Prototypes of Race and Gender: The Invisibility of Black Women

Biernat, Monica and Amanda K. Sesko. 2009.  Prototypes of Race and Gender: The Invisibility of Black Women.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 356-360.

Biernat and corresponding author Sesko in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology present a quantitative research study that examines racial and gender stereotyping and prejudice experienced by black women in relation to the perceptions of white women and black and white men. The study works on the hypothesis that black women are “forgettable” and the least likely to be recognized, hereby going unnoticed.  In addition to quantitative methods, the study also relies on feminist theories of “black invisibility” by bell hooks and other noted black feminist scholars.

 The study was divided into two parts. First, 131 white undergraduates, which included 50 white females, were shown 56 photos of black women’s headshots.  Secondly, participants were asked to distinguish if the photos were old or new. The first study provided evidence that black women’s faces were “forgettable” to white participants, garnering a small percentage of those who correctly identified photos.

 In the second study, participants were asked to identify “who said what” (358-359), which yielded higher errors as the black women in the study were the group most misunderstood among the black male and white male participants. Biernat and Sesko state limitations of the study such as: participants were aware that they were to pay attention to what was said and the definition of “invisibility” may have been too broad.

Although this study is mostly quantitative and from an advocacy worldview, the idea of “invisibility” can be applied to my own research interest. In reading this study the following questions arose: Are women featured in blaxploitation “invisible” and “unheard”? If so, how can we give them a “voice” beyond their physical presence?  Is it because of the “black invisibility” of black women that black women in blaxploitation films have been virtually ignored by the mostly male scholars and film critics? It is my hope that with this research project presenting reactions to blaxploitation films it gives a voice, visibility, and identity to the characters that these women portrayed beyond their stereotypes.

Black Sexual Politics

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2004. Black Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge Press

Patricia Hill Collins follows up her previous work on black feminism with a book examining race and gender and how images of black sexuality have been used to further a divide between black men and women as well as reinforcing racist ideals on a global scale.  Collins examines current media (videos, film, and literature) and American culture to define how blacks (male and female) are sexualized and categorized based on stereotypes that are the antithesis of the ideal “white purity”. Collins defines this work as relying heavily on discourse analysis (4-5) to define the specifics of gender-based racism. Collins is methodical in her approach to the subject, drawing on her familiar lens of black feminism as well as sociological theories as it relates to gender, race and political implications.

I wanted to familiarize myself with other works by Collins and Black Sexual Politics also seemed like a natural fit to draw theory from for the type of theoretical “slant” in which I wanted to take my research project. With specific correlation to my project, Collins talks about the use of black women in 1970s blaxploitation film as either “sexual props” to black male heroes or in the case of Pam Grier, a “combination of beauty, sexuality and violence” (124). The conflict arises in the interpretation of the black female audience of Grier (and other blaxploitation female lead actors) to her portrayal of a black woman on screen? Is she what Collins calls a “black bitch” (125) or just asserting her authority in a male dominated celluloid world? Is Grier’s character authentic or contrived?  Furthermore, would modern, “Generation X” black women perceive characters such as Grier’s “Foxy Brown” or Dobson’s “Cleopatra Jones” in the same light?

Blaxploitation Horror Films: Generic Reappropriation or Reinscription?

Benshoff, Harry M.  2000.  Blaxploitation Horror Films: Generic Reappropriation or Reinscription? Cinema Journal. 39(2): 31-50.

 Benshoff examines the racial, social and gender issues highlighted in the subgenre of horror within blaxploitation films. Aside from movies set against crime backdrops and ghetto life, horror was also a very popular genre within blaxploitaiton. Films such as Blackula  (a black retelling of Dracula) and JD’s Revenge were highly popular with black audiences. Benshoff argues that the images of monstrosity and normality correlate directly to what W.E.B. Dubois called the concept of “twonesss” in the African American psyche-two social identities struggling to coexist (39).  In addition, these films further echoed black nationalistic themes of “black power”, black “rightness” and white being seen as bad.

Although I have no intention of using horror movies within my research project dealing with blaxploitation and women, Benshoff’s article was indeed helpful. His section on “Gender and Sexuality” (40-43) delved greatly in the portrayal of African-American women in horror blaxploitation.  For example, once possessed with an evil “spirit” the women become hypersexualized monsters, ravenous creatures, “ethnically” blatant, and demonic women.   Once relieved of their possession, women become demure, complacent and traditional in their gender roles.   This echoes the same “twoness” of identity defined by Dubois that Benshoff points out with male characters in horror blaxploitation (although he does not elaborate on that idea with regard to women characters). Very few of these films stared black women in lead roles, but women are used (as they are in most horror films) as objects of sexual desire at the expense of black, patriarchal violence. There is no sense of empowerment in horror blaxploitation as there is in more “mainstream” blaxploitaiton films such as Coffy or Cleopatra Jones.   However, both horror and action blaxploitaiton films often subjugated women to roles of mere sexual objects. Thus, there is a slight contrast in the use of women in blaxploitaiton horror versus other subgenres within blaxploitation.

What’s in a Name?: Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond

Collins, Patricia Hill . 1996. “What’s in a Name?: Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond”.  The Black Scholar.  26(1): 9-17.

Noted black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins seeks to define and specify the terms in which black women can define their unique experiences and scholarly.  In the scholarly community there is great debate on which terms are all encompassing to the African-American female experience. Is it womanism (as defined by Alice Walker), black feminism, or simply part of the greater feminist experience? As Collins notes, most African-American women see no great different between the two terms as both terms are concerned with the intersection of racism and sexism (10).  Collins explores both terms and the theoretical implications (both negative and positive) of their use to define the viewpoint of black women. As defined by Collins (using Alice Walker’s previous definitions), “womanism” is the theory of the black woman’s experience which is concrete in the history of racial and gender oppression specific to African-American women while “black feminism” is more global ideology and encompassing social, sexual, political and economic issues that impact black women (12).  Both terms try to define the experience of black women outside of the terms of “feminism” which traditionally has been seen as a “movement for and about white and lesbian women”  (15), which remains problematic for black women. Collins argues that the debate should shift from issues of naming to how overlapping themes can be used for the greater good of drawing attention to issues concerning black women.

Collins’s definitions of both terms have been helpful in shaping my own lens within my own research. For the purposes of my research project, I choose to use the term “black feminism” in defining the ideology and theoretical approach I want to take in my assessment of blaxploitaiton. I take this stance mainly because I am dealing with the medium of film: a globally accessible item that can be viewed by black women across the Diaspora. Furthermore, I believe by examining films I can raise issues that are uniquely both important to feminist theory and important to discussions on race and gender; therefore, a unique juxtaposition between race and gender is at work in blaxploitaiton films. In addition, there appears to be more familiarity with the term “black feminist” than with the term “womanism”.

The Returns of “Cleopatra Jones"

Brody, Jennifer DeVere. 1999 The Returns of “Cleopatra Jones".  Signs:  Journal of Women in Culture and Society 25 (1): 91-121

Brody takes a queer and feminist theory approach in her assessment of the blaxploitation films Cleopatra Jones and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold starring Tamara Dobson.  In her critical analysis, Brody tries to explain the appeal of Dobson’s iconic role to hip-hop (“Generation X”) women as a model of feminism as well as analyzes the film Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold in terms of queer  properties. Brody compares the character of Cleopatra Jones (played by the 6’2” Dobson) through a queer lens in stark contrast to other female driven Blaxploitation films such as Coffy and Friday Foster (both starring Pam Grier). These films, all produced by white studios with white directors, were exploitive but showed women who were independent, courageous, and strong (95). But unlike her counterparts, Dobson’s portrayal of Cleopatra Jones is distinctly working within the male action hero formula. From assessment of the dialogue to the costuming, Brody recontextualizes Cleopatra Jones and Tamara Dobson’s portrayal working in several parameters: female, masculine, queer, and finally black (with a theoretical assesment via both queer and black feminist lenses)

This article, I found, was most helpful as the basis of my research project. First, it was only one of a few articles that explicitly spoke about a blaxploitation film with a female lead (and it is the film I plan on showing for my qualitative survey assessment/film viewing).  It was not merely the queer lens that Brody is operating from, but her thorough assessment of Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson) as a woman who was different from other  female leads of the blaxploitation era, who is distinctly masculine and feminine, gendered yet not conforming to gender roles. The ideas of spectatorship are distinctly important to my research project. How do outsiders view issues of race and gender? How do insiders (those of the targeted audience of black women) view race and gender? For my project, I plan on working within the parameter of “insider” feedback and spectatorship. Although I do not plan to use the “queer” lens as Brody has, I found her specific narrowing of an advocacy worldview helpful in trying to identify the scope of my own research.

The Ruse of Engagement: Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing

Sexton, Jared. 2009. The Ruse of Engagement: Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing. American Quarterly. 61 (1): 39-63

Sexton’s article addresses the intersection of black masculinity within films that deal with elements of “policing” and crime in the film industry. He uses director Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day starring Denzel Washington as a case study (although I argue that this is an accurate description of his analyses and methodology) in the discussion of perceptions of black “maleness” within the realms of cinema. In his assessment, Sexton analyzes past films with strong male leads, especially those starring Sidney Poitier made during the height of blaxploitation film making. Specifically, Sexton analyzes films in which black men are in positions of authority (i.e. police, detectives, investigators, etc) and how this was in stark contrast of society’s view of African-American men as subservient, threatening, unauthorized and unarmed (43). Comparatively, Sexton aligns the film making of Fuqua to those early blaxploitation film makers and discusses several ways in which modern films (particularly those with elements of policing/crime./authority) address similar issues of race, gender and sexuality.

I was particularly interested in several issues this article raises with respect to my own research interest.  The article raises issues of gender and sexuality with regard to African-American men in roles of “policing” yet there is no discussion of African-American women in those same roles. A good strategy in talking about  black masculinity in film is to juxtapose it against the display of “masculinity” in female roles of authority and policing.  There is only a cursory (albeit obligatory) mention of African-American women actors, specifically Halle Berry, and the message her role in Monster’s Ball may have sent with regards to gender and sexuality. The article is good in its assessment of masculinity in black cinema but fails in comparatively analyzing both male and female roles. It would have made the argument of black masculinity being subverted a lot stronger if  the subject was compared with similar female roles.

The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism

Bounds-Littlefield, Marci.  2008.  The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism. American Behavioral Scientist. 51 (4): 675-685.

Marci Bounds Littlefield’s historical, qualitative study “The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and New Racism” (2008) raises criticism around issues of media (including cinema) as a polarizing force in the image of African-American woman and offers solutions (albeit limited) as to how educators can help change this dynamic of “new racism”.   This “new racism” assumes that because we have achieved equality in the eyes of mainstream America that issues of racism and sexism are non-existent. Ideas of sexual equality and empowerment are negated my current images of hypersexualized, marginalized African-American women. Littlefield uses the media as the example of those who perpetuate ideas of race and gender in negative ways and bases much of her criticism in the theory of Patricia Collins Hill’s notions and lens of black feminist dialogue.

Historically. Littlefield covers representations of women in early forms of media such as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation as well as other images of African-American women in positions of servitude and disenfranchised. Furthermore, she also includes modern interpretations of images of African-American women such as highly-sexually suggestive rap videos. What is lacking, however, is a critical view of images that occurred during a time frame between those extremes such as blaxploitation films. Littlefield doesn’t acknowledge that those blaxploitation films are often the basis of highly sexualized rap video images of pimping, manipulation and exploitation of women, and black masculinity defined as material wealth and sexual conquest. Although she stresses that there has to be context in which black men are not conditioned to view black women in this manner and educators are key to change, she does not offer any solutions with regards to media and popular culture helping to change that dynamic.

Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film

Massood, Paula J. 2003. Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Focusing on various urban landscapes as a “character’ in black film, Paula K. Massood’s Black City Cinema is an interpretive, critical discussion of the urban landscape as a vital element in defining the “black” experience in films.  From east coast ghettos to west coast “hoods” (145), much of contemporary black films target a largely male, black, urban audience. She identifies such tropes in African-American experience such as migration, transformation, nationalism, middle-class mobility struggles, and escapism which often play out against an urban backdrop. Massood focuses on the ghettos of Harlem, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles as well as the migration of films shifting from urban settings of cities to distinctly urban/black settings of  Southern and Midwestern areas.

Because most of blaxploitation is set against the backdrop of urban life, I felt that Paula Massood’s book would be vital to my understanding of how urban life, its issues and problems, helped to shape blaxploitation cinema. I was disappointed to see that much of the book focused on the works of Spike Lee and his urban settings and only one chapter (Chapter 3: Cotton in the City, The Black Ghetto, Blaxploitation, and Beyond) focused on the importance of urban areas in blaxploitation films. Furthermore, there is no discussion or implication of how the urban environment impacted portrayals of female characters in blaxploitation.  Much of the chapter focuses on the dichotomy of urban life and films with male leads (Superfly, The Mack, Sweetback). With the exception of one film (Bush Mama), much of the discussion focuses on how masculinity is discussed within the realms of the urban background.

Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture

Sims, Yvonne D.  2006.  Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company

Although written a few years before Stephane Dunn’s book, Yvonne Sims also tackles the subject of black women in blaxploitaiton film from a feminist film theory lens. However, she also gives critical analysis on their impact on popular American culture as a whole and not relegating it to simply the African-American experience. Her argument is that by reshaping notions of African-American femininity and gender blaxploitation films allowed for all women to be seen in less marginalized ways in mainstream action films. There is a comprehensive history of early race films and their use of stereotypical tropes such as Aunt Jemima, Mammy and other domesticated roles. She also employs the sociological and cultural lenses of Patricia Hills Collins, Bell Hooks, and other noteworthy African-American feminist critics as the basis for her analysis of women in blaxploitation.

Other than the introduction, Sims’s book is less narrative and is a strictly critical, qualitative analysis of blaxploitaiton films. Sims does a thorough job of analyzing roles played by Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson as well as their high sexualized, yet power-centered roles’ impact on mainstream action heroines (such as Sigourney Weaver in Alien). The chapter on Pam Grier as the “queen of blaxploitation” (71) is particularly interesting and critical of her oversexualized portrayals of African-American women, yet Sims praises her as a trailblazer in being the most bankable African-American actress of the 1970s and as an unconventional, empowering super-heroine.   Tamara Dobson is analyzed as the antithesis of many of Grier’s characters, not using blatant, irrelevant nudity and sexual overtones to sell the image of strength, femininity, empowerment, and social consciousness (94). The only weakness of the book is that there isn’t a clear correlation between the end of blaxploitation films and the rise of mainstream films (perhaps other than lack of interest and white directors employing blaxploitaiton themes to more mainstream films with mainstream actresses). Again, much of that is inferred from the text and not explicit.

“Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Film

Dunn, Stephane. 2008. “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films  Chicago:  University of Illinois Press

Morehouse College assistant professor of English Stephane Dunn blends personal narrative with critical theory in her book- a comprehensive assessment via feminist theory, racial and political commentary and literary analysis of blaxploitation films. Moreover, the films that Dunn chooses to critically analyze are those that feature African-American women in lead roles (i.e. Coffy, Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones) as well as films that deliberately have African-American women in the peripheral. These films, and the early blaxploitation actresses, according to Dunn, lay the foundation of modern portrayals of African-American woman in film as well as the hip-hop, “Generation X” women who readily identify with the strong, powerful, “badass” stereotypes that are often glorified.  Furthermore, Dunn calls for a critical examination of these films beyond their status of “cult classics” as well as their impact on the modern African-American woman with regards to issues or race, gender, class and power/empowerment.

This book works extremely well by dealing with the intricate issues of race, sexuality, politics and gender within blaxploitation by applying historical analysis (i.e. reinforcing slave narratives in various films) in combination with modern interpretations and impacts of the genre on entertainment and society. Furthermore, issues specific to women (gender roles, rape, marginalization) are dealt with comprehensively. I believe because Dunn is of “Generation X” and has a familiarity with the genre and its impact; her personal tone and anecdotes work well as “openings” to her highly detailed, critical analysis chapters. The only negative is that Dunn tries to cover too many areas and often times certain passages lose their overall focus. Nevertheless, this is an extremely helpful resource written with a scholarly audience in mind.

Recontextualizing the Historical Reception of Blaxploitation: Articulations of Class, Black Nationalism, and Anxiety in the Genre’s Advertisements.

Kraszewski, Jon. 2002. Recontextualizing the Historical Reception of Blaxploitation: Articulations of Class, Black Nationalism, and Anxiety in the Genre’s Advertisements. The Velvet Light Trap (University of Texas Press). 50: 48-61

Kraszweski focuses his textual analysis on advertisements associated with blaxploitation and their role in developing (and often times reaffirming) stereotypes of African-Americans by highlighting issues of racial identity, the desire for middle-class wealth, and black male identity. Much of the advertisements (which featured mainly African-American men in positions of wealth and power) focused on perceptions of black identity within the realms of a black nationalistic thread, which was met with resistance and anxiety by middle-class white America (and middle-class African-Americans). There is also a brief discussion of magazines and articles published by African-Americans that were very critical of these films and their less-than-positive portrayal of African-Americans, including the advertisements for those films.

Although Kraszewski’s peer-reviewed article focuses on advertisements of blaxploitation films, it gives us a basis for the discussion of the perceptions of racial ideologies and class that blaxploitation films often addressed. Where the article lacks, however, is in the discussion of perceptions of gender (particularly in regards to African-American women). There is extensive discussion on advertisements focusing on issues of social mobility and stereotypes of violent black men and none of the advertisements that Kraszewski chooses to examine feature black women in lead roles. In addition, some of the advertisements that he examines often have women featured (prominently or in the background). Furthermore, Kraszewski chooses to purposely ignore this issue altogether and admits toward the end of the article that blaxploitation with female leads have often been ignored (59).  

I feel that this opens the door for a more extensive discussion of the perceptions of African-American women in blaxploitation. How do their images and film reflect the position of African-American women during a time in society where many African-American women were involved in feminist movements, nationalistic movements, and were gaining upward mobility?