When thinking about black actresses in the 1930s through 1950s, a few names may come to mind like Nina McKinney, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, and Hattie McDaniel. However, many other black actresses have graced the big screen including Suzette Harbin, Theresa Hams, Ethel Moses, Mae Turner, and Hilda Simms just to name a few. Many of these talented actresses differ in their career paths, but they all endured some form of racism and sexism which made it laborious for them to thrive in their careers. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark represents the hardships of black actresses during the 1930s through 1950s. The protagonist, Vera Stark, persistently tries to prove to people around her that she has star quality for show business. However, she does …show more content…
Gloria Mitchell, a well-known white actress, stumbles with memorization of the script and has no self confidence that she will get the part. Vera, knowing Gloria has connections in the industry, reassures her. After much coaxing, Vera gets a part in The Belle of New Orleans. She plays, Tilly, a slave girl to Gloria’s character, Marie. Like most slave roles during that era, Tilly has a loyal heart to her Madame. In a particular scene, she gives advice and consoles Marie: “Mis, dat man out dere loves ya. And if you send him away now it gonna real shame. You can’t keep hidin’ from de worl” (Nottage 60). This scene epitomizes one of the roles black actresses had play, “nurturer to white womanhood, in order to gain a small access to Hollywood” (Paul William, book review). Hattie McDaniel’s entire career revolves around the mammy or maid roles. She even won an Academy Award for her role as mammy in Gone With the Wind. Before winning the Academy Award, she received much criticism for her portrayal of mammy because it perpetuated black stereotypes. The NAACP complained about the stereotypes in Hollywood for years. In fact, they personal attacked Hattie McDaniel for not taking the political route and fighting for equal opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hattie McDaniel responded to critics by saying I can either work as maid in Hollywood …show more content…
She obtains the role of the slave woman, Tilly. Compared to Lottie, Vera has more speaking roles because of her skin not being too dark. When the film makes its way to the silver screen, Vera believes her career will heighten. In reality, her career does not flourish. She maintains some gigs, but none of them forms her into a star. One has to wonder whether Vera portraying a slave woman affected her career. There has to be valid reason for a talented actress such as Vera to be a striving actress and not a star. However, the reason always returns to race. Black actresses were not seen as stars. They bide in the background, behind their white costars. Conceivably, major studios wanted to keep the perception of white people being more superior to black people: “Hollywood films also tend to be made for a broad general audience, so the history of the majority of this audience, traditionally white and middle class, is emphasized and dramatic liberty is taken with the story to make it more engaging and understandable for that audience” (BurdenofHis). In this case, white leads are required to have successful films since white audiences would not comprehend a black lead in a film. For instance, The Belle of New Orleans follows the difficult life of an octoroon, Marie. However, since black actresses were not given lead roles, Gloria was given the part of Marie. This strategy of casting is called
With all that Ethel Waters has contributed to music and film, it is surprising that she is often forgotten. She was a talented blues singer whose unique style distinguished her from other blues singers and she was a jazz vocalist as well. Her talent extended beyond singing, when she became a dramatic actress who earned award nominations for her performances. What was most remarkable about Waters' performances was how she reconstructed the mammy character into one that challenged stereotypes.
In this autobiography of Anne Moody a.k.a. Essie Mae as she is often called in the book, is the struggles for rights that poor black Americans had in Mississippi. Things in her life lead her to be such an activist in the fight for black equality during this time. She had to go through a lot of adversity growing up like being beat, house being burned down, moving to different school, and being abuse by her mom's boyfriend. One incident that would make Anne Moody curious about racism in the south was the incident in the Movie Theater with the first white friends she had made. The other was the death of Emmett Tillman and other racial incidents that would involve harsh and deadly circumstances. These this would make Miss Moody realize that this should not be tolerated in a free world.
The other ladies in the short film talk about how they thought that she had a “ real problem with [her] ethnicity like [she] had a problem with the fact that [she] was born African-American (Reynolds). This, along with the documentary on Lacey Schwartz, shows that a person’s sense of blackness is very much a product of what others around them define blackness as.
According to PBS.org,”12.5% of film actors were black in 2014.” Only 12.5% of all actors!You would think it would be a lot more in a developed and liberal country like America. On the contrary, it's a lot more compared to the 3.2% it was in the 60’s.Dorothy Dandridge being part of that percent. Dandridge was a black icon in the 60’s starring in many films but, most notably, Carmen Jones. Where she is a seductive factory worker, who falls in love with a soldier after he kills his sergeant.She was so famous in the 60’s but in present times, she's unknown. She should be as famous as other icons in the 60’s such as Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe but she’s not since being black in the 60’s put you at an automatic setback. It caused her to be
Racial inequality was a big thing back in the day, as the blacks were oppressed, discriminated and killed. The blacks did not get fair treatment as the whites, they were always been looked down, mocked, and terrified. But Moody knew there’s still an opportunity to change the institution through Civil Rights Movement. As she matured Anne Moody come to a conclusion that race was created as something to separate people, and there were a lot of common between a white person and a black person. Moody knew sexual orientation was very important back in the 1950s, there was little what women can do or allowed to do in the society. For example, when Moody was ridiculed by her activist fellas in Civil Rights Movement. Women indeed played an important role in Moody’s life, because they helped forming her personality development and growth. The first most important woman in Moody’s life would be her mother, Toosweet Davis. Toosweet represent the older rural African American women generation, whom was too terrified to stand up for their rights. She was portrayed as a good mother to Moody. She struggled to make ends meet, yet she did everything she could to provide shelter and food to her children. Toosweet has encouraged Moody to pursue education. However, she did not want Moody to go to college because of the fear of her daughter joining the Civil Rights Movement and getting killed. The second important woman to Moody would be Mrs. Burke, She is the white woman Moody worked for. Mrs. Burke is a fine example of racist white people, arguably the most racist, destructive, and disgusting individual. In the story, Mrs. Burke hold grudge and hatred against all African American. Although she got some respects for Moody, State by the Narrator: “You see, Essie, I wouldn’t mind Wayne going to school with you. But all Negroes aren’t like you and your
Annie’s role is that of the stereotypical Mammy. The Mammy as a controlling image influences Black women deeply, for she is the caregiver to White children while neglecting her own, she cooks and cleans after a White family and is happy while doing so, thus as she works hard as men do, she is not viewed in the same feminine lens. Collins describes how this image was created to justify the exploitation of Black women doing domestic services, “by loving, nurturing, and caring for her White children and “family” better than her own, the mammy symbolizes the dominant group’s perceptions of the ideal Black female relationship to elite White male power” (71). Therefore even as Annie takes care of her daughter and Lora’s, Annie is eager and accepting of her subordination. Collins further states “Black women who internalize the mammy image potentially become effective conduits for perpetuating racial oppression. Ideas about mammy buttress racial hierarchies in other ways. Employing Black women in mammified occupations supports the racial superiority of White employers” (72). This is seen within the film, both by the role Annie symbolizes and the fact that this role was offered to Black women during that
Typically minority groups are thought of in the context of race; however, a minority group can also consist of gender and class. The struggles facing a minority group complicate further when these different facets of minority categories are combined into what is sometimes called a double minority. Throughout American history, African American women have exemplified how being a double minority changes the conditions of being a minority. In Reminiscences by Frances D. Gage of Sojourner Truth, for May 28-29, 1851, a speech by Sojourner Truth is recalled where she poses the question-"Ain't I a woman" (Lauter 2049). Truth speaks for women's rights in this speech, but her question becomes more interesting when applied to African American women because they move from being a double minority to a single minority with this statement. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Song of Solomon, and Push demonstrate in their African American female characters the impact of having a double minority status.
Neither one is an accurate or fair portrayal. Despite the fact that the character of Phyllis as the “tough as nails” perpetual, intentional aggressor is a valid attempt to obliterate the image of women as the oppressed, one interpretation of this role is that she ultimately seems to misrepresent herself, and females in cinema, anyway. Janet Todd, author of Women and Film, states that, “Women do not exist in American film. Instead we find another creation, made by men, growing out of their ideological imperatives”(130).... ...
She faced many obstacles that got in the way of reaching her dreams, which includes, Gloria’s lack of interest in helping Vera to get her into the acting industry. As a way to overcome this, Vera kept on pleading Gloria to suggest her name to the director in hopes of getting a role as a maid. Another obstacle Vera faced was the high competition in becoming an actress and the lack of exposure to directors or producers, which put her efforts to a halt. Vera’s action was to perform an impromptu audition in front of the director of “The Bells of New Orleans”, Maximillion. In her performance, she faked her origins to accommodate the needs of the director, which was to have a realistic movie which portrayed the struggle of African Americans in
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were the only way for African-Americans to express the deep pain that the white population placed in front of them. Singing, dancing and acting took many African-Americans to a place that no oppressor could reach; considering the exploitation of their character during the 1930's-1960's acting' was an essential technique to African American survival.
This film is based on the real life story of Crystal Lee Sutton and her involvement with Ruben Warshovsky and the organization of the textile workers at the J.P. Stevens Company in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina (Labor Films). Sally Field plays the lead role of Norma Rae (Crystal Lee Sutton) fighting poor working conditions at O. P. Henley Company in 1978. This company is a southern textile mill, working with a union organizer to overcome pressure from management, implied dangers, and the struggle to organize her fellow employees. Although, the film is very entertaining, there are many examples of labor and management interactions including unfair labor practices by management, unfair labor practices by the union, and the procedural process of unionization process.
“If I were white, I could capture the world!”, she complained. Dorothy Dandridge was the first African-American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the first African American to be on the cover of Life. This did not exclude her from prejudice. Searching for strong leading roles in movies that fit her talents was impossible, but positions as extras and background characters were always available. Directors offered Dandridge supporting roles as a slave, servant, or savage, but Dorothy declined. When Dandridge performed there were strict rules she had to follow. For example, she was forbidden to speak to the audience, ride the elevator, pass through the hotel lobby, gamble in the casino, and use the bathrooms. At nightclubs, Dorothy was given a storage space as a dressing room and a dixie cup as a makeshift bathroom. After a long day of work, Dorothy was not given the chance to relax in the swimming pool or else it would have to be drained for “health issues”. Dorothy Dandridge proved that on the road of life, many people will try to stop or prevent you from reaching your goal. She advises us to ignore that and keep moving
Moody’s position as an African American woman provides a unique insight into these themes through her story. As a little girl, Moody would sit on the porch of her house watch her parents go to work. Everyday she would see them walk down the hill at the break of dawn to go to work, and walk back up when the sun was going down to come back home. At this time in her life, Moody did not understand segregation, and that her parents were slaves and working for a white man. But, as growing up poor and black in the rural south with a single mother trying to provide for her family, Moody quickly realized the importance of working. Working as a woman in the forties and fifties was completely different from males. They were still fighting for gender equality, which restricted women to working low wage jobs like maids for white families. Moody has a unique insight to the world of working because she was a young lady that was working herself to help keep herself and her bother and sister in school. Through work, Moody started to realize what segregation was and how it impacted her and her life. While working for Mrs. Johnson and spending the nights with Miss Ola, she started to realize basic di...
The Representation of Women in Pretty Woman, Thelma and Louise, and Hollywood in General In this piece of coursework I will be writing an essay on how women are represented in media in general and also in the films ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘Thelma and Louise.’ I will also be writing about how films usually use stereotypes which gives a judgement of a type of person or a group of people which may not true. In these two films women are represented as housewives/sex objects, for example in ‘Pretty Woman’ Vivien was on the bed half naked the camera, show a close up taking in her body which makes a sexy scene and usually in Hollywood films they use this technique most of the time. For example they’ve used it in the film XXX (triple X) as well.
The film “Norma Rae” follows Norma Rae, a young woman, who works at the local cotton mill in the southern United States. Norma has two young children from different fathers, but lives with her parents, who also work at the