There has been a long history of the cinematic negation and distorted delineation of the black female body in cinema. From the myopic cross-media stereotypes of the black woman as "mammy" to silencing the pseudo "unrapeable" black woman "for the sake of racial unity," black women have been either completely erased or misrepresented so as to perpetuate the superiority of white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze. Recent studies have shown that as a result of this treatment of the black female body in cinema, black female spectators undergo a unique cinematic experience than that of both the black man and white viewer. Black women create what Black feminist film theorist bell hooks refers to as an "oppositional gaze," resisting the complete negation or marginalized portrayal of black women in the film and questioning this absence, becoming active participants rather than passive spectators. To better understand this notion of an oppositional gaze on behalf of the black female spectator, I will take a close look at scenes primarily from director John Stahl's 1934 film "Imitation of Life" and discuss the black female gaze and presence in relation to the phallocentric gaze and the portrayal of the two black characters, Delilah Johnson, as played by Louise Beavers, and her mixed daughter, Peola, as played by Fredi Washington. In the film, Beavers represents the marginalized Mammy stereotype, or the desexed, nurturing, and self-sacrificing servant always ready to please her white master. Black female spectators, unable to accept this stereotypical portrayal of black womanhood, must put on the "oppositional gaze" in order to "enjoy" the film. However, with the character of Peola, the tragic mulatta figure, the black woman viewer is able to at least sympathize for one black character.

 

Bobo, Jacqueline. “The Color Purple: Black Women as Cultural Readers.” Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television. Ed. E. Deidre Pribram. London: Verso, 1988. 90-109.

 

This chapter discusses black women as audience members and cultural consumers of the film The Color Purple.  As Bobo states, her aim is “to examine the way in which a specific audience [black women] creates meaning from a mainstream text [The Color Purple] and uses the reconstructed meaning to empower themselves and their social group.”  Although the film predominately features black women, criticism, reviews, and discourse concerning the film did not include the voices of black women.  Bobo counters this problem by interviewing average black women, as an ‘interpretive community,’ and recording their reactions to the film.  Through her research, Bobo discovered that black women oftentimes have responses to texts that differ from those of other audiences, including mainstream film critics. By watching these films and discussing them with each other, the women Bobo interviewed negotiate new interpretations of the texts, which in many cases stand at odds with dominant or conventional readings.

 

Through this text, Bobo makes evident that African-American women, as a distinct interpretive community, view cultural products, specifically film, in a unique way.  Her argument could be used for the movie Imitation of Life, in which the roles of the black women are limited, just as in The Color Purple. Although the black women characters are marginalized, black female spectators are still able to create meaning from the film and interpret it as readers using the “oppositional gaze.”  Working together as an interpretive community, black women can engage in the text and produce meanings in ways that have potential for empowerment. 

Heung, Marina. "’What's the Matter with Sara Jane?’: Daughters and Mothers in Douglas Sirk's ‘Imitation of Life.’” Cinema Journal Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring, 1987): pp. 21-43.  <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1224906>.

In this article, Marina Heung argues that the 1959 remake of Imitation of Life, which can be classified in the woman’s film genre, represents a body of work that at least purports to assume a feminine perspective and to address the conflicts and aspirations of a predominately white audience.  The film flouts Hollywood’s typical inherently patriarchal films and deals with issues that are oftentimes ignored, particularly the mother-daughter relationship.  Although the film deals with race through its development of the black-white relationship between two single mothers, the overarching theme is not of race, but of melodramatic elements.  Heung cites Jeanine Basinger’s essay, “When Women Wept,” which suggests that at the core of the film, like other women’s films, is the “rise-to-power” plot. She believes that the film focuses on the white mother’s career aspirations and desire to become a famous actress, which leads to her

Although this article focuses on the remake of Imitation of Life, most of the arguments can be applied to both films.  For example, both works assume a feminine perspective; however, they focus on the conflicts and aspiration of a predominately white audience, ignoring the needs of a black audience. Black women appear marginally in the film, forcing black female spectators to look beyond what is presented to them as what others may call entertainment or “pleasure.”