Black Actresses – Bitch Flicks

Forgotten Great Black Actresses: “Race Films” in Early Hollywood

Read more about them. Watch their films. Remember who and what has been too easily forgotten.

Evelyn Preer, who Black audiences would call “The First Lady of the Screen.”

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on The Great Actresses.

In the early 1900s, up until about 1950, roughly 500 films were made featuring all-Black casts for predominately Black audiences. These films, known as “race films,” were typically independently financed and produced by white filmmakers outside of the Hollywood studios. Notably, the first film to feature an all-Black cast (A Fool and His Money, 1912) was directed by Alice Guy-Blanché.

Since these films were outside of the studio system and were not created for the mainstream white gaze, film history has largely ignored their impact, and not even 100 of the films remain intact. Pioneering filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux (whose Within Our Gates was a scathing response to the racist The Birth of a Nation) are not immortalized like their white counterparts have been, but their contributions were remarkable.

In these early days of feature films, Black actors and actresses may not have had leading roles in mainstream Hollywood, but the existence of a booming market of race films allowed for all-Black casts full of complex characters and story lines that differed greatly from the stereotypes audiences would typically see–and would continue to see for decades.

While some actors and actresses got their start in race films and then went on to mainstream Hollywood success (including Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne, and Dorothy Dandridge), many of the Black actors and actresses found a dearth of roles. After race films ended (due to Hollywood’s conglomerates were broken up in an anti-trust case, leading to desegregation, and World War II gave opportunities for Hollywood to recruit Black actors for propaganda and war films), three-dimensional, leading roles for Black actors and actresses plummeted. I’ve written before about the roles that have won Black actors Academy Awards–maids, villains, con artists, slaves, musicians, athletes, impoverished single mothers, and “helpers” for white characters seem to be the “safe” roles.

However, in early race films, actors and actresses were able to break those stereotypes and be fully realized complex characters.

Here are a few of the actresses–whose names you might not know, but should–and some of their films.

Evelyn Preer

Evelyn Preer (1896 – 1932): Homesteader, Within Our Gates, Birthright, Ladies of the Big House

In Within Our Gates, Preer’s character has to fight a predatory white man, which answered the portrayal of lecherous Black men in Birth of a Nation

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters (1896 – 1977): Rufus Jones for President, Cabin in the Sky, Pinky

Ethel Waters and Eddie Anderson in Cabin in the Sky

Edna Mae Harris

Edna Mae Harris (1910 – 1997): Spirit of Youth, Lying Lips, Paradise in Harlem, Sunday Sinners

Edna Mae Harris in Lying Lips

Nina Mae McKinney

Nina Mae McKinney (1912 – 1967): Hallelujah, Safe in Hell, The Devil’s Daughter, Dark Waters

Nina Mae McKinney in Hallelujah

When films are able to be made that feature complex women and women of color, actresses are allowed to actually act to their full abilities. Just like I noted about pre-Code female anti-heroes, if many of the above films were made today, we would be aghast and how progressive they were. We tend to think that what happens now, in the 21st century, is breaking barriers. But if we think seriously about our history and our present, we know that Within Our Gates isn’t a film that Hollywood would touch with a ten-foot pole even now–even though it’s our history. Race films (while certainly still products of their cultural context, which could be problematic) provided an opportunity for Black actors to shine, and the women above are just a few of those who were empowered by having acting careers that allowed them to play a myriad of characters.

Read more about them. Watch their films. Remember who and what has been too easily forgotten.

Recommended:

A Cinema Apart: a website dedicated to early Black films

Here is an excellent YouTube playlist of African American films, and it includes Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates, among others referenced. I recommend Elsa Barkley Brown’s viewing guide.

Netflix has the documentary Black Cinema: Silence to Sound .

Amazon offers a few collections of race films.

——

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Academy: Kind to White Men, Just Like History

The hunters write history. The hunters glorify themselves. The hunters’ history infiltrates itself into the very fabric of our cultural narrative, so we’re only comfortable with seeing the complexities of the hunters, and the simplicity of the lions.

It is what we’ve been trained for since birth.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Last year, after Django Unchained was largely snubbed at the Oscars (compared to the Golden Globes), I looked at the history of the Black actors/characters who were awarded by the Academy over the years. The results were troubling, but not surprising–much like the infographic The Huffington Post posted today about what roles that women won for over the years (here is Feministing‘s take on the findings).

It’s fairly clear what roles Hollywood is most comfortable with: for Black characters, passivity, tired stereotypes, and villainy get the highest awards. For women, wives/daughters/mothers/sisters/girlfriends–all roles in relationship to men–are rewarded.

Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. (The Black actors up for 2014 Academy Awards--Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o--play a kidnapped freed man/slave and slave.) — Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. (The Black actors up for 2014 Academy Awards–Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, and Barkhad Abdi–play a kidnapped freed man/slave, slave, and Somali pirate, respectively.) *Click to enlarge.*

For men (who are almost all white), the category with the most winners is “Historical.” For men, there are countless historical roles to fill, so filmmakers can tell the stories of those who have shaped our history and culture–or at least, those whom we see and are told about. And this has been a history that has been largely unkind to Black people and women.

In an interview, late author Chinua Achebe quoted the following proverb: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

It is what we’ve been trained for since birth.

This is a history that the lions have had to fight and claw their way out of, yet we don’t see them in Hollywood. The lions write, the lions pitch, but the hunters are not interested. (And the hunters have the money, from generations of oppressing the lions.)

I’d be happy to see the hunters start telling the lions’ history, even just a little bit (I salivate at the thought of Quentin Tarantino taking on suffragettes).

Three of this year’s Best Picture nominations (12 Years a Slave, Wolf of Wall Street, and American Hustle) are films that are based on real stories–and each of these stories, on some level, is about white men fucking people over so they can get rich. And at the end of these stories, the white men don’t really get punished. This is our history.

This is our history.

So how can we blame the Academy for reflecting this history back at us? Art is imitating life, and life keeps imitating art. If the two are so inextricably related (which they are), where do we go from here?

I’m not one who argues that it’s all about the Bechdel Test, or that we need to demand the Perfect Feminist Film. Some of the most potentially empowering films that I’ve seen (that feature female and Black protagonists) would be solidly placed in the “exploitation” category (Blaxploitation especially). We need to demand female and Black anti-heroes if we want true, complex characters and stories.

See this, this, and this. (Who gave the lions a dictation machine, anyway?!)

As I argued in regard to 12 Years a Slave, we have barely started to deal with our country’s history, and we need to, desperately. But still–the only white American actor who is prominently featured in the film was Brad Pitt, who plays a heroic Canadian. It’s hard to face.

In American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street, the white male protagonists are complex–they aren’t good, but they are whole. They are criminals. They are cheaters. But audiences kind of like them–or at the very least, accept them.

Our goal as lions, then, may not be to just tell our stories. We need to become hunters, and find those stories and demand that they be told. We need to face a history in which Black hunters and female hunters have been punished, and white male hunters have prevailed. We may not be able to rewrite that history, but we can live within it, and force it into our cultural narrative. (Or, as my husband said after we sat through previews last weekend, “They could just quit telling World War II stories for a while.”)

But here we are, in 2014, facing how the Academy’s choices clearly reflect our history. What do we do with this? We should get angry at history, and attempt to rewrite our future. We should be angry at an American history that has oppressed women and Blacks since its inception.

If Wolf of Wall Street reflects modern history, which it does, we see that white men are still winning (case in point: I can’t use the term “winning” without thinking about a white male actor who “allegedly assaulted, threatened, harassed, abused, and—in one incident—shot women” and yet still was the highest-paid actor on television in 2010).

If we want to tell revolutionary women’s and Black people’s stories, we’ll have to settle for a lot of tragedies. There aren’t slaps on the wrists or a few months in a cushy white-collar prison for these historical figures. There’s torture, lynching, and shame. And the villains are almost always white men.

So we’re back to the hunter. And what we know about hunters is they don’t come back bragging about their losses; they brag about their wins. It’s time for them to stop winning, and for the lions to be heard. Then, and only then, can we expect the Academy to reflect a new reality.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The feminism of Working Girl, “respectability politics” in 12 Years a Slave, female filmmakers on Twitter, comedy and reproductive rights, female sexuality on primetime, “Black Actress” on YouTube, and a comic about abortion laws… check out what we’ve been reading this week, and let us know what you’ve been reading and writing in the comments!

Acting Right Around White Folks: on “12 Years a Slave” and “Respectability Politics,” by ReBecca Theodore-Vachon at RogerEbert.com

Amy Poehler introduces TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Alamo Drafthouse! at Drafthouse.com

Why female pleasure–not sex–is the real taboo on primetime television by Monica Nickelsburg at The Week

Carrie: A Possibly Unnecessary Remake of a Still-Resonant Horror Story by Andi Zeisler at Bitch Media

Healing from Historic Trauma: “12 Years a Slave” by Janell Hobson at Ms.

40 Female Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter: A Crowdsourced List by Paula Bernstein at Indiewire

The Hollywood Reporter Announced the Top 50 Showrunners by Kerensa Cadenas at Women and Hollywood

Black Girl ‘Geeks’ Want To See More Of Themselves In Comics at NPR

Carol Burnett Cracks Up Washington by Ashley Southall at The New York Times

Call for Applications: Her Film Project Marketing Grant for Women Filmmakers by Kyna Morgan at Her Film

Everything I Know About Feminism I Learned From Working Girl by Rosemary Counter at Jezebel

‘Black Actress’ Web Series Premieres on Issa Rae’s YouTube Channel by Von Diaz at Colorlines

Comedy, Women, and Reproductive Rights: An Interview with Lizz Winstead by Hannah Strom at NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon

Purity Culture as Rape Culture: Why the Theological Is Political by Dianna E. Anderson at RH Reality Check

Stealth Attack: What You Need to Know About the New Abortion Laws (Comic) by Jen Sorensen at ACLU

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Gender Flipping in Hollywood by Holly L. Derr at Ms. Magazine Blog

First Annual Studio Responsibility Index Finds Lack of Substantial LGBT Characters in Mainstream Films by Max Gouttebroze at GLAAD

25 Movies by Female Directors Every Aspiring Filmmaker Should See by Michelle Dean via Flavorwire

Will Black Actresses Ever Catch Up To Their Peers? by Aisha Harris at Slate

Julie Taymor’s 10 Golden Rules of Moviemaking by Jennifer M. Wood at MovieMaker

13 Kickass Women’s Movie Roles Originally Meant for Men by Autumn Harbison at PolicyMic

How Cristina Yang Changed Television by Willa Paskin at Slate

The Skyler White Problem: Can We Accept Complex Female Characters? by Jos Truitt at Feministing

Wonder Woman Can’t Have It All by Alexander Abad-Santos at The Atlantic Wire

Racism within white feminist spaces by Mia at Black Feminists Manchester

On Feminist Solidarity and Community: Where Do We Go from Here? by Mikki Kendall at Ebony

A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero by Mallory Ortberg at The Toast

“The Butler,” My Grandmother, and the Politics of Subversion by Nijla Mu’min at Bitch Media

I Have a Character Issue by Anna Gunn at The New York Times

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks Weekly Picks

Gender Flipping in Hollywood by Holly L. Derr at Ms. Magazine Blog

First Annual Studio Responsibility Index Finds Lack of Substantial LGBT Characters in Mainstream Films by Max Gouttebroze at GLAAD

25 Movies by Female Directors Every Aspiring Filmmaker Should See by Michelle Dean via Flavorwire

Will Black Actresses Ever Catch Up To Their Peers? by Aisha Harris at Slate

Julie Taymor’s 10 Golden Rules of Moviemaking by Jennifer M. Wood at MovieMaker

13 Kickass Women’s Movie Roles Originally Meant for Men by Autumn Harbison at PolicyMic

How Cristina Yang Changed Television by Willa Paskin at Slate

The Skyler White Problem: Can We Accept Complex Female Characters? by Jos Truitt at Feministing

Wonder Woman Can’t Have It All by Alexander Abad-Santos at The Atlantic Wire

Racism within white feminist spaces by Mia at Black Feminists Manchester

On Feminist Solidarity and Community: Where Do We Go from Here? by Mikki Kendall at Ebony

A Day In the Life of a Troubled Male Antihero by Mallory Ortberg at The Toast

Wedding Week: ‘Coming to America’ and Coming to Terms with New Marriage Traditions

Coming to America movie poster.

Written by Leigh Kolb

When I was a kid, Coming to America was one of my favorite movies. I’m not quite sure exactly what it was–maybe I just thought Eddie Murphy was really cute–but I’d like to think that I was drawn to its message of valuing female intelligence and independence over subservience.

Coming to America was released in 1988, and helped round out Eddie Murphy’s rise to stardom in the 1980s, from Saturday Night Live to Beverly Hills Cop. While Murphy played side-kicks in many of his early films, Coming to America was unique because it featured Murphy as a romantic lead, and a cast dominated by African Americans.

The premise of the film–a wealthy African prince travels to America to live modestly and find true love, not an arranged marriage–isn’t particularly groundbreaking, but the film worked because it was (and is, sadly) rare to find a black man as a romantic lead, especially in a blockbuster-friendly romantic comedy.

The film begins by taking the audience over the sweeping landscape of the fictional African country of Zamunda, while a South African choir sings. As the camera focuses in on a palace, it’s important to note the stark contrast of this depiction of an African country against the frequent portrayals of Africa in American media, which showcase Africa as a continent in need of our saving (after all, they don’t even have snow at Christmas time).

The royal family of Zamunda: Prince Akeem Joffer, King Jaffe Joffer and Queen Aeoleon.

Prince Akeem (Murphy) wakes up on the morning of his birthday, and he’s attended to by male and female servants (from royal bathers–beautiful women who clean the “royal penis”–to royal wipers in the bathroom). Akeem doesn’t seem comfortable with any of this, and even requests to use the bathroom alone. At breakfast, his father, King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones), assumes his son must be excited to meet the wife they’ve arranged for him to marry.

Akeem acts unsure, and finally speaks out against being doted upon and the idea that a woman would be chosen for him for his rank, not because she loves him. The tradition of arranged marriage doesn’t sit well with him, and his youthful rebellion takes the form of wanting to fall in love with a woman on his own terms and to be able to be more independent.

Semmi (Arsenio Hall), Akeem’s friend and attendant, serves as a foil to Akeem’s noble goodness. He is baffled that Akeem wants a woman with an opinion instead of having a woman who would follow his every command. Semmi assures Akeem that his wife need only have a “pretty face.”

Akeem asks him, “So you’d share your bed with a beautiful fool?” Semmi says that that’s the tradition for men in power. Akeem says that it’s also tradition for times to change.

While the film isn’t a bastion of female empowerment, feminist nuggets like that pop up throughout the film, which is always refreshing within the confines of the well-worn tropes in romantic comedies.

Akeem asks Imani, his chosen wife-to-be, to speak privately, breaking tradition.

When Akeem is presented with the beautiful woman who is to be his wife, Imani (Vanessa Bell), he asks to talk to her privately. She proudly tells him, “Ever since I was born, I’ve been trained to serve you.” He pushes to find out more about her, her favorite music, food, anything. But all she says is that she likes what he likes and will obey him. He says, “Anything I say, you’ll do?” after she refuses to not obey him, which is what he wants. He tells her to bark like a dog, and she complies, making a fool of herself as he is convinced this is not the woman he will marry.

The fact that she was “born to serve” this man isn’t an anomaly–in patriarchal cultures steeped in tradition, the idea that women should be indoctrinated to be subservient to men is endemic. (Just last week, a U.S. congressman suggested that young boys and girls have segregated classes to be taught gender norms.)

When Akeem pushes back to his father and tries to get out of the marriage, saying he’s not ready, the king assumes he means sex. “I always assumed you had sex with your bathers,” the father says. “I know I do.” Again, the king is presented as misogynistic and patriarchal, without considering that his son may be trying to break free. He allows Akeem to go and travel for 40 days, assuming he wants to “sow his wild oats,” and that he’ll come back and marry the bride they chose for him.

As they prepare to leave, Akeem tells Semmi that he plans to find a wife during his travels. “I want a woman who will arouse my intellect as well as my loins,” Akeem says. They decide to go to New York City, specifically Queens, because he assumes there’s no better place to find a queen.

Akeem is excited to be in Queens; Semmi is less than impressed.

It’s a priority to Akeem that no one knows he’s royalty. He wants them to stay in the most “common” part of Queens, and asks the landlord to choose the “poorest” apartment for them to rent. When a woman throws garbage out of her window, Akeem exclaims, “America is great indeed–imagine a country so free, one can throw glass on the street!” Observations on wealth and ethnocentrism are also peppered throughout the film.

The two drape themselves in New York sports teams jackets and hats, and are mesmerized by a commercial for Soul Glo. Akeem goes to the barber shop (a gathering place near their apartment, where Murphy and Hall both play other parts). He gets his long princely ponytail cut off. The barber is impressed with his natural hair, and Akeem says he’s never put chemicals in it, just “juices and berries.” Later, the barber would rant and rant when Akeem asks for a Jheri curl, touting the importance of keeping hair natural. Between that and the brief rant by a white Jewish man in the barber shop (played by Murphy) that a person should be able to choose his own name, important facets of African American history and identity are touched upon in the barber shop (which were often official gathering places during the civil rights movement).

After a night of meeting women of various disaster levels, Akeem and Semmi end up at a Black Awareness Week rally (specifically, the Miss Black Awareness Pageant), where Akeem immediately becomes enamored with Lisa McDowell (Shari Headley), the organizer of the rally and daughter of Cleo McDowell, who owns McDowell’s (a small fast food restaurant that borrows a lot from McDonald’s). She takes the microphone to stress the importance of individual expression (somewhat belittling the pageant, even if tongue in cheek) and asks the crowd to donate to a park for children to be able to express themselves. Akeem puts a giant wad of cash in the collection basket, and the next morning, Akeem and Semmi show up at McDowell’s to get jobs.

Akeem learns how to mop, and tries to flirt with Lisa, who is hard at work on a computer in her office. Akeem clearly, and immediately, values a woman with a sense of identity and purpose beyond serving a man.

Soul Glo heir Darryl (Eriq La Salle) is Lisa’s boyfriend, and the audience immediately knows he’s an ass–he puts no money in the collection basket (and lets Lisa think he was responsible for the large donation), he buddies up to Cleo and is condescending toward Lisa. If Akeem was more like Darryl, or even Semmi, his life would have been easier–he could have simply married his chosen wife and followed in the footsteps of what’s expected of powerful, wealthy men because “tradition.” The film presents these men to be critical of how patriarchy works–or doesn’t–within a culture (or cultures).

The film continues to present these entrenched ideas: “Is this an American girl? Go through her poppa… Get in good with the father, you’re home free,” the barber tells Akeem. “I don’t know how it is in Africa, but here rich guys get all the chicks,” says a McDowell’s clerk (played by Louie Anderson).

Akeem goes along to a basketball game with Lisa, Darryl and Lisa’s sister, Patrice, who is presented comically as shallow and very interested in sexual conquests and wealthy men, unlike the noble Lisa. Can’t have a romantic comedy without a little virgin/whore dichotomy action!

Darryl makes disparaging remarks to Akeem about being from Africa, commenting about how it must be weird to be wearing clothes, and asking if they play games like catch the monkey. Earlier, the landlord says to Akeem and Semmi that the apartments have an insect problem, “but you boys are from Africa so you’re probably used to that.” When characters reinforce the African savage stereotype, it’s clear that these characters are not good.

Akeem is a good friend to Lisa when Darryl is forceful and misogynistic.

And when characters act like women are to be subservient sexual objects without their own identities, it’s also clear that they are in the wrong. From the king’s bawdy suggestions and adherence to the tradition of submissive, chosen wives, to Darryl pressuring Lisa to quit her job (“My lady doesn’t have to work”) or announcing their engagement without asking her if she wants to marry him (he went through her father, after all), men who don’t respect women are not the good guys–they are the ones who need to change.

When Akeem stands up to a robber at McDowell’s (Samuel L. Jackson doing one of the things he does best–wielding a gun and saying “fucker” as many times as possible), Darryl makes light of the fact that he hid, and suggested that Akeem knew those moves from fighting “lions and tigers and shit.” He then says, “They might not admit it, but they [women] all want a man to take charge–to tell them what to do.” Akeem smiles at him, but knows that’s not true.

Lisa’s affection for Akeem grows when he quotes Nietzsche and when he is a thoughtful, sensitive listener when she’s angry that Darryl steamrolls their engagement, which she refuses.

“I’m fine,” she assures Akeem. “I’m just not going to be pressured into marriage by Darryl, my father, anybody.” Akeem says he understands, and that he doesn’t think anyone should get married out of obligation.

When they go out to dinner, Lisa says how nice it is to be with a man who knows how to express himself and she insists on taking the paycheck. Lisa’s attraction to these stereotypically not-masculine traits serves as a reminder that there is value to these qualities in both men and women.

Lisa is smart and independent, qualities Akeem isn’t supposed to want.

Cleo pressures Lisa to marry Darryl as he sees her drifting toward Akeem. “You only like him because he’s rich,” Lisa says. Cleo–who has positioned himself as the ultimate bootstraps-pulling American dream–tells her that he just doesn’t want her to struggle like he and her mother did.

Akeem’s charade begins to unravel as his family arrives in Queens via motorcade. Cleo is elated that Akeem is actually a prince; Lisa is devastated that he’d lied to her (and the fact that the king told her Akeem was only sowing his “royal oats” in America before he got married).

Akeem chases after Lisa, and begs her to marry him. He offers to renounce his throne, and explains that he only wanted someone to fall in love with him for who he is, not for his money or royalty. She hesitates, but refuses, and runs off.

Queen Aeoleon (Akeem’s mother, played by Madge Sinclair) begins pushing back against her husband, challenging him about how he knows Akeem doesn’t love Lisa, and that the arranged marriage is a “stupid tradition.” “Who am I to change it?” asks the king. “I thought you were the king,” she says.

Back in Zamunda, a royal wedding has begun, and Akeem is waiting for his bride, looking resigned and sad. A bride in an enormous pink dress and veil walks down the aisle. When he lifts the veil from her face, Lisa’s face is smiling at him. He looks elated, and his parents are smiling (the queen’s logic reigned), and Cleo steps up to join the king and queen.

Akeem is surprised that Lisa is under the veil.

As they ride off in a carriage among a crowd of cheering partygoers, Lisa asks if she would have really given all of this up for her. “Of course,” Akeem responds. “If you like, we can give it all up now.” She says, “Nah,” and they laugh, and live, I’m sure, happily ever after.

The plot is pretty predictable. Female subservience is challenged, but standards of female beauty aren’t. The characters aren’t remarkably complex, but their motives are clear and almost always understandable. That said, this is a romantic comedy. I don’t mean to demean the genre as a whole, but I think it’s safe to say most blockbuster romantic comedies are pretty damn problematic, so to have a romantic comedy that subverts the notion of valuing wives who are simply beautiful and submissive while featuring a predominantly black cast and depicting Africa positively, I’d say that’s a win.

Lisa is OK with her royal title.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Unfinished Legacy of Pam Grier

Pam Grier was the first black woman to be on the cover of Ms. Magazine (August 1975). Jamaica Kincaid wrote the article, “Pam Grier: The Mocha Mogul of Hollywood.”

Written by Leigh Kolb

[Warning: spoilers ahead!]

The first time I saw Pam Grier in a film, I blurted out, “Why isn’t she in everything?”

I first saw Grier in Jackie Brown, and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t featured prominently in more films (and then I quickly remembered African American female protagonists are few and far between). It wasn’t always this way, though.

Grier’s legacy has lasted over four decades, but there’s something about her career that leaves me feeling unsettled, as if her filmography is indicative of larger (backward) social trends. She started out headlining action films–an amazing feat for a woman, much less a black woman in the early 1970s. A glance at a few of these films show incredibly feminist themes that are incredibly rare 40 years later. Her early films were groundbreaking, but nothing much was built after that ground was broken.

Coffy (1973)

Coffy (Grier) is a nurse with a passion for bringing justice to those who keep drugs on the streets. The film opens with her posing as a seductive addict, and she gets herself in an apartment with a drug dealer and supplier. She brutally kills them, and then reports to her job as a nurse.

Coffy is a vigilante, trying to avenge those who made it possible for her 11-year-old sister to get hooked on drugs, causing her to wind up in a juvenile rehabilitation center. After her friend (a “good” cop, unlike many who are tied into the drug trade) is beaten brain dead after defending her, Coffy has an even deeper sense of purpose in retaliating against the machine that’s fostering corruption in her community.

“This is the end of your rotten life, you motherfuckin’ dope pusher!”

While Coffy uses her sexuality to position herself against her enemies, she does what she need to do to win. When a john is degrading her, she says, “You want to spit on me and make me crawl? I’m gonna piss on your grave tomorrow.” Racism, greed, corruption and masculine shows are evil, and a capable woman undoes it all.

The overall quality of the film, the fashion, the music–it’s clearly dated. However, the strong female protagonist stands out as something that’s all too foreign in 2013.

Foxy Brown (1974)

Probably the most popular of Grier’s blaxploitation films, Foxy Brown follows its protagonist through another journey of violent revenge. Foxy sets out to seek justice for the murder of her boyfriend (a government agent who worked to get drugs off the streets–again, an anti-drug theme). She poses as a prostitute to infiltrate the drug/prostitution/sex slave network that’s responsible for the blight of her community. She outwits her enemies and captors at every turn, and ends victorious.

When she’s going to the neighborhood committee for help at the end, she pleads:

“It could be your brother too, or your sister, or your children. I want justice for all of them. And I want justice for all the people whose lives are bought and sold, so that a few big shots can climb up on their backs, and laugh at the law, and laugh at human decency. But most of all, I want justice for a man, this man had love in his heart, and he died because he went out of his neighborhood to do what he thought was right.”

The group leader responds, “Sister, I think what you’re asking for is revenge.”

She says, “You just take care of the justice, and I’ll handle the revenge by myself.”

“The party’s over, Oscar, let’s go.”

Grier’s body–from the opening bikini-clad sequence to close-up shots of her naked breasts–is objectified more frequently in this film than Coffy. She had become more of a star at this point, and producers decided against it being a sequel to Coffy (as the writer had intended), so her career wasn’t a part of the film. Foxy is still a strong, empowered woman–she seeks help from her peers (the new “anti-slavery” society), helps other women and punishes men who are cruel to women. Foxy’s role seems as revolutionary as Coffy’s (maybe more so, with the increased star power).

Sheba, Baby (1975)

The opening credits to Sheba Baby are set to Barbara Mason’s “Sheba, Baby,” boasting how Sheba Shayne is a “sensuous woman playing a man’s game,” “she’s kicking ass and taking names,” and “she’s a dangerous lady, who is well put together…” Sheba is a private investigator in Chicago (a no-nonsense businesswoman, as she yells at her partner for leaving the office a mess) who is called to her hometown of Louisville when her father is in danger. She’d been a cop in the town before leaving, and an old love interest is in business with her father, who owns a loan company. Themes of police ineffectiveness and corrupt white men at the top of a chain of violence are featured again, and Sheba takes justice into her own hands when the police only step up when it’s too late (after her father is killed). She uses her looks to gain access to a yacht party, where she struggles, fights and overcomes the men who are responsible for her father’s death (as well as shutting down many other black-run businesses in the neighborhood).

“Now you tell your boss that he is not dealing with my father anymore. He is dealing with Sheba Shayne.”

While the themes in this film are similar–anti-racism, anti-white patriarchal corruption and pro-vigilante justice–Sheba, Baby is unique in Sheba’s even fiercer independence than the previous films. When Brick asks her if she “has anyone” in Chicago, she replies: “If you’re asking if I sleep alone every night, I’d have to say no. If you’re asking if I’m going steady with anyone, I’d have to say no. So what are you asking?” The next shot, they are in bed together. However, Sheba doesn’t rely on Brick’s help (she works without him), and leaves him at the end of the film because their separate careers are too valuable. In the final shot of the film, she’s walking the streets of Chicago, smiling and confident.

The ending of Sheba, Baby should have been indicative of a future of Grier’s style of female protagonist. However, Grier wouldn’t again headline a film until Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film (he wrote it specifically for Grier, and she was nominated for numerous awards for it, including a Golden Globe). She certainly worked in the interim, and has since (including stage work and starring in The L Word). But nothing like the string of films she starred in in the 1970s.

When asked about being the first woman to play this type of powerful character, Grier responded:

“I saw women share the platform with men in my personal world, and Hollywood just hadn’t wakened to it yet. Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn changed the way they saw women during the 1940s, but I saw it daily in the women’s movement that was emerging, because I was a child of the women’s movement. Everything I had learned was from my mother and my grandmother, who both had a very pioneering spirit. They had to, because they had to change flat tires and paint the house—because, you know, the men didn’t come home from the war or whatever else, so women had to do these things. So, out of economic necessity and the freedoms won, by the ’50s and ’60s, there was suddenly this opportunity and this invitation that was like, ‘Come out here with these men. Get out here. Show us what you got.'”

She certainly did. But like so many cultural revolutions, the women’s movement saw backlash in the 1980s and beyond, as did this new kind of feminist, African American cinematic genre.

Grier points out that she’s often criticized for the nudity and violence in her early films.

In regard to the nudity, she says,

“We’ve got $20 million actresses today who are nude in Vanilla Sky, nude in Swordfish. So what did I do different? I got paid less, but that’s it.”

To critics of the violence, she points out,

“I saw more violence in my neighborhood and in the war and on the newsreels than I did in my movies, so it didn’t bother me. Coming from the ’50s, things were very violent. We were still being lynched. If I drove down through the South with my mother, I might not make it through one state without being bullied or harassed. I feel like unless you’ve been black for a week, you don’t know. A lot of people were really up in arms about nothing, and if you challenge them, they go, ‘Well, maybe you’re right.'”

She also notes that although some people objected to the term “blaxploitation,” she didn’t feel the films were demeaning:

“You know, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, they can all do shoot-’em-ups. Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill 10 people in one minute, and they don’t call it ‘white exploitation.’ They win awards and get into all the magazines. But if black people do it, suddenly it’s different than if a white person does it.”

Her poignant commentary on the double standards in Hollywood serve as a larger reminder of the double standards in society. The notion of a black protagonist fighting villainous white people is something that is still uncomfortable. Grier’s nudity in the early films, and her blatant sexiness, felt different than typical female objectification. Even when her cleavage was featured prominently, she had the power–she wasn’t passive, so her sexuality didn’t seem like a marker of weakness simply for the male gaze. It was jarring to feel so comfortable with what looked like female objectification, because it was so different than what we are used to now. Looking at the poster art from her earlier films, one would see her portrayed as an object. However, in the actual films, she is a sexual being, with agency, independence and strength.

Jackie Brown

The Ms. article “In Praise of Baadasssss Supermamas” points out that “…Coffy and Foxy fought against systems that beat up on everyday folk. Imagine what they would do in the 21st century.” It’s a pretty great thought.

However, it’s more likely that we get Fighting Fuck Toys (FFTs) in modern cinema, and as Caroline Heldman writes:

“Hollywood rolls out FFTs every few years that generally don’t perform well at the box office (think Elektra, Catwoman, Sucker Punch), leading executives to wrongly conclude that women action leads aren’t bankable. In fact, the problem isn’t their sex; the problem is their portrayal as sex objects. Objects aren’t convincing protagonists. Subjects act while objects are acted upon, so reducing a woman action hero to an object, even sporadically, diminishes her ability to believably carry a storyline. The FFT might have an enviable swagger and do cool stunts, but she’s ultimately a bit of a joke.”

Grier’s heroes are never the joke, and that’s what works. She can carry a storyline, have sex when she wants it (or not) and end up victorious, with her complete agency intact. She’s a subject acting upon the injustices around her.

Pam Grier is an incredible actress, and her most iconic roles serve as a reminder that women can do it all on the big screen. It’s just been too long since they’ve been allowed to.

—–

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Women of Color in Film and TV Week: A Girl Struggles to Survive Her Chaotic Homelife in ‘Yelling to the Sky’

Written by Megan Kearns.

Yelling to the Skystruck a visceral chord with me. I related to it in a way I often don’t with films. I’m not a biracial woman growing up impoverished, who turns to selling drugs as a means of survival. But I grew up with an absent father and a single mother struggling with mental illness, feeling trapped by my surroundings, desperate to break free.

All the actors give stellar performances in this emotionally raw and gritty film. Zoe Kravitz in particular captivates with a nuanced, powerful performance as the smart, struggling Sweetness O’Hara, trying to survive in a whirlwind of turmoil. Sweetness and her older sister live in a troubled home with unstable, unreliable parents: their white father, an alcoholic and their African-American mother who suffers from mental illness.

Yelling to the Sky opens with a jarring scene. Sweetness is getting bullied and beaten up in the street by her classmates. Latonya (Gabourey Sidibe) taunts her for the lightness of her skin and her biracial heritage – briefly raising complex issues of race and colorism. But she’s rescued by her older sister Ola (Antonique Smith in a scene-stealing powerhouse performance) who we see, as the camera eventually pans out, is very pregnant. This juxtaposition of a brawling pregnant woman, a fiercely protective sister, makes an interesting commentary on our expectations of gender.

Sweetness’ unpredictable father Gordon (Jason Clarke) vacillates between affectionate charisma and volatile violence and rage. He verbally and physically abuses every woman in the household. He tries to make amends for his deplorable parenting later in the film. But since he’s caused so much trauma, it might be too late for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, we never really learn about Sweetness’ mother Lorene (Yolanda Ross) who seems numbed by medication and/or depression beyond Sweetness asking if she was hospitalized in a mental institution when she “went away.” I wish the film had explored more of their relationship.

While I was disappointed the film didn’t explore mother-daughter relationships, it does show the bonds of sisterhood. The relationship between Sweetness and Ola is my favorite part of the film. We see the girls joke, play, challenge and comfort one another. Both rely on one other for support. Ola leaves home to live with her boyfriend, leaving Sweetness to fend for herself alone. But she’s not the only one trapped. Months later, Ola must return home with her baby, now a single mother. Her dreams of escape nothing but nebulous memories.

Yelling to the Skyis a searing portrayal of one girl’s pain. Of her frustration at being confined and trapped in a world not her choosing. Sweetness doesn’t focus on her education or her future. She deals with the immediacy of her pain. She starts selling drugs as a way to make money. She numbs herself with drugs, alcohol and surrounding herself with a cadre of bullies and drug dealers. Sweetness desperately yearns to escape. But where to? Where can she go?

Mahoney said she wanted to evoke feelings of claustrophobia when Sweetness spent time at home. And she succeeds beautifully. You feel just as trapped as Sweetness, chained by loneliness, fear and desperation. When she’s out in the streets, it feels frenetic with drunken stupors, drive-by shootings and drug deals gone wrong.

Zoe Kravitz as Sweetness O’Hara in Yelling to the Sky

Is the film perfect? No it definitely falters at times. I wish we had learned more about each of the characters. It feels very much like a snapshot, a voyeuristic peek through the window into their messy and complicated lives. Just when you’re lured in, the window abruptly closes. But the biggest flaw? I wish it had more deeply explored the issue of race without resorting to stereotypes.

A painful history of colorism and skin shade hierarchy— dark vs. light skin — exists amongst black women. When the media portrays black women, we often see women with lighter skin, straighter hair and more Caucasian features. Both L’Orealand Ellephotoshopped black to make their skin appear much lighter. The media often whitewashes black women, continually perpetuating the unachievable attainment of the white ideal of beauty. “The myth of black beauty” and the preference for lighter black skin can be traced back to slavery.

While light-skinned biracial and black women possess privilege, they may also face a backlash and be deemed not “black enough.” While the jarring opening scene of Yelling to the Sky certainly alludes to this, it is never explored further. Instead, the film resorts to racial stereotypes: “dark(er)-skinned black people are mean and like to victimize light(er)-skinned black people,” “girls/teenagers/women who are “authentically” black are bad” and “interracial relationships are dysfunctional.”

I cringed seeing Sidibe depicted as the dark-skinned, mean, overweight bully terrorizing a lighter-skinned petite girl. When the roles reverse and Sweetness beats the shit out of Latonya, I get the sense that it should feel like vindication for her earlier torment. But it feels empty and hollow. But maybe that’s the point, that retribution and violence are empty and hollow. As this is a semi-autobiographical film, perhaps these circumstances transpired in writer/director Victoria Mahoney’s own life, especially as she’s a biracial woman. But as these racial stereotypes occur over and over in media, it would have been great to have them deconstructed or not appear at all.

We don’t see enough female protagonists, women of color in film or female filmmakers of color. We don’t see enough films exploring issues of gender and race. And we should. In an interview, Mahoney (a promising new filmmaker who is certainly one to watch) shared her inspiration for the film:

“Stemming from my teenage obsession with Chekov’s Three Sisters and a connection to the theme of “manufacturing illusions in order to sustain day to day life.” I related on a gut level to the notion of joy and opportunity, existing elsewhere while in the same breadth knowing it was a lie. The illusion of “one day it’ll be different” is what kept me alive and smashing that illusion might’ve been my death. Putting this film out is important because (yet another generation of) young people are facing the exact same isolation, confusion, neglect, inquiry, desire, and heartache. All these years later, there’s little to no progress or solution. Adults have become freakishly focused on ‘self’, so much so, that we’re failing our responsibilities to participate and aid in the development and advancement of young people’s spiritual and intellectual growth.”

This is what I related to and why I’m so thankful for Yelling to the Sky. I may be a white woman and I may not have made the same choices Sweetness made, but it showed me I wasn’t alone. It felt cathartic watching.

My childhood existed of treacherous terrain to navigate. My mother was preoccupied by her own problems. I never knew what I was walking into when I went home. So I focused on the future. I clung to the hope that one day things would be different. That was the sole reason I survived. It’s the one thing that kept me going. While my mind was fixated on the future, my actions were grounded in the present. Like Sweetness, I skipped classes and almost didn’t graduate high school for I wanted to numb my pain. It’s this delicate dance of present angst and future hopes that Mahoney captures so well.

Sure, some people may find Yelling to the Sky bleak or hopeless. It’s heartbreaking to watch Sweetness spiral out of control. Sweetness clamors to escape, to break free. Yet there’s nowhere to go. Echoing real-life, the film ends with ambiguity and uncertainty. You don’t know how her life will turn out. Sweetness’ story – her struggle to survive amidst the chaos swirling around her, desperate to cling to any semblance of community – is one worth telling. And it’s one we don’t see often enough.

Race and the Academy: Black Characters, Stories, and the Danger of Django

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” – W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

Written by Leigh Kolb

When I first wrote about Django Unchained, I focused on the power of Django’s story, and how Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and Quentin Tarantino give Django the “white access” he needs to get into Candyland and into movie theaters.

I was excited and hopeful about what the film could symbolize on a grand scale, that a revenge-fantasy that shows the horrors of slavery and has a Black protagonist who overtakes his oppressors was a box office hit and was set to receive numerous award nominations.

My excitement was short-lived. Jamie Foxx (Django) and Samuel L. Jackson (Stephen) were shut out of acting categories for both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

While their co-stars are completely deserving of recognition for incredible acting (Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio were nominated for Golden Globes and Waltz for an Academy Award–Waltz won both), Foxx’s lack of nominations is symptomatic of a larger Hollywood problem–not only whose stories audiences see, but also whose stories get awards.

When Tarantino understandably felt uncomfortable with the thought of filming scenes of a slave auction and brutality against slaves, he struggled with not wanting to film those scenes in the American south. He sought advice from Sidney Poitier (the first African American to win a Best Actor Oscar). His response:

“‘Sidney basically told me to man up,’ Tarantino says. ‘He said, ‘Quentin, for whatever reason, you’ve been inspired to make this film. You can’t be afraid of your own movie. You must treat them like actors, not property. If you do that, you’ll be fine.'”

Overall, Tarantino was fine. His Black actors, however, were not recognized for their performances (this was reminiscent of his 1997 film Jackie Brown, which received Golden Globe nods for Samuel L. Jackson and the title character, Pam Grier, but only received an acting Academy Award nomination for white co-star Robert Forster).

In an Oscar year that feature films that deal with race (The New York Times recently published an excellent article examining race and the roles of Black men in this year’s Oscar contenders), the acting awards nominations are startlingly white (Denzel Washington and Quvenzhané Wallis being the exceptions).

I want to focus mostly on the Black actors and actresses who have won Academy Awards, the plots of the films they were in (synopses from imdb.com) and their character descriptions. I know that this topic is complex and demands analysis far beyond this, but a brief reflection shows a pattern.

[Warning: spoilers ahead!]

Lilies of the Field (1963, Sidney Poitier, Best Actor): An unemployed construction worker (Homer Smith) heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior (Mother Maria), who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert.

– Homer Smith: handyman who provides unpaid labor to a group of nuns

Training Day (2001, Denzel Washington, Best Actor): On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn’t what he appears.

– Alonzo Harris: crooked narcotics officer, killed at the end

Monster’s Ball (2001, Halle Berry, Best Actress): After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African-American wife of the last prisoner he executed.

– Leticia Musgrove: struggling single mother, incarcerated husband, object of lust for racist cop

Ray (2004, Jamie Foxx, Best Actor): The life and career of the legendary popular music pianist, Ray Charles.

– Ray Charles: blind man overcomes odds, becomes music legend

The Last King of Scotland (2006, Forest Whitaker, Best Actor): Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s.

– Idi Amin: Ugandan president, evil, hundreds of thousands died under his regime

Flight (2012, Denzel Washington, Best Actor – pending): An airline pilot saves a flight from crashing, but an investigation into the malfunctions reveals something troubling.
– William “Whip” Whitaker: alcoholic, drug-addict pilot, ends up incarcerated

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, Quvenzhané Wallis, Best Actress – pending): Faced with both her hot-tempered father’s fading health and melting ice-caps that flood her ramshackle bayou community and unleash ancient aurochs, six-year-old Hushpuppy must learn the ways of courage and love.

– Hushpuppy: precocious five-year-old girl living in poverty with a dying, abusive father

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982, Louis Gossett, Jr., Best Supporting Actor): A young man must complete his work at a Navy Flight school to become an aviator, with the help of a tough gunnery sergeant and his new girlfriend.

– Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley: rigid drill instructor, trains protagonist

Gone With the Wind (1939, Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress): American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

– Mammy: “outspoken handmaid”

Glory (1989, Denzel Washington, Best Supporting Actor): Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War’s first all-Black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

– Pvt. Trip: escaped slave, dies fighting

Ghost (1990, Whoopi Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress): After being killed during a botched mugging, a man’s love for his partner enables him to remain on earth as a ghost.

– Oda Mae Brown: con artist/psychic, “confidence trickster”

Jerry Maguire (1996, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Best Supporting Actor): When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him.

– Rod Tidwell: football player

Million Dollar Baby (2004, Morgan Freeman, Best Supporting Actor): A determined woman works with a hardened boxing trainer to become a professional.

– Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris: narrator, retired boxer, employee at gym

Dreamgirls (2006, Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress): Based on the Broadway musical, a trio of Black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s.

– Effie White: lead singer of the Dreamettes until she gets forced out of the group, becomes an “impoverished welfare mother”

Precious (2009, Mo’Nique, Best Supporting Actress): In New York City’s Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

– Mary Lee Johnston: unemployed, abusive (sexually, physically and emotionally), scams government for more welfare

The Help (2011, Octavia Spencer, Best Supporting Actress): An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids’ point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

– Minny Jackson: outspoken, difficult maid; good cook

Of the four Black men who have won Best Actor Oscars, two are in powerful positions of authority and are evil (they serve as foils to their noble white co-stars), one provides free labor (let that sink in), and the other is a musician. The Black Best Supporting Actor winners quite literally support white protagonists.

The Black female actresses’ winning roles are even more troubling. None of them really has independent agency, except for maybe Hushpuppy–who is a child (she’s also not expected to win). Otherwise the list is full of maids, single mothers on welfare, and one trickster con artist. It felt horrible to even type that.

These characters are comfortable and safe to white audiences. If the character seems unsafe to white audiences, he or she is punished. Last year, the LA Times released a study that Oscar voters were 94 percent white and 77 percent male. Certainly this affects the Academy’s choices.

Now let’s look at the plot synopsis for Django Unchained.

Django Unchained: With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

– Django Freeman: trained, violent bounty hunter, whips and kills white people, burns down a plantation

One of these things is not like the others.

Django Unchained ends with a triumphant Black couple who have gained their revenge, freedom, and love. Think about how vastly different that ending is than those that are provided to Black characters in the films above. Many white couples and individuals end those films successfully, with complex story arcs that show their agency and growth.

When W.E.B. Du Bois discusses the “double consciousness” of seeing oneself “through the eyes of others,” he could very well be talking about modern-day Hollywood. He saw the world looking at African Americans with “amused contempt and pity,” and it’s hard to look at that list of Academy Award winners and not come to that same conclusion.

Meanwhile, Lincoln has been nominated in three out of the four major acting categories (all white actors). This is a film about abolishing slavery from a totally white and white-washed perspective (the omission of Frederick Douglass is unbelievable).

Whose stories get told? Whose stories get accolades?

It’s pretty clear. The Academy (94 percent white and 77 percent male) values stories that reflect their privileged consciousness and reinforce the Black double-consciousness that Du Bois was attempting to push through over 100 years ago.

Those chains, it seems, remain unbroken.

—–

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Women in Politics Week: With a Complex Black Female Protagonist Created by a Black Female Showrunner, I’m Rooting for ‘Scandal’

This post by Megan Kearns previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on April 17, 2012.

Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in Scandal

I love Grey’s Anatomy. Is it melodramatic? Absolutely. But its dramatic storylines, sharp dialogue and diverse cast have hooked me from the very first episode. So when I discovered writer, producer, showrunner Shonda Rhimes created Scandal, a political thriller TV series revolving around a woman of color, I knew I had to watch.

Kerry Washington (a feminist in real life…huzzah!) plays Olivia Pope, an assertive attorney who’s a “crisis management expert,” inspired by former George H.W. Bush administration press aide Judy Smith (who also happens to be a producer of the show). Olivia runs a small organization of lawyers who fix scandals and clean up messes like murder charges and infidelity. With a subtle and nuanced performance, Washington is definitely the best part of the series.

What’s so interesting (and fucking sad) is that Scandal is the only prime-time TV show on right now centering around an African American woman. And it’s the first network show with a black female lead in 30 years (that is horrifying). I’ve often heard Washington is a fantastic actor and she was great in the heartbreaking For Colored Girls. Here she commands the screen with confidence and poise. Olivia is an intelligent, successful and empowered woman. Others look up to her, revere her and even fear her shrewd insights and relentlessness to finish a job. She’s demanding, requiring her staff to pull all-nighters and enforcing rules like no crying in the office and not answering “I don’t know” to a question she asks. Powerful politicians turn to her for advice. She negotiates deals on her terms. While new employee Quinn (Katie Lowes) idolizes her, Olivia is far from a paragon of perfection. She’s vulnerable with a messy and complicated love life. She’s flawed, not always likeable (although I personally love her!) and uses Machiavellian tactics to complete a job. But this mélange makes her all the more interesting.

Washington was recently on The Melissa Harris-Perry Show (one of my absolute favorite feminist icons EVER!!!). She talked about inclusivity and how she and Harris-Perry, as two women of color on TV, are “expanding the idea of who ‘We the People’ is.” She also discussed playing a complex female character on-screen:

“…When I read this script, I was so blown away by this woman who in one area of her life, in her professional life, she’s brilliant and sophisticated and in power. And then in her personal life she’s vulnerable and torn and confused. And I thought this is an incredible challenge for any actor. But we also don’t get to do that often — as women in this business, as people of color in this business — to have all of that complexity to explore.”

And she’s right. We too often don’t see complex women, especially women of color, on-screen.

I loved the political intrigue and the focus on a single, accomplished, career-driven woman. And of course how could I not be delighted that Henry Ian Cusick (aka dreamy Desmond from LOST) has found a new series. I was thrilled that the show opens from Quinn’s perspective, taking a job with Olivia because of her reverence for her stellar reputation. I also loved that within the first 7 minutes, a character derided a potential client because he was an anti-choice, anti-gay Republican. While many people assume the media suffers from a liberal bias, too few shows actually discuss abortion or LGBTQ issues.

While most of it is good, some of the dialogue felt a bit staged or forced. I cringed when Olivia body polices and chastises new employee Quinn for displaying too much cleavage and when Abby (Darby Stanchfield), one of Olivia’s employees, gleefully calls a female murder victim a whore…and drops the whore word a few more times in the next episode too. While there are several female characters (none of whom are really fleshed out yet beyond Olivia), most of the time they’re interacting with men. Although Olivia does have conversations with a young woman who claims is having an affair with the president (Olivia’s former boss) and with the wife of a Supreme Court nominee. No strong female friendships emerge yet. But we’re only 2 episodes into the series. Female friendships comprise the cores of Rhimes’ other shows, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. So I’m hopeful that we’ll see more female interaction as the series progresses.

Much like its complicated protagonist, the series isn’t perfect yet. But it’s got potential. I’m rooting for it because we can never have too many sharp political dramas. And we can never have too many female leads, especially with women of color.

Scandal is a big deal. Not only do we have a woman of color protagonist, we have a series written and created by a woman of color. With Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal, Rhimes belongs “in an elite group of TV show runners who have multiple series on the air at the same time.” In each of Rhimes’ television shows, she puts women at the forefront. While she has held open casting calls for all ethnicities and has African American, Latina, Asian American and white women in her shows, she’s never had a series revolve around a woman of color. Until now.

In an Essence interview, Kerry Washington said she felt “lucky” to be a woman of color in Hollywood right now:

“I think it’s a really special time to be a woman of color in this business. The landscape of who has the power is changing. We are in more influential positions and are able to have a say in the stories that are told. I feel very lucky to be in the business now…”

But The Grio’s Veronica Miller asserts that it’s hard to have faith in “Hollywood’s relationship with black actresses:”

“It will be easier when black actresses become more visible in roles across the spectrum, (think fantasy hits like Harry Potter, or romantic dramas like The Notebook) and not just ones that call for an African-American female.”

Racialicious’ Kendra James points out the pressure TV shows like Scandalwith black leads face:

“It’s risky for a network that depends on millions of viewers for advertising revenue to cast a lead that the majority of viewers (read: white people) may not relate to. While a show like Pan Am (fondly known as Carefree White Girls Explore the Third World) can fail to take off without consequence, it feels, at times, as if the fate of every black actor and actress on television rides on the success or failure of one show each season.”

Here at Bitch Flicks, we talk a lot about the need for more women in film and TV, in front of and behind the camera. Women comprise only 15% of TV writers and 41%-43% of TV roles are female. But we also desperately need more women of color.

In a time when Trayvon Martin was shot for being a young black man wearing a hoodie…when racist Hunger Games fans can’t empathize with a black character in the film adaptation…when accomplished and ridiculously talented black female actors like Viola Davis have a hard time finding roles…when black female actors must play either maids or drug addicts or sassy best friends…when female actors of color get sidelined from the cover of Vanity Fair — our society tells people of color over and over and over again implicitly and explicitly that their bodies and their lives don’t matter.

It’s time to change that. It’s time for our media to stop revolving around white men’s stories and reflect the diversity of our world.

Guest Post: Movie Review: ‘Think Like a Man’

This guest post by Ela Eke-Egele previously appeared at Black Feminists and is cross-posted with permission.

The film is a romantic comedy based on Steve Harvey’s book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. It follows four couples and each woman is dating a different type of man as defined in the book, “The Player,” “The Non-Committer,” “The Mama’s Boy” and “The Dreamer” respectively.

The women follow relationship strategies for the given type of man they are dating and all seems to go well, until the men discover what they are up to. They get a copy of the book and attempt to counter the women’s plans but ultimately, end up alone. Following some reflection and regret, the couples make up and the movie ends with a joyful reunion and uplifting music.

Think Like a Man is unsophisticated and dated. It’s blatantly self-promoting with Steve Harvey appearing several times to talk about the ideas in his book (K-Ching!). The film’s soundtrack is a lot more entertaining than the script which in places relies more on sexism than realism. Chris Brown has a minor role in it and for me, it’s still too soon. The last person I need to see in a film dealing with relationships is Chris Brown.

L-R: Mya (Meagan Goode), Sonia (La La Anthony), Zeke (Romany Malco) in Think Like a Man

Think Like a Man operates in a heterosexual world and works on the premise that women have an innate need for commitment while men are all about sex and that men are in a position of power today because sex and women have become too available. This is made clear at the onset, with James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World opening and a voiceover by Kevin Harris.

The impression that Think Like a Man gives is that a black woman’s primary focus is on finding and keeping a man and that we’re prepared to lie, cheat and manipulate in order to get one. But, I have to say, the men in this movie aren’t very appealing. They are sexist, emotionally immature with little potential for growth. The “Happily Married Man” is portrayed by a white man who in fact does seem more enlightened when it comes to relationships and more willing to compromise. But, I wonder what is this trying to tell us, that black men are not this sophisticated by nature and we just have to work with this?

Admittedly both the men and women in Think Like a Man are overplayed stereotypes. To suggest this is the best that men, particularly black men, have to offer is very bleak and to assume that black women are so desperate is insulting.

Think Like a Man roots for a playing field that favours men while it pretends to empower women. Conforming to some basic stereotypes and predefined rules makes women easier to understand and also removes the need for men to relate to us as individuals. Steve Harvey is unapologetic when he says that “we need to talk” are the four words most dreaded by men. This is following a scene where one of the men gets a call from his girlfriend who says exactly that. The scene also makes it plain that men have no such reservations when it comes to talking about strippers and ‘titties and ass.’

L-R: Michael (Terrence Jenkins) and Candace (Regina Hall) in Think Like a Man

The movie denies that men are intimidated by a woman’s success yet we are told that the male DNA is encoded with the need to be the provider and the compulsion to be in control. A view that conveniently ignores evolution and is so worn out that it is completely threadbare. Successful and accomplished women are accused of being too independent and giving off the impression that they do not need men because they are men. The preferable strategy for these women is to downplay their achievements, lower their standards and settle for less. So, this film doesn’t seem as much about helping women get men as it is about helping men get women with minimal effort and undamaged egos.

Think Like a Man is nostalgic for a time when men were men and abundant chest hair and gold medallions were a sign of virility, and I can’t help but feel that it may be a reflection of how hard it is for black men to deal with the much-improved status of women today. Women are more successful, financially secure, sexually liberated and independent than they have ever been and, perhaps for men like Steve Harvey, it makes it seem like male privilege is slipping away, so now there’s a war on.

Harvey’s book was on the New York bestsellers list so it obviously did well, but I think that any women who finds it necessary to resort to these tactics is simply encouraging bad behaviour and buying into the idea that black men are a lost cause. Steve Harvey, instead of looking to women for a solution, should encourage men to look to themselves. Men, even black men, need and benefit from commitment and any who refuse to adapt will lose out in the long run. Women deserve better. Perhaps he hasn’t realised this yet, which might explain why he is on his third marriage. This makes it even harder to take his book and this movie seriously.

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Ela Eke-Egele is involved with the Black Feminists group in London. She works full time in the IT industry and enjoys writing part-time. She lives in Hertfordshire with her two children and a goldfish.

Women in Science Fiction Week: 21st Century Mammy: Older Black Women Are the Lowest Rung on the Visibility Ladder of Science Fiction

Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) in Star Trek: The Next Generation

Guest post written by Joanne Bardsley.

At some point in the near future, a mass genocide, coupled with a widespread sterilisation programme, occurs. This results in an overwhelmingly white population (genetic preservation orders are been enacted for redheads and natural blondes). Compulsory euthanasia exists for the elderly, although four people at a time are excepted because of their great leadership skills. Babies are raised Brave New World style in farms far away from the public eye but girl children often succumb to a mysterious illness which kills them before they reach adulthood. The women who do survive this mysterious illness suffer changes to their metabolism so that they never need to eat and never put on weight.

The two older black women who have survived the depredations enacted on non-whites, females and the elderly are so relieved to be alive that they devote their whole lives to the service of others.

The Oracle (Gloria Foster) in The Matrix and The Matrix Revolutions

The lack of representation of older black women in science fiction is coupled with a complete lack of interest in developing any kind of independent agenda for their characters. Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Oracle in The Matrix, the only two named older black women that I (or anybody else that I asked) could think of, are recycled wholesale from the stereotypical mammy of the slave era.

Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) in Gone with the Wind

The main features of the stereotypical mammy are grounded in a white fantasy; often these women were wet nurses, bringing up their white charges in a far more intimate relationship than either have with their biological families. It is not Scarlett O’Hara’s mother who fusses about her eating habits, does up her dress, or worries about her relationships. It is Mammy. Scarlett, and the viewers of Gone With the Wind, never consider what Mammy might think of their relationship, or worry that she might have children of her own whom she cannot raise. We are content to construct a fantasy in which Mammy wants nothing more than to feed, clothe and care for her white charge.

Neither Guinan nor the Oracle appear to have any other desire than to help others. Guinan does have hidden talents; she can outwit Captain Picard and outshoot Lieutenant Worf, she is even prepared to take on the omnipotent Q. However, her main preoccupation is serving food, drink and advice to the crew of the Starship Enterprise. The Oracle literally only exists to guide others, she is the matrix’s help programme. Her help comes with a side of cookies and is served in a dingy kitchen.

The preoccupation with food seems to be a particular feature of the mammy and possibly explains her continued presence in our fantasies. She exists to feed us. She alone of all women in the future is allowed to be plump and to wear less than skin tight clothing. Her presence is symbolically and physically maternal, yet her slave status denies her the independent desires of a mother, and removes the rival demands of a father; she exists for us alone.

Joanne Bardsley teaches English and Media Studies in North West London. She is currentlystudying for a Masters in Education.