting played...and who's

gonna make the big score!

Well Jackie Brown's expressive content can be gauged by the

movies commercial success. I believe that this success is

possible primarily because of the movie's gangster theme.

27

According to the National Coalition on TV Violence,

Americans are fascinated by the portrayal of violence; and

Jackie Brown provides, random acts of violence for amusement.

For example, Bridget Fonda is shot because she won't shut

up. Interpreting the role of the Black Female in this movie

requires that we look at the character's history, she is a

flight attendant that has been busted for drug trafficking,

thus when she should be about to retire from the airline

industry she is hustling in a low paying dead end job. At

one point in her life, she was the Black Superwoman, however

her deleterious ways brought her down in old age, and she

has become the Black Bitch. To me the strongest part of this

films coded message reads, "older professional Black women

become Bitches, especially if they don't succeed." After

being a young gun toting (deadly) Superwoman, Pam Grier is

reduced to a burnt out looking, but still beautiful, bitter

scam artist.

However, young Black women that are characterized as

Bitches are often more deadly. For example, in the Martin

28

Lawrence's production of A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, (1996);

New Line Home Video describes the movie as follows:

In the game of love, Darnell Right (Martin Lawrence) is

the ultimate player. His moves are flawless, his

techniques impeccable and his success legendary. But

when he woos Brandi Web (Lynn Whitfield) a beautiful and

rich femme fatale, this ladykiller meets his match!

Regina King and pop singer Bobby Brown also star in

this sexy comic thriller about a playboy who gets into

hot water when he says all the right things to the wrong

woman.

Now this story line had already been played out by white

characters in the movie Fatal Attraction (1987), reflecting the

national obsession with adultery. Hoevere, it is important

to note that no comic overtures were displayed in Fatal

Attraction Fatal Attraction was the same plot: unavailable boy

meets girl, girl gets attached, girl wreaks havoc when she

finds out that she cannot have the boy. However, the fear

and drama that drove Fatal Attraction to blockbuster status are

replaced in A Thin Line by sophomoric attempts at comedy.

29

The movie makes light of the fact that Darnell lied to

Brandi, furthermore by positioning Darnell's mother and ex-

girlfriend against Brandi the movie sends a coded message

that male philanders are protected in the Black community,

women should fight, and an emotionally injured woman is

crazy if she seeks revenge. Brandi repeatedly indicates to

Darnell that she does not want a sexual relationship without

commitment and instead of backing away he lies to her and

pledges his undying love. Now I am not endorsing her

characters actions, beating herself with an orange in a

sock, smashing her wrist in a door, and then having him

arrested for abuse; Instead I am questioning the

characterization of these actions as comedy. Had a white

woman been engaging in these activities the movie would have

been deemed a psycho-thriller. The comedic construction of

the plot and the characters assist in creating a coded

message about Black women as Bitches. By marginalizing the

negative emotions experienced by the woman and dehumanizing

her by subjecting her plight to laughter she remains the

subjugated Other. Currently, the reigning queen of the

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Tragic Mullato-Bitch category is Halle Berry in The Rich Man's

Wife (1996). Hollywood Picture Video describes the movie as:

This edge of your seat thriller stars sexy Halle Berry

as a beautiful woman hopelessly trapped in a web of

suspense and terror--where nothing is what it seems!

Josie Potenza (Berry) has it all: a fabulous home, a

life of privilege, and a wealthy husband. But Josie's

seemingly perfect life takes a nightmarish turn when

her husband is brutally murdered--making her the prime

target in the police investigation...and the prime

target of a psychotic, Blackmailing killer!

In this movie, Berry starts out as the Black Superwoman with

a perfect life, all provided, of course vis-a-vis her

marriage to a white man. But, this idyllic existence is

shattered by the murder of her loving husband, which cast

her into a swirling funnel of mystery and police

questioning. She is the poor little Black girl that he

lifted up out of the gutter, and of course, she did it for

the money! And in the end, she did. However, it should not

escape mention that she required the assistance of a white

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woman to pull off her plan. The expressive meaning and the

interpretation are very close in this movie, because they

both seem to yell, that if you are white and you mess with

Black women then you are going to die and go to hell. It is

the same coded message repeatedly from The Imitation of Life, to

Angel Heart, to The Rich Man's Wife; Black women that act white

are bad news.

There is Power in Looking (hooks 1994:228).

Earl Graves notes in his cover story entitled Black Noir,

which ran in The Business of Entertainment that:

Of the more than 400 films released in 1996, (which

grossed a cumulative $5.8 billion), fewer than a dozen

targeted Black audiences. Yet, African-Americans

annually account for 25% of the industries box office,

more per capita than any other ethnic group.

More African-Americans per capita are submitting themselves

to the images produced by Hollywood, yet no one seems to be

questioning the messages that these films are transmitting

to us. In two final movies Waiting to Exhale (1995) and Soul

32

Food (1997) viewers are provided with all of the Black

female stereotypes discussed here, however, each of these

movies were bolckbusters; with Exhale grossing more than 67

million dollars (Essence August 1996). So African-Americans

are definitely ingesting these images, but without sustained

enthographic analysis I cannot prove that they are

innovating and conducting mazeway reformulation. However, I

do hear women saying that they are, "Waiting to Exhale" and I

have heard some guys admonishing sisters, "Don't try to play

me like Waiting to Exhale, and burn up my car!" So I can say

that the images perpetuated by the film have slid into the

psyche of African-Americans as coded language, but I cannot

predict the effects of this type of cultural ingestion.

Perhaps alone each of these films can be deemed benign, but

in combination they create a glaring image of the Black

female as a grinning, sexually driven, stupid, Ho; or as a

Superwoman that eventually surrenders her femininity in

order to compete or ultimately as the Black Widow Bitch that

kills to get ahead, to the side, or basically just around in

life.

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I do not accept these images and thus, I am forced to

deconstruct them each time I participate in my favorite

pastime, going to the movies. Because I know that the

messages the film industry feeds me are an element of

cultural hegemony directed at modifying my actions; because

I know that true power is exerted not by force, but through

the cultivation of willing assimilation (Jackman 1994) and

because I know that, "There is power in Looking" (hooks

1994:288), it is my duty to look and then write against the

grain by documenting my sisters cries of discontent.

Presenting these images to African-American audiences

provides a rich breeding ground for mazeway reformulation

and innovation because in the new era of unconscious-silent

discrimination it has become unpopular to voice our

frustrations over the daily experience of sexism and racism.

But, sexism rears its' dirty little head when I run my spell

check on this paper and it keeps trying to change Superwoman

to Superman. I can stomach that but, as I take a three a.m.

study break near the soda machines outside my building, two

white police officers pass by me. I look in their faces,

34

and I see that they don't see me. Despite my attempts to

make them see my infectious smile, (read Pickaninnie) they

never acknowledge my presence. I am sad because I know that

if I turn up tomorrow, having been raped and murdered, they

won't even remember that they saw me. I am the Black woman,

and despite the media's misconstruction of my identity, I am

still invisible in everyday life. This is the face of

racism in 1999 and this is what causes my subconscious re-

evaluation of mazeways and spurns my plans for innovation.

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Works Cited

Bogle, Donald1994 Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An

Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films 3rd ed. Continuum Publishing Company: New York.

Dijksterhuis, Ap and Ad van Knippenberg1998 The Relation Between Perception and Behavior, or

How to Win a Game of Trivial Pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 74. No. 4 pp. 865-877.

Gwaltney, John1993 Drylongso: A self-Portrait of Black America. NY:

The New Press.

hooks, bell1994 The Oppositional Gaze: The Black Woman as Audience

In Black American Cinema edited by Manthia Diawara, pp. 288-302: New York, NY, Routledge.

Jackman, Mary1994 The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in

Gender, Class, and Race Relations. Berkley: University of California Press.

Jones, Jacquine1993 The Construction of Black Sexuality: Towards

Normalizing the Black Cinematic Experience In

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Black American Cinema edited by Manthia Diawara, pp. 247-256: New York, NY, Routledge.

Mannheim, Karl1952 On the Interpretation of Weltanschauungen In

Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge edited by Paul Keschkemeti Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London.

Perkins, Karen1996 The Influence of Television Images on Black

Females' Self-Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness. Journal of Black Psychology, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 453-469.

Filmography

Angel Heart 1987Alan Parker

A Thin Line between 1996Love and HateMartin Lawrence

The Associate 1996Donald Petrie

B.A.P. s 1997Robert Townsend

Booty Call 1997Jeff Pollack

Eve's Bayou 1997Kasi Lemmons

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Fatal Attraction 1987Adrian Lyne

Girl 6 1996Spike Lee

Gone with the Wind 1939David Selznick

I got the hook up 1998Michael Martin

Imitation of Life 1934John Stahl

Jackie Brown 1997Quentin Tarantino

The Rich Man's Wife 1996Amy Holden Jones

Soul Food 1997George Tillman Jr.

Waiting to Exhale 1995Forest Whittaker

What's love got 1993to do with it?Brian Gibson

Woo 1998Daisy V.S. Mayer, Daisy

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