Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Tomáš Varga

African American Domestic Servants in Contemporary Cinema

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.

2013 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Tomáš Varga Acknowledgement I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. for the feedback and comments he gave me during the development of the thesis. I would also like to thank doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. who have kindly lent me books, which proved to be crucial in my research. Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 5

Chapter 2 Historical Overview 7

Chapter 3 Analysis of the selected movies 37

Chapter 4 Conclusion 54

Works cited and consulted 56

English Resumé 59

Czech Resumé 60 Chapter 1

Introduction

Movies featuring African Americans have been a popular kind of entertainment for a century now. Due to their popularity the movie producers were able to use them to influence a vast number of people all over the world. The movies featuring domestic servants from the Jim Crow era have become widely popular in the past few decades.

However, these characters often carry characteristics of the boxed stereotypes.

Therefore the main aim of this thesis is to prove the contemporary movie makers continue to use the African American stereotypes in depicting the black domestic servants of the Jim Crow era.

The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first and the fourth chapter are

Introduction and Conclusion, respectively. The second chapter introduces the African

American stereotypes in movies and presents the Uncle Tom and the Mammy stereotypes of domestic servants. Then, it describes the development of movies from

1910s to the contemporary era focusing on various representations of African

Americans. The historical overview can be separated into three main periods. The movies from the first period ranging from 1910s to 1930s feature blackface actors depicting the African Americans in a stereotypical manner, especially in a first ever feature movie The Birth of a Nation released in 1915, it also features the entertaining jesters from the twenties and the largest number of movies picturing servants from the thirties. The second period starting in forties and ending in seventies might also be referred to as the post-servants period. The beginning of the period was very much influenced by the Second World War. The movies of the period featured black

“likeable” entertainers rather than servants and villains. It was mainly because the

5 studios tried not to alienate the blacks who might want to join the army and, at the same time, to please the white audience that wanted to have an alternative, idyllic world where they could hide from the sufferings of the real one. After the war there came movies confronting the racial issues. The fifties presented calm, sad and struggling

Tragic Mulatto characters, while the sixties brought the black villain characters in the leading roles. Towards the end of the period, blacks struggled with Blaxploitation, a series of movies featuring unbeatable black superheroes—and later super-heroines— fighting their way in the ghettoes. The third period ranging from the 1980s to the contemporary era features a new wave of movies depicting servants of the Jim Crow era, Black Best-Buddies separated from their own black community and black independent movie producers trying to present the issues regarding African Americans from the black point of view.

The penultimate chapter tries to analyze four movies—Driving Miss Daisy

(1989), The Long Walk Home (1990), Far from Heaven (2002) and The Help (2011)— all depicting African Americans in domestic roles using the findings and examples from the previous chapter.

6 Chapter 2

Historical Overview

The silent movies in the beginning of the twentieth century utilised the well- known stereotypes from the slavery era. These early movies set the foundation of depicting the African Americans in the motion pictures in the subsequent decades.

Although the movies featured the black characters, these were not played by African

American actors but, in a ninetieth century habit, by white actors in blackface (Bogle 4).

The blackface actors imitated the blacks using the predetermined stereotypical guidelines. The characters in the “boxes” happen to be the familiar stereotypes from the slavery era. The actors merely picked an appropriate character from a “box” and delivered their performance by the predetermined guidelines. Therefore, the performances might often felt rather unnatural and overdone (Bogle 4). Although these stereotypes might not be considered to be threatening to the African Americans, they nevertheless caused difficulties in the real life scenarious. The unfavourable depictions of the African Americans negatively influenced the views of those who encountered

African Americans and their culture only through the movies. These people might considered the stereotypes to be the true representations of the blacks (Ethnic).The newly emerged African American actors in the movie industry had a difficult task to perform by the predetermined guidelines and at the same time to bring some dignity into the roles. However hard they tried, they often failed to destroy the stereotypes, which continued to spring up in movies featuring black characters.

The Uncle Tom stereotype has its roots in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle

Tom’s Cabin. The twelve-minute Porter’s depiction of Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the first socially acceptable African American stereotype presented in the motion

7 pictures (Bogle 4). Various cinematic adaptions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin emerged in the early decades of the twentieth century. They all depicted Uncle Tom as a loyal, subservient and always happy servant. For example, in For Massa’s Sake, released in

1911, the Uncle Tom character was so loyal to his master that he willingly sold himself back to slavery in order to help his master to overcome the financial difficulties the master had (Bogle 14). Two adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from 1914 and 1927 are the most notable ones. They both feature the first African American actors signed for the leading role—Sam Lucas and James B. Lowe, respectively (Bogle 6). The 1927 version was even reissued, though still as a silent movie, in 1958. One might think the movie was reissued in the turmoil of the fifties to remind the disobedient African Americans of the era when the obedience to the master was the universal solution to every single problem regarding African Americans (Bogle 7). Try as both actors might they were, nevertheless, unable to depict the Uncle Tom character in other than the stereotypical way. Their Uncle Tom was still the same old loyal, subservient and always happy servant (Pilgrim, The Tom Caricature).

The Mammy figure is another widely used and very popular stereotype present in the American movie industry. She appeared in a blackface version of Lysistrata

(1914) for the first time. Mammy is a corpulent woman, stripped of her sexuality, as dark as possible, sass-mouthing and, above all, loyal to the white family (Ethnic). In order to prove her utmost loyalty she is willing to ,literally (she is not afraid to die for the white employer) and figuratively (does not have life of her own), sacrifice her own life, just like the Uncle Tom. They both try to protect the white family against any harm.

For instance, in The Birth of a Nation Mammy fights anyone who tries to hurt the white family, not minding whether it is a white or a black person, because the only thing that

8 matters to her is the white family. In Imitation of Life (1934), Louise Beavers plays the

Mammy character who becomes rich thanks to the inherited pancake recipe. When Miss

Bea, her boss, tells her she will be rich and could live in her own house, the Mammy is horrified because she cannot imagine living on her own, without the white family

(Pilgrim, The Mammy Caricature).

The first major feature movie depicting African Americans was D.W. Griffith’s

The Birth of a Nation (1915). While the preceding American movies were short, usually ten to fifteen minutes long, The Birth of a Nation was filmed in nine weeks and had over three hours in running time. The movie changed the movie industry and the notion of moviemaking (Bogle 16-7). It was highly controversial due to its representation of the African Americans as brutal and savage people, who have to be controlled by whites in order to maintain the order in the society. Although NAACP was only six years old at the time, it was rapidly gaining followers throughout the nation. The organisation led a series of protests against the movie, claiming it was racist. Griffith, however, claimed it had nothing to do with it (NAACP). The movie starts with a depiction of a decent white family household with happy servants. However, the idyllic picture falls apart when the

Civil War starts. The South is destroyed by plundering former slaves after the war. At the Congressional meeting, black members are pictured as animal-like beings having their bare feet on the desks. The story reaches its climax when Gus, a renegade black, wants to rape a white woman. However she jumps of the cliff rather than submitting herself to him. Her action suggests that one would rather die than to even think about a sexual interaction with a black person. When the whole society is in havoc and the whites lost their hope, members of an “invisible empire” emerge and save the day. They are none other than the white Southern men, heroes in white sheets and hoods, who

9 come to restore the South and reestablish the white supremacy (Bogle 12). With masterful editing the clash between the blacks and the clansmen was an impressive Ku

Klux Klan propaganda. It made such an impression that the audience itself made preferences and cheered the clansmen and booed the blacks when watching the conflict.

Griffith used two types of African American stereotypes, the good-old-loyal Mammy, the Uncle Tom figures and oversexed, Brutal Black Bucks. Griffith pictured the whites’ fear and opinions that white women are the ultimate desirability for all the black men

(Bogle 13-4). The desire was largely driven by an animal instinct of the blacks. Griffith brought another novelty into the movie industry, a Tragic Mulatto character. Although,

Lydia, a Tragic Mulatto character and the Mammy character are both played by blackface actors. The Mammy has, nevertheless, darker skin to emphasise her asexuality and to rule out any possible sexual attraction. This notion of darker skin colour will continue throughout the thirties and forties and it might be even seen as late as in the sixties (A Raisin in the Sun from 1961 or Hurry Sundown from 1967). In contrast to the Mammy character, the Tragic Mulatto character, a woman with brownish cinnamon skin was considered to be sexy. Griffith’s skin colour division was used in the film industry for a long time. The depiction of African Americans as brutal and savage figures was such a sensitive and controversial topic that never again could they be so openly depicted in the similar way Griffith’s did (Bogle 15-9).

The twenties were influence by the First World War and the post-war development. Before the jesters were introduced, the movie industry used movies to picture the theme of solidarity and brotherhood in the society, thus it would not alienate the society. With the exception of Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, which caused some turmoil in the society. For instance, Griffith’s The Greatest Thing in Life (1918). It went

10 so far in presenting the good natured broadmindedness as to picture a miscegenation kiss in a scene where a dying black soldier makes one last wish to be kissed by his mother. The white soldier grants him this wish kissing him on the lips. Although, it was a tense moment, the movie was a failure. After the war, the movie industry returned to the old ways of depicting African Americans, but this time the Brutal Black Bucks were replaced by jesters (Bogle 20).

Free and Equal was finally released 10 years after the shooting in 1925. A black man, Marshall, pursues the white man’s daughter. However, when he fails to get to her, he rapes the maid instead. He is eventually convicted and sentenced. The movie was a failure because the society no longer wanted to see movies, which pictured a black man as a villain and a Brutal Black Buck (Bogle 25). This movie, more than any other, shows that the old stereotypes no longer apply because the society has changed and so must the movie industry. It has also pointed out the absurdity of the blackface tradition.

The tradition started during the slavery where whites depicted blacks in blackface on the minstrel stage (Ethnic). However no one questioned the tradition being carried out to the movie industry. Even Bert Williams, a popular black comedian, darkened his already dark skin before the performances (Bogle 25-6). NAACP and other civil rights organisations managed to make Hollywood cast African Americans into some minor roles, such as, The Ten Commandments (1923), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and Little

Robinson Crusoe (1924). The twenties showed the blackface tradition to be a ridiculous one. However, the emergence of sound in the movie industry forced the movie producers to begin casting the African Americans into the roles instead of the blackface actors (Bogle 26).

11 However, there were still some movies featuring actors in blackface. For example, the audience was stunned by Al Jolson’s blackface performance in Warner

Bros’s 1927 The Jazz Singer movie, the first ever talking-motion-picture. Not the plot, but her voice was the most amusing part of the movie. Even though, Jolson’s performance is a classic example of a minstrel tradition from the slavery era, The Jazz

Singer was a success and it launched Jolson’s career. Moviemaking companies realised the importance of talking pictures and decided to change the industry from top to bottom. They started to cast African Americans into the singing and dancing roles of the new talking-picture era (Bogle 26). Heart in Dixie, released in 1929, was a feature movie utilising the modern sound technology. It depicted singing and dancing slaves on a Southern plantation. Even though the slaves lived in poor conditions and worked from sunrise to sunset they did not seem to be concerned with it. The movie once again pictures the happy, carefree slaves. Heart in Dixie as the first all-black movie brought into daylight an issue of blackface fixation. Everyone in the production team was white, only the cast was black. Therefore the representation of the African Americans and their culture is significantly influenced and often depicted from the white’s point of view. For many decades African American actors will struggle with blackface fixation and only the most talented ones will manage to escape its grasp. One of them was Stepin Fetchit, who had his debut in Heart in Dixie playing a walking, talking, dancing Coon character.

Although he did not play an important role in the movie, he, nevertheless, delivered such a good performance in the first half of the movie that the second part revolved entirely around him. Fetchit was the first of the Coon jesters and servants who gained immense popularity in the next decade of the thirties (Bogle 28).

12 The second major film of the twenties was Hallelujah (1929). Not only was the first all-black musical but it also set the standard for the future musicals. Vidor, the director, pictured blacks in a fictional and isolated world where issues were solved between the members of the African American community but none of the interracial issues were touched upon. The characters were partially stereotypical, as Bogle points out “[they were] either sentimental idealists or highly emotional animals…[and] many suffered from blackface fixation” (33). However, Vidor had enough sense to give the actors a chance to do the acting their own way. They often delivered a marvellous performance. Successful as the movie might be, for most of the African American cast it was the summit of their careers because Hollywood still did not have roles suitable for

African American actors. The only exception was, seventeen-year-old Nina Mae

McKinney. She represented the cinnamon ideal of a sex object. “Assuredly one of the most beautiful women of our time,” Richard Watts Jr. wrote about her in The New York

Post (Bogle 33). Despite the five-year contract she signed with MGM, she was unable to find a suitable leading role in the Hollywood movies. She was eventually forgotten five years after the Hallelujah debut. Her hands-on-the-hips pose became legendary though and was mimicked by many leading black actresses in the subsequent years. The movie was banned by the Southern Theatre Federation, because some people—mostly

Southerners— were still unprepared for African Americans in important leading roles

(Bogle 33-4).

Hollywood finally managed to find a new guise for African Americans in the thirties. The old stereotypes of Uncle Tom, Mammies, Coons, Tragic Mulattoes and

Bucks changed their attire and became respectable domestic servants. The thirties might be considered to be the era of servants, due to the massive production of movies

13 featuring African Americans in domestic roles. In fact, the Depression period featured the highest number of such movies in the whole history of motion-picture movie industry (Bogle 36). The servants with their jolly behaviour, vernacular language and loyalty to their bosses provided the audience an alternative to the difficult issues they had to overcome during the Depression era. This was the Golden Age for many African

Americans, because almost every movie of this period featured a black servant whether for two minutes or three and a half hours. The African American actors who agreed to perform as a black servant in any of the movies were criticised by civil rights organisations for doing so. Even though, the characters were highly stereotypical,

African Americans managed to bring some of their own ingenuity into their roles. Be that as it may, the first movies provided very little space for individualisation, for the black characters were performing mechanical tasks, such as opening the door, bowing, smiling and bowing again. There was just not enough time and space for the actor to add anything. Besides the mere present, however brief it was, of a black servant ensured laughs from the audience (Bogle 37).

Maids were usually depicted as Mammy stereotypes, in order to emphasise the contrast between the domestic servants and their white mistresses. They were asexual, overweight, middle-aged, joyful and without life of their own. This depiction served to strengthen the sexual attraction and dominance of the white leading actors. Mae West and Shirley Temple were the major leading white actresses at the beginning of the thirties. Their movies featured various black actresses in domestic roles, including Mae

West’s real life domestic servant Libby Taylor (Bogle 46). Mae West movies, for instance She Done Him Wrong, I’m No Angel or Belle of the Nineties were representations of the second evolution of domestic servants. These movies pictured

14 servants as trustful friends. Moreover, first sings of the humanisation of the black characters start to emerge in some of the Shirley Temple’s movies. Shirley and Bill

“Bojangles” Robinson were together in about four movies. One of them was The Littlest

Rebel where Bill played Shirley’s guardian. For the first time in the history of motion pictures was an African American responsible for the actions of a white person (Bogle

47). Robinson’s acting was, however, largely mechanical. He often appeared to be saying his lines as if reading them from a blackboard. What made Robinson so popular were not his speeches but his dancing, sense of rhythm and cool-headedness. Robinson was one of the people who tried to individualised and humanised their characters.

Instead of playing a typical reckless coon, he made him a responsible, but at the same time funny, character (Bogle 52, Padget). Perhaps because of the childlike behaviour of the black servants and Temple being a child herself she and her black servants were buddies. Her movies showed the society that if everyone was nice and kind to each other, everything would be all right.

The first major movie of the period was Imitation of Life (1934). The movie was influenced by the changes in the society, it depicted a new type of black woman, still a servant but dignified one. The movie features a black and a white widow who struggle to survive in difficult times until Aunt Delilah (Louis Beavers) brings a secret pancake recipe, which will eventually make them rich. Aunt Delilah is horrified when Miss Bea

(Claudia Colbert) tells her she can have her own house and does not have to live with her anymore. Aunt Delilah cannot imagine living without taking care of Miss Bea and her daughter. Aunt Delilah’s character is an obvious combination of the submissive

Uncle Tom character and the Mammy stereotype made in the Hollywood fashion.

Louise Beavers was the first to enrich her character with Christian goodness, by doing

15 so she helped to perceive the African American characters in a more civilised manner

(Bogle 53). Louise Beavers proved to be the ideal Uncle Tom-Mammy character that would look after and possibly give advice to the white heroines in difficult times.

However, she had to overcome several obstacles in order to get to be assigned the

Mammy role. For instance, she was not big enough to depict the Mammy figure.

Therefore she underwent a special diet that was designed to make her gain weight.

Furthermore, since she was from Cincinnati, Ohio and studied at Pasadena High,

California her accent and dialect were nowhere near Southern. She had to adapt to the trend, thus she learnt how to speak in a slow Southern-like way, in order to present the

Mammy figure everyone expected to see. Strangely enough, she disliked cooking, therefore all the meals had to be prepared beforehand by a chef. Beavers then stood by the cooker with a kitchen utensil, thus completing the perfect picture of an artificial

Mammy figure (Bogle 63). Her performance might have been rewarded by an Academy

Award if it had Best Supporting Actress category in 1934 (Oscar). Nevertheless, The movie’s success convinced the moviemakers that even African Americans can deliver a good quality performance in important roles.

In addition to the Uncle Tom and the Mammy characters the Coon characters made their comeback as well. The most popular Coon character was Stepin Fetchit, a slow-witted, simple-minded humbug who intrigued the audience. Even though, he was considered to be a bad boy of the movie industry, he was given another chance to act.

He was eventually so good that he became the first African American actor who was given the scenes specifically written for him. His slow-lazyman shuffling, broken dialect, grinning and goggling representation of a Coon character was imitated by bootblacks and bus boys (Bogle 39). In Fox Movietone Follies (1929) he depicted a

16 nitwit who could not possibly pronounce words with more than one syllable. In The

World Moves On (1934) he was mistaken for a Frenchman, therefore the ever confused

Coon was recruited into the French army (Bogle 41). The behaviour of his characters lessens the seriousness of the inhumanity, which surrounded Fetchit. His slow-witted

Coon brought him fame but eventually it was, together with his overwhelming debts, his doom as well. Despite that, he was the first of the boss loving servants in the thirties. He helped the other African American actors to enter the world of Hollywood movie industry. Thus, the most prominent Stepin Fetchit-like Coons in later years came on scene, namely Willie Best, Mantan Moreland and Louis Armstrong (Bogle 71). Willie

Best usually played slow-witted, half asleep characters, who were happy enough to have a place to sleep and something to eat. In The Littlest Rebel, for instance, he played a

Coon who wondered about everyday things, he kept asking “Why is a shoe called a shoe?” or “I spent all yesterday wondering why a horse is called a horse.” Although he was not as stylish as Fetchit, he was easier to manipulate by the movie studios (Bogle

72). Mantan Moreland and Louis Armstrong followed a similar path of Fetchit imitation.

Towards the end of the period a post-humanised African American characters played by Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen began to appear on the screen. In contrast to the earlier servants who received various demeaning orders, for example Mae West’s order to her maid: “Peel me a grape!”, their attitude was quite different, because they no longer cared much about the social status, the racial stereotypes and their appropriate place. These servants were masters of their own (Bogle 77). Perhaps the most memorable African American actress from this period is Hattie McDaniel. She was often criticised for her stereotypical roles, but she was

17 quick to reply to such remarks saying: “Why should I complain about making seven thousand dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making seven dollars a week actually being one (Bogle 82)!” Her reply gives one a shrewd idea about the options the

African American performers had in the thirties. The audience loved McDaniel’s stereotypical big, asexual, sassy-mouthed and fearless Mammy characters. In Judge

Priest (1934) she performed together with Will Rogers and Stepin Fetchit. One could see McDaniel’s sense of command and her devotion to her job in the confrontations between her and Fetchit when she has no interest in his shenanigans, but bosses him around. Unlike Beavers, McDaniel did not want to become a meek servant (Bogle 86).

Thanks to the performance in Gone with the Wind (1939), she was the first African

American actor who received an Academy Award for the Best Supporting Actress

(Oscar). The movie is set on O’Hara’s plantation during the Civil War. Inevitably, the

African Americans play the servants, who seem to be happy with the establishment because none of these servants is raising firearms against their white master. Several organisations, namely NAACP, National Negro Congress and even the Communist party, fought—unsuccessfully—against the movie after its release because of the stereotypical depictions of African Americans. However, NAACP successfully pressured producer David O. Selznick into leaving out some of the most offensive and possibly controversial scenes (Guerrero 26). Moreover, black performers managed to change the stereotypical servants into human beings by adding some of their own personality into the characters (Bogle 88). McDaniel plays a loyal Mammy character who has a strong mother-daughter relationship with Scarlett O’Hara. She is not scared to boss Scarlett around or even threaten her when Scarlett does not want to eat her food but at the same time she comforts and protects Scarlett in times of need (Gone with the

18 Wind). McDaniel managed to ease the burden of the black role inferiority. She is independent and strong willed—qualities that one could not possibly find in the black roles in the movies from earlier periods of motion pictures.

The conflict in Europe dominated the forties. The movie industry inevitably had to adapt to the changes. The movie industry officials realised they cannot continue to portray African Americans in demeaning roles especially since U.S. government wanted to motivate the one million African American soldiers who served in the United States

Army to fight in the Second World War (Guerrero 27). Therefore the jesters and the villains were no longer desirable and the servants’ status and working conditions had improved as well (Bogle 118). Furthermore the idea of the black entertainers was not unknown to the movie makers, in fact, the producers tried to stress the myth that the blacks were natural entertainers in almost every movie featuring African American cast.

However, the notion was never as widespread and obvious as in this particular period

(Bogle 118). The main idea was to provide the audience with an alternative world, where they could escape at least for a moment or two and forget all about the conflicts, troubles and disagreements of the real world. To some extent these movies created a perfect country, which does not suffer racial or any other problems, thus trying to convince the audience it is worth fighting for it. The entertainment characters were better fitted for this kind of roles because they did not stir as much negative reactions as the servants did. The musical numbers were not crucial for the main plot of the movies, therefore if the local theatre decided it would be unwise to screen them, they could just cut them out, thus making the movie audience friendly (Bogle 121).

19 One of the most popular performers of this period was Hazel Scott. She was never ashamed of the colour of her skin or her opinions. Interestingly enough, she was the first African American artist who refused to perform before segregated audiences

(Smithsonian). She appeared in I Dood It (1943), The Heat’s On (1943) and Broadway

Rhythm (1944). In The Heat’s On, for example, she refused to wear an apron stating:

“no woman would see her sweetheart off to war wearing a dirty apron (Smithsonian).”

She initiated a three-day strike, which resulted in removing the apron from the scene all together. Another example of her stubbornness might be her refusal to perform the subservient roles. Therefore if she performed in a movie, she would always play herself

(Chilton). For a short period of time, she caused quite a stirrup in the movie industry.

However, it did not went unnoticed and her attitude ended up her career. Despite her continuous fight against the stereotypical characters, she also slipped into these stereotypes without even realising it (Bogle 122). She was not the only one to perform herself in the movies. Lena Horne, Hazel Scott’s greatest rival, also appeared in movies as herself. Even though, she was pictured as a sex object, basically a Tragic Mulatto character, she managed to deliver the performance with such elegance that she was considered to be a lady, rather than a prostitute. Some African Americans accused MGM of presenting her as a white actress (Bogle 127). She considered Thousands Cheer

(1943) to be her first big movie, because “They didn’t make me [Lena Horne] into a maid, but they didn’t make me into anything else either.” Her scene could be easily cut out, so the movie could be screened in the South as well (Bogle 127). Cabin in the Sky

(1943), one of the two major musicals of the period, was based on a successful

Broadway show but it took MGM a long time to turn it into a movie, since all-black projects posed a financial risk. It was advertised as all-star production, which was pretty

20 accurate, since it featured Ethel Waters, Eddie Anderson, Lena Horne, Vincente

Minnelli and Butterfly McQueen, just to name a few. Despite the fact that the movie featured all these stars, it tended to present African Americans in a remote and idealised world just like The Green Pastures did in 1936 (Bogle 57). It would seem the distorted representation of African Americans was more favourable than the realistic one (Bogle

125-28). Stormy Weather (1943), a musical released by Twentieth Century-Fox, showed a timeline of black entertainment from 1918 to 1943. The audience sees the story through the eyes of Bill Robinson. It tried to provide an escape to ordinary people from everyday life as well. Both musicals found their audiences even in the South, where most of the all-black productions were banned (Bogle 131-32).

Some people started to think about correcting “the old wrongs” when they realised their mistreatment of African Americans. President Roosevelt issued Executive

Order 8802, which ended racial and religious segregation in war industries (Exec.). The movie industry followed this new wave of liberalisation and offered more roles to

African American actors. Hence, “new” performers emerged, though they were not at all new. The “new”, likeable, black characters were already present in the movie industry before the forties. For example, Clarance Brooks debut in Arrowsmith (1931) or Clinton Rosemond’s debut They Won’t Forget (1937). The most notable movies of the forties were In This Our Life (1942) featuring Hattie McDaniel and Olivia de Havilland,

Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944) or romance movie Casablanca (1942) (Bogle

137-39). Furthermore, after the Second World War, audience no longer wished to see the entertaining blacks and the fictional worlds because they were no longer afraid of controversies and demanded pictures portraying issues, dealing with racism in particular. For that reason movie industry had no other choice but undergo some radical

21 changes. Hence, the audiences were presented with a series of movies investigating the race issues (Bogle 143). Pinky (1949) presenting a strong black woman (Ethel Waters) who elevated her role above the old archetype stereotypes, despite the original intention to present the character as a stereotypical Mammy figure. Waters, however, was not a typical one-sided Mammy figure, thus she managed to humanise her role. She has even won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1949 (Oscar). The closing movie of the forties was Intruder in the Dust (1949). It was mainly about a proud black man, Lucas Beauchamp. It would seem the movie industry still had difficulties to adapt to the new demands. The forties appears to be hectic, but it clearly indicates the racial issues could no longer be kept in the drawer. Movies from the following decades continued to confront the racial issues (Bogle 143).

The fifties were very much influenced by the Korean War, the 1954 Supreme

Court decision declaring separate public school unconstitutional, Little Rock Crisis—

President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect African American students who enrolled in Little Rock Central High School and were prevented from entering in 1957

—Montgomery Bus Boycott, sit-ins and Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violent protests. It is only natural the movie industry gradually adapted to these new political and social turbulences (Bogle 160). Moreover, due to the increasing popularity of television in households—by the end of the fifties, almost ninety percent of all households in the

United States had a television—producers had to find new ways to attract the audiences into cinemas or make movies suitable for a television broadcast (TVB).

Another black leading actress of the era was Dorothy Dandridge. Dandridge holds several first places in the African American movie-making history. In 1955 she

22 was nominated for Best Leading Actress award for her role in Carmen Jones. She was the first African American performer to be nominated for a leading award—both Ethel

Waters and Hattie McDaniel were nominated for a Best Supporting Actress award

(Oscar). In 1957’s Island in the Sun, miscegenation interracial love movie, Dandridge was the first black woman to be held in the arms of a white actor (Bogle 171). Because of the miscegenation theme, the movie was considered to be so controversial that some theater owners—mostly Southerners—had threatened to boycott the movie even before its release. Legislatures in South Caroline even considered to pass a bill fining every movie house screening the movie. Although, the bill was never passed, threats, such as this, had influenced the production. The combined forces of Dandridge’s stunning appearance and crazy personality has made her look a lot like the Tragic Mulatto character she represented in the movies. Moreover, towards the end of the decade she increasingly brought her own personal disappointments and frustrations into her roles.

Some might even say her frustration comes from her skin colour. She usually played unfulfilled, neurotic and vulnerable characters. Her role in the most successful all-black movie Carmen Jones (1954) finally defined her as a Tragic Mulatto character. The movie, featuring female fights, exaggerated dialects, brawls and animalistic passions, followed the desires of the popular culture. Despite her triumph she struggled to find more movie roles after Carmen Jones. The roles she managed to find were often very similar to the character she played in Carmen Jones, thus she ended up playing self- destructive women, i.e. the disguised exotic Tragic Mulatto stereotype (Bogle 168-71).

The third of the notable actors of this period was Sidney Poitier. He presented an ideal integrationist African American actor. His roles, as Donald Bogle points out, “were educated, intelligent and had best of table manners” (175) Moreover, his roles had

23 perfect command of language, did not lose temper easily, were almost asexual and easily controllable. Poitier was a perfect actor not just for the mass white audience, but for blacks as well. The black audience liked his “differentness” because he was not influenced by the African past, dialect or ghettoes. On the other hand, he played characters that were very similar to the old stereotypes of Uncle Toms—though dressed and presented differently—and Christianised servants. In 1950 No Way Out started the problem pictures era and Poitier’s career. The movie pictured the racial tension and riots, which emerged after the Second World War. Poitier played a handsome, well educated, well-spoken, middle-class hero who was accepted by the society. In Edge of the City there are no cultural gaps between Poitier’s character and his white friends during dinner. He is so accustomed and integrated into the white society, he is considered to be a true American citizen. In addition, his roles are usually sexless and he rarely has any romance in the movies. Porgy and Bess, released in 1959, was Poitier’s last movie of the decade. Although Poitier did not want to play in this movie, he was eventually persuaded to take the role. The movie was a bit out of place, because in the time of Martin Luther King Jr., sit-ins and other civil rights protests, Poitier portrayed singing and dancing clown character who happily sang “I got plenty of nothin’…

(Bogle 176-83).” The audience might be reminded of Fetchit’s Coon characters of the twenties (e. g. Heart in Dixie, see p. 12).

The calm, sad and struggling African American characters were replaced by militant and angry blacks in the sixties. At first the new movies featured themes like racism, poverty and the blacks’ struggle to find their place in the society, but towards the end of the decade the movie makers took into an account the tension in the society.

Audience was already influenced by the television, viewers were familiarised with the

24 riots. Therefore, people no longer believed in idolised Hollywood movies (Bogle 219).

Take a Giant Step (1960) movie took, as the title suggests, a giant step and bridged the two decades together. It represented both the old and the new movie industry approach.

The most notable and unusual thing about this movie was the black playwright, Louis

Peterson. In the first five years of the decade four inexpensive movies—Shadows

(1961), The Cool World (1963), One Potato, Two Potato (1964) and Nothing But a Man

(1964)—made their debut. All these movies depicted realistic pictures of black

Americans. Shadows, for instance, completely reworked the Tragic Mulatto character.

The Cool World presented previously unexplored Harlem with its alcohol, drugs, whores and gangs themes. One Potato, Two Potato is one of the first movie to be dealing with interracial marriage (previous movies dealt only with romance) (Courtney

357). Nothing But a Man presented real life efforts of a black man who is abused by society, regularly fired from jobs and eventually takes out his frustration on his wife.

Ivan Dixon, the main protagonist of the movie, delivered a marvellous performance.

These movies presented black roles in an unorthodox ways, giving the audience an alternative view on the real lives and struggles of the African American community

(Bogle 195-204). Despite the new notion, Ossie Davis brought back the stereotype figures in Gone Are the Days in 1964. The movie features all kind of stereotypes, such as the Coon, the Uncle Tom and the Mammy. Davis was not a very successful actor or writer, but he was cast in various stereotypical Uncle Tom roles, for example as an educated priest or scholar. His characters were very similar to Sidney’s intelligent, integrated and well-mannered blacks. Davis thought the audience was intelligent enough to consider the old stereotypes silly and funny. Unfortunately, the actors played their roles way too seriously (Bogle 204-5). Davis’s idea of an intelligent audience

25 proved to be right in later years when audience was removed enough from the old stereotypes. The success of Broadway musical Purlie may serve as the proof. Gone Are the Days movie might be considered to be the first of the new-style all-black movies

(Bogle 206).

The first violent themed big-budget movie of the decade was Hurry Sundown

(1967). The movie might be considered to be a prequel to the Blaxploitation movies.

Otto Preminger more or less put together all the clichés ever present in the movies. The movie featured the faithful Mammy figure and the strong and independent black woman. The movie was a success mainly because of the way it presented the old stereotypes. Where Where Gone Are the Days failed, Hurry Sundown excelled because it used satire and parody to present these stereotypes. Other movies followed and used a similar attitude in presenting the stereotypes (Bogle 208-9). Therefore the producers started to look for black performers suited to play black villains. They came across Jim

Brown, former football player, who was an ideal candidate due to his impressive physical appearance. He became a small hero, children loved him, because he could beat up the whites who were responsible for the violence and women—especially white women—loved him for his physical appearance. However the strong black characters never fought against the dominant society. Their main enemies were the lawbreakers— enemy troops in The Dirty Dozen and the corrupt white warden in Riot. These brute force characters were never stand-alone, they were always controlled by whites, as if their destructive force would be too threatening without the control. Jim Brown was in perfect opposition with the submissive Uncle Tom characters of the previous eras

(Bogle 220-22).

26 Towards the end of the decade the new phenomenon emerged, the new-style black film. These movies dealt in some way with black militancy. The first movie ever to picture black revolutionary and separatist movement was Uptight. It pictures violent revolutionaries who track down and kill the informant who is helping the police. Its main idea was that the non-violent approach died with Martin Luther King Jr. However, the movie was an disappointment, maybe because the black lives were once again depicted from the white producers’ point of view. Moreover, the conflicts were never between the blacks and the whites, but inside the black community, thus the movie does not confront the oppression or racial injustice. Raymond St. Jacques played the black revolutionary, H. Rap Brown. His unimpressive and uninspiring representation of the black leader further demeans the blacks and their opposition movements. Their behaviour suggests they do not have the courage to stand against the whites. The

Learning Tree is set in a remote place, where nonsense killings take place. A black man is shot by a white sheriff, a white man is beaten to death by a black. In Robert Downey

Sr.‘s Putney Swope a black man is accidentally elected chairman of the board in an advertising agency. The blacks are pictured as power-hungry and corrupt, the whites were merely replaced by blacks and vice versa. It showed what some thought would happen if African Americans gained economic and political power. These movies might seem to be of no real importance, but they were used to make statements on political, social and economic issues (Bogle 223-29).

The seventies continued pretty much in the same vein as the sixties. The audience was about to be confronted with similar movies featuring social and political issues. However, the political failures—such as Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent resignation—disgusted the viewers, therefore the producers returned to the “escapist”

27 theme and at the very end of the decade they started to shoot the all-black musicals again. Even though the producers started to make movies which were especially made to please the black audience, the old stereotypes of Coons, Bucks and Tragic Mulattoes were back in a new disguise (Bogle 231-32). The first noteworthy movie of the period was Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971). Melvin Van Peebles was the producer, playwright and played the main role in the movie (Pospíšil 82). Peebles used money from private sources, because mainstream studios refused to “experiment” and give large sums of money on projects which did not ensure significant profits. Peebles, however, managed to turn half a million investment into ten million dollars gross income in a few months (Pospíšil 86). Sweetback, the main protagonist, attacks two white policemen who harassed an innocent black youth. After the incident, he manages to escape the police. The audience sees Sweetback’s sexual adventures during the escape. Due to his successful defeat of the corrupted white policemen, both the white and the black audience—especially the youth—embraced him, though some of the white critics described the movie as overly sexually aggressive (Bogle 235).

Furthermore, the movie is in direct opposition with the Hollywood’s idea of black integration (Pospíšil 81). It depicts the lives of blacks in a ghetto where the pimp—

Sweetback—plays the role of a folk hero. Peebles succeeded in presenting the audience a new—sexually active—Black Buck (Bogle 235-8). At the same time, due to its large profit rate, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song initiated a series of Blaxploitation movies being made in Hollywood studios (Pospíšil 86). In the Blaxploitation movies, such as Shaft (1971), Super Fly (1972), The Legend of Nigger Charley (1972) or Black

Caesar (1973), African American actors played the unbeatable black superheroes in ghettoes. Often enough, the black movies were directed and written by whites. NAACP

28 was not very happy about the unnatural idea of glorifying black gangsters, pimps and superheroes being a part of the new representation of African Americans in the seventies

(Bogle 241-2).

In contrast with the movies featuring the oversexed Buck superheroes, relationship-focused movies came. One of such movies was Lady Sings the Blues

(1972) featuring Billy Dee Williams and Diana Ross. The main protagonists engage in a flirt game with each other. The romantic scenes and Williams’s respectful manners towards the female character offered new representations of blacks as romantic individuals. Another very popular movie was Sounder (1972). The black family in

Sounder was no longer matriarchal and its members were not in conflict with one another as could be seen in Imitation of Life and A Raisin in the Sun, respectively

(Bogle 245-50). Critics praised the movie, even though it partially returned to the gentle blacks of the forties. Nevertheless, these movies suggested an alternative to the movies featuring Brutal Black Bucks, where women played roles of no importance and black men were superheroes solving problems singlehandedly (Bogle 250).

The black superwomen—Tamara Dobson and Pam Grier—made their debut in

Cleopatra Jones (1973), Coffy (1973) and Friday Foster (1975) around the mid- seventies. On the one hand, they were the female opposite of the male superheroes— they were beautiful and, just like the male protagonists, sexually active. On the other hand, they were partially the Mammy characters, too, because they took care of their household and then they cleaned up the ghetto of drug dealers and thugs. Men were more inclined to like the female heroines than women. Although their popularity was short-lived, these movies draw attention to the state of black women in American

29 movies. In Mahogony (1975), the main female protagonist Tracy, Diana Ross, has to decide whether to pursue her career or stay with her husband. Although the movie is not the top of its class, it shows a strong woman who has a chance to leave the ghetto establishment but at the same time has no intention to tear the society down—unlike the superwomen characters might have. Furthermore, the female heroine has a chance to make a choice while keeping her racial identity intact (Bogle 251-5).

Once the Blaxpoitation movies were no longer popular among the African

Americans, the industry decided to produce less movies focused on blacks rather than come up with a new type because the movie makers thought the blacks were not interested in movies anymore. Therefore, there came the crossover movies, which focused on pleasing the mainstream audience regardless of the colour of their skin and, thus making them politically neutral. One of such movies and the last of the all-black movies from the seventies, was The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings

(1976). The movie is set in the thirties and forties and it depicts all-black baseball teams. The teams play baseball to please the blacks while playing Coons to entertain the whites. By doing so, the athletes represent no real threat to the society (Bogle 256-8).

Surprisingly, at the end of the seventies Richard Pryor became the most important black actor in the motion pictures. His most prominent picture was Silver Streak (1976).

Pryor’s popularity among the mass white audience was partly due to his sidekick roles and the huck-finn fixation, where the black character serves as a ego booster for the white hero. Movies with huck-finn fixation helped to bring down the barriers between the races. The Wiz was the last big-budget black movie for years to come. The movie makers came to a decision that no one was interested in black movies. However, The

Wiz was a failure because it was poorly made, not because people did not want to see

30 blacks on the screen anymore. Although the beginning of the seventies was full of low- budget Blaxpoitation movies—addressed to both white and black audience—the end of the decade put an end to these movies, claiming the black movies were no longer desirable. At the same time, it opened the door for crossover movies aimed at the mass white audience which would develop further in the next decade (Bogle 259-66).

The blacks and whites seemed to be at peace as if there were no racial tensions or conflicts in the eighties. However, the reality was not as idyllic as it might seemed to be. Blacks were cast into the supporting roles—much in the same way the servants were in the thirties—such as buddies or comedians. These roles provided a safe laughing stock for both the black and white audience without the fear of seriously insulting one group or another. Sometimes the movies featured black characters merely for a comic relief, for instance in Seems Like Old Times (1980). Black women had even more difficult time finding major roles than men. Furthermore, the era is characterised by movies, in which the movie makers tend to “whiten” the African American actors, thus making the audience forget the black characters were actually blacks. They were stripped off their cultural identity and were depicted from a white cultural point of view

(Bogle 268).

Even though the nation struggled with racial conflicts for decades, the black and white buddies looked to be unaffected and immortal. However in these relationships the white actor was always in charge. Even Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in Star Wars: The

Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Return of the Jedi (1983) can always rely on his best buddy Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) (Lupack 380). A similar black-white friendship appeared in Lethal Weapon series starting in 1987. Danny Glover played Mel

31 Gibson’s best friend. While Gibson is hot-tempered and carefree, Glover symbolises the traditional middle-class family men. The black family represents the ideal American household that needs to be protected from the evil forces. The black household as an

American ideal is acceptable because the movie makers successfully stripped the black family of ethnic identity. Glover represents the all-knowing, always helping and protective Uncle Tom character (Bogle 276). Furthermore during Muhammad Ali’s reign in the box ring many have started to raise questions whether there is no white hero that would be capable of defeating him. The Rocky movies (1976, 1979 and 1982) presented white champion Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) who defeats the black opponent

Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). These movies offer an alternative box world where a white guy is the hero, thus pleases the whites’ wishes to defeat the black champion.

Moreover, he becomes friend with his former opponent—positioning him into the role of a best buddy. Furthermore, in the movie from 1982 Rocky defeats, with Apollo’s help, the Brutal Black Buck Mr. T (Clubber Lang) who came to challenge the white supremacy. Lang represents the direct threat to the white American society (Bogle

271-5). Another best buddy character of the eighties is Eddie Murphy who became hugely successful thanks to his performance in Beverly Hills Cop (1984). On the one hand the movie deals with race issues in a humorous way. For instance, in the scene where Foley enters a luxury hotel and even though he knows they do not have any available rooms, he confronts the receptionist asking for a room. When she tells him there are no rooms available he starts to speak in a quick pseudo-African American

Vernacular English stating he is not getting the room because he is black. The tactic works out well, the manager informs him about a last minute cancelation. Some white

Americans claimed the African Americans find racism in places where there is none

32 (Bogle 285). Although Foley got the room, one is unsure whether it was because he guessed their intentions not to give a room to a black person or because he confused them so much, they believed him to be someone important. On the other hand, Foley is completely cut off from the black community, his murdered best buddy was white, his new Beverly Hills friends are also whites and even his childhood friend from Detroit is white. It would be much more natural if Foley grew up in a black community and had black friends. Murphy is also presenting an asexual character, for he has no sexual interactions with the main female protagonist, though they have some common memories (Bogle 281-6).

Women actresses had a rather hard time finding a decent roles in the eighties.

Even if they did manage to find some important leading roles, they ended up as exotic

(Tragic Mulatto) characters. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)—villainess, Aunty

Entity—, Conan the Destroyer (1984)—a Dragon Lady—or A View to a Kill (1985)— villainess who battles James Bond—just to name a few of such movies. The most controversial movie of the period—and at the same time the most successful movie featuring the black women cast—was The Color Purple (1985). It is about uneducated black woman, Celia (Whoopi Goldberg), who was twice raped by her own father and husband. Celia, with the help of Shug Avery (Margaret Avery), gradually leaves the abusing establishment and reunites with her beloved sister Nettie (Akosua Busia).

NAACP opposed the movie for its cruel depiction of the male characters as Brutal

Black Bucks. However Dorothy Gilliam from The Washington Post wrote about, “the purity and depth of love” expressed in the movie (Bogle 292). Despite the criticism, it affected millions of people through its strong emotional story behind Celia’s life. The movie was nominated for eleven Oscars—including Best Picture—but perhaps due to

33 its controversy it failed to received any Oscars. Whoopi Goldberg became the only

African American female actress to appear in the leading roles of the late eighties. In most of her movies she was cut off the black community—she became the female version of Eddie Murphy (Bogle 291-7).

Towards the end of the decade came movies, which touched upon the race theme

(e.g. Mississippi Burning (1988), Glory (1989) or Driving Miss Daisy (1989)).

However, the story-lines were adjusted by the movie makers to fit their needs in order not to stir up too much negative emotions. For instance, Mississippi Burning is loosely based on the story of three civil rights workers who disappeare in Philadelphia,

Mississippi in 1964. Even though the movie seemed to be eye-catching, it lacks the in- depth analysis of the African American racial issues. Furthermore, it was short of major black characters, the blacks present in the movie are submissive and unwilling to change anything. The true heroes of the movie are two white FBI agents who accept the task with a heavy heart. It was more preferable to explore the racism through the eyes of whites, rather than blacks (Bogle 301-3). Another historical based movie was Glory

(1989). It focused on the struggle the fifty-fourth all-black Regiment had in the Union army. Furthermore, it pictures commander Robert Ghoul Shaw in the process of realising the oppression of African American troops. Soldiers Rawlings (Morgan

Freeman), Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher), Junpiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy) and Trip

(Denzel Washington) might be seen as the reminiscences of stereotype figures. Freeman plays the all-knowing, always helping Uncle Tom character, Braugher plays an educated black man who is rejected by blacks for his unnatural attitude towards the education, thus presenting the integrationist hero of the fifties (Bogle 175). However, movie failed to tell the audience more about the lives of these soldier and their reasons, which made

34 them fight for the country. All their connections to their families and the community they used to live in before the war seemed to be severed. The producers used Shaw’s white heroism to appeal to the white audience, thus increasing the chance of success.

(Bogle 309-10).

At the very end of the eighties independent producers appear on the scene. One of them is Spike Lee, an independent African American director, writer and actor who came with Do the Right Thing (1989). Lee shows the audience a single day in African

American community living in Brooklyn. The confrontation between Buggin Out’s group and Sal—owner of the pizzeria—and his two sons represents the peak of the hidden racial tension within the community. Surprisingly, pizza deliveryman Mookie

(Spike Lee)—who, up until then, was pictured as a mere observer of the events in the community—starts the whole mayhem by throwing a trash can into the pizzeria’s window. Up until the incident the audience has no idea of Mookie’s grudge towards his employer Sal. It remarkably points out that the racial issues had not yet disappeared from the society, though the movie makers try to convince the audience otherwise. The movie ends with Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Malcolm X’s quotes about the non- violent and violent approaches. Due to the alternative depiction of African Americans

Thulani Davis even accused Lee of being a “fascist (Bogle 318-23).”

However, despite the critics’ warnings and predictions, Spike Lee’s Do the Right

Thing did not cause racial conflicts. However, the beating of black motorist Rodney

King in May 1991 and subsequent release of four accused policemen in April 1992 caused one of the most serious racial conflicts in the American history. Around fifty- three people died and property damage exceeded one billion dollars—equivalent to

35 around one and seven billion dollars nowadays (Inflation). The incident and the court decision prove the ever-present tension, black oppression and racial inequality in the society. The traditional Hollywood studios continued to cast African American performers from the previous periods—Whoopi Goldberg, Denzel Washington and

Eddie Murphy—into the leading roles of new movies. However, African American movie makers finally became a part of the mainstream. Their movies depicted the social issues in a realistic way, at least at the beginning of the decade (Bogle 324-6). The main task of the next chapter will be to utilise the findings and issues presented in this chapter in the analysis of four movies from the contemporary era featuring African American domestic servants.

36 Chapter 3

Analysis of the selected movies

The first of the four movies I will analyse is Driving Miss Daisy from 1989. It features Hoke (Morgan Freeman) as a chauffeur working for Miss Daisy—a Jewish widow—(Miss Daisy) who is not able to drive anymore. In addition to Hoke, a long- term cook Idella is working for Miss Daisy as well. At first, Hoke and Miss Daisy do not get along, but Hoke gradually wins Miss Daisy’s affection. At the end of the movie she moves to a retirement home because of health issues. She shows the deepest affection towards Hoke when he and Boolie come to visit her and she wants to talk only to Hoke, saying “Hoke, you’re my best friend” (Driving Miss Daisy). The movie depicts changes in the society occurring from the late forties to the late seventies through their relationship. Although the movie is set in a racially segregated South and addresses some of the racial issues, it was a success in the mainstream cinema.

In Freeman’s character one can see some resemblance to the African American characters from the earlier periods. Although Hoke is not completely cut off from his family and the African American community, the line between the family and his job is firmly set. The audience learns about the existence of his daughters and even granddaughters—one of them is a biology teacher—but that is all they get to know about them. Even though his granddaughter can be seen driving him to Miss Daisy’s house at the end of the movie, he does not talk to her, thus suggesting she is unimportant in the present situation—she is just a chauffeur. Hoke seems to be living just to fulfill the needs of his white employer, much as the old Uncle Tom stereotype used to do (e.g. For Massa’s Sake, Hearts in Dixie). One can see the demonstration of the Uncle Tom’s all-knowing ability, when Hoke helps Oscar—a worker in the cotton

37 factory, owned by Boolie—out of the stuck elevator. If it weren’t for Hoke, Oscar would have been stuck for another hour, until the service company would come and repair the elevator. For the rest of the movie he spends most of his time bowing, opening the car doors, closing them and bowing again, behaving just like the early black characters from the Servants era of the thirties. He—just like every other black American in the

South—struggles with racial prejudices and segregation. Even though Miss Daisy is clearly shown to be prejudiced, for example she counts the silverware, the napkins and the food in the pantry because she is suspicious about her domestic servants—including her long-term maid Idella—she says: “I’ve never been prejudice in my life (Driving

Miss Daisy).” At one point she is proposing to accuse Hoke of stealing one of the cans only be shamed when Hoke brings a new can the next day. Even though they gradually find a way to become friends, Miss Daisy is still the boss, especially in the car. She is constantly bossing him around, telling him which way to go or how fast should he drive.

Hoke obeys her commands, though he has some comments on some of the silliest requests, after all he is the loyal Uncle Tom. Furthermore, from the very beginning

Hoke seems to know more about what is appropriate for Miss Daisy than she does. In order to persuade her to get into the car and let him drive her to the “Piggly

Viggly” [sic] he tells her that she cannot use a streetcar and walk back home with shopping bags because she is a rich Jewish woman, thus reminding her of her rightful social status.Very similar behaviour can be seen in a scene from Gone with the Wind where Mammy forbids Scarlet from going out dressed the way she is, because she is showing too much of her bosom so early in the day. Thus, suggesting the black domestic servants know best what is good for their white employers. Miss Daisy does not like to be perceived as rich, therefore she is horrified when Hoke waits for her

38 directly in from of the synagogue like she was “the queen of Romania.” However, the luxury car she is using draws some unwanted attention, especially during a lunch break on their way to Mobile, when two policemen approach the car addressing Hoke as

“boy” asking him: “what do you think you are doing with the car (Driving Miss

Daisy)?” When Miss Daisy proclaims the car is hers, the officer’s tone changes and he behaves less rudely. However, when he finds out she is Jewish he becomes less polite, though he is still not as impolite as to Hoke. When Hoke drives away with Miss Daisy, the officer says that “an old Jewish woman and an old negro” is “one sorry sight” suggesting that being a Jewish was almost as bad as being a black (Driving Miss Daisy).

Although the movie features a vast number of African American stereotypes and seems to be trying to avoid controversy, it, nevertheless, confronts directly some racial issues. For example, shortly after Hoke helps Oscar out of the elevator Boolie—the owner of the factory—asks Hoke whether he works there. The question might suggest that some people—in this case Boolie—consider all the blacks to be the same.

Furthermore, Miss Daisy keeps her distance from Hoke, even though they are opening up to each other. Despite her inability to drive the car, she still keeps Hoke at bay, telling him what to do. However, during their trip to Mobile, Hoke wants to stop the car in the middle of nowhere, because he has some needs, which he could not have carried out at the gas station, because it did not have segregated facilities for blacks. Miss Daisy categorically refuses to let him, because they are already late for a birthday party and her perfectly planned trip would fall apart. He disobeys her order for the very first time in the movie, saying “how do you think I feel asking you to make water like I was some kind of a child (Driving Miss Daisy).” Hoke no longer wants to be seen as an inferiour being who has to ask for permission to do natural things. When the Jewish synagogue is

39 bombed, Miss Daisy is shocked and Hoke relates to the story about the father of a friend whom they saw lynched-hanged from a tree. The moviemaker is clearly trying to point out the similarities between the anti-Semitism and racial injustice in the South. However

Miss Daisy categorically refuses to make any connection between the black inequality and anti-semitic notion in the society. Another racial inequality can be seen when Miss

Daisy makes Hoke a chicken one day and they eat separately—she eats in the dining hall and Hoke eats in the kitchen. Thus, keeping with traditional customs associated with the segregated South—for instance blacks never eat at the same table as whites.

The producers might have been afraid of scenes featuring Miss Daisy sitting together with Hoke because they are never having a reading lesson (Turner). Such a scene might have been unacceptable due to the above mentioned sitting customs held in the South.

Furthermore, Miss Daisy receives an invitation to have dinner with Martin Luther King

Jr., but her son Boolie refuses to go because he is afraid what might his business partners think about him. Even though she regards the changes in the society as being wonderful and starts supporting King and the civil rights movement, she does not invite

Hoke to go with her, though she knows he admires King. She is later shown at the table during King’s speech and there is a vacant seat right next to her, suggesting Hoke should have been there with her (McGraw). The only time they sit together at the same table is in the retirement home at the very end of the movie. In the very last scene, Miss

Daisy sends her son away so she can talk to Hoke alone, thus further signifying the close bond they have. The movie ends with Hoke literally feeding Miss Daisy her

Thanksgiving pie. However, they still do not eat together. He is no longer pictured as a child, Miss Daisy is, Hoke is capable of taking care for himself but Miss Daisy requires assistance. Hoke helps her, but one is reminded of Bill Robinson and the first time an

40 African American character in the movie was responsible for a white person—in his case it was Shirley Temple.

The characters of Hoke and Idella are clearly being exploited as the Uncle Tom and the Mammy stereotypes. Although the movie tries to address some of the racial issues, it deals with them rather indirectly. The producers wanted to attract as large an audience as possible, therefore they seem to be afraid to show more controversial scenes, which might discourage some of the whites to watch the movie. Casting

Freeman was a safe choice, because he managed to bring some dignity into the role and he does not seem to be portrayed in as demeaning a way as African Americans used to be fifty years ago. Mainly it might be due to his occasional rebellion—when he stops the car to “make water”—and Miss Daisy’s open-mindedness—inclined to support M.

L. King Jr.—towards the end of the movie. Despite these glimpses of disobediences and the changes in the society, the movie fails to present the complete picture of the lives of

African Americans in the segregated South. The movie is not made to deal with the racial oppression during segregation but to please the audience, though the producers did not dare to depict the African Americans in the old way from the thirties. The stereotypes are present nonetheless, Hoke is simply “wearing” the eighties’ servant stereotype hat, instead of the thirties’ one.

Only a year after the release of Driving Miss Daisy, Pearce’s The Long Walk

Home came dealing with a similar theme of a servant-employer relationship. It is situated in Montgomery, Alabama during probably the most significant event in the

African American history—the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It features Odessa (Whoopi

Goldberg) as a domestic servant working for Thompson family. The movie pictures the lives of Odessa and her white employer Miriam (Sissy Spacek) and the way the changes

41 in the segregation tradition influence them. At first, Odessa and Miriam have strict employee-employer relationship. However, driven by emotions Miriam reconsiders her views and starts to question her role in the society. Thus, she begins to help the blacks by driving them around in the carpool-drives. She even stands by the side of African

American domestic servants, who non-violently protest against the men who came to discourage them from continuing with the carpools by beating them (The Long Walk

Home).

The movie confronts the issues of racial inequality from the very beginning. In the very first scene Odessa has to pay for the bus in the front before boarding it using the back doors. Although the African Americans were allowed to use the same public transportation as whites, they were required to use the seats at the back and if the situation required, they were obliged to give up the seat to a white person (Friedman).

Another racial conflict can be seen in a scene where Odessa is in a park with Mary

Catherine and a police officer approaches Odessa and orders her to leave the park, because it is for whites only. Miriam Thompson is so furious that she calls the police commissioner and makes the police officer apologise to Odessa. Although her action might be considered to be unorthodox, she claims she did it because of her daughter not for Odessa’s sake. She clearly states her opinion on this matter in her confrontation with

Tunker—her brother-in-law—to whom she says that she knows what is wrong and what is right regarding the rightful status of African Americans in the society and does not want to change anything. Thus the producers reassure the white audience that the movie is not going to break down the traditional values of the South. Moreover, when the

Boycott starts and Odessa has difficulties to get to work, Miriam offers her a drive twice a week, but she does not do it out of sympathy to the black cause but because she, as a

42 white person, really needs the help in her house and cannot manage without Odessa. In fact, when Miriam drives Odessa for the first time, she talks to her as if they were in the kitchen and she was just giving Odessa tasks to do. Miriam’s husband, Norman, is furious when he finds out about the rides. He tries to look as a proper white man in the town and fears his reputation would be destroyed. Miss Daisy’s son Boolie had similar fears when he was supposed to attend a dinner with M. L. King Jr. Norman forbids

Miriam to drive Odessa again, claiming it is a wrong thing to do, because he knows best what is good for Miriam and the family. He also claims that if Odessa cannot get to work on time, the only way to deal with the problem is finding a new maid. He further presents the maid-family relationship to be the same as the relationship one has with a pet. Thus, he suggests the blacks are nothing more than animals. He further demeans

African American domestic servants by claiming the drives make them think they are equal to the whites, which he considers to be an absurd idea (The Long Walk Home).

Pearce, the director, tries to avoid the white heroism. For example, even though

Miriam is helping the African American domestic workers by driving them around the town she does not magically solve the issue. She is just an individual expressing her views on it. The movie does not develop solemnly around the white protagonist Miriam, neither is Odessa present only to uphold the white sexuality as it might have been the case in the twenties. Pearce gave Odessa a chance to present her own family, thus showing the audience that blacks were people with human needs and worries.

The African American church plays an important role in the movie as well.

Odessa’s family goes to church regularly and says the prayers before eating dinner.

Moreover, the movie breaks the typical Mammy stereotype, the maid Odessa is no longer a typical Mammy figure that had been around in the movies since the beginning

43 of the twentieth century—especially in the Servant era. The first main difference is her weight, unlike Beavers in the thirties Goldberg did not have to undergo a special diet to gain desirable weight in order to be allowed to depict the corpulent Mammy figure. It was Spacek who had to commit herself to learn how to speak in the Southern accent.

Moreover, Odessa’s decision to find a new job indicates she is not overly attached to the white family, unlike Beavers’ Mammy figure from The Imitation of Life (see p. 9). At one point Miriam starts to question the way the society works. She states Odessa is the mother of Mary Catherine, because she is the one who has been taking care of her when

Mary Catherine was ill. Thus Miriam elevates Odessa’s status by declaring her the mother of a white child. She even opens up in front of Odessa—just like Miss Daisy did on her trip to Mobile—expressing her doubts about Norman’s segregated views. She tells Odessa a story from her youth about some “colored boys” who jump into a swimming pool full of white people. People were horrified and hurried out of the pool.

However, Miriam points out that white children stayed in the pool, not knowing they were doing something wrong. The scene not only shows the way the society shapes the opinion of the people, but it also points out that the society does not have to be necessarily right all the time. Miriam, as an individual, makes her decision to stand against the rules of the society by driving the African American domestic servants.

Miriam further breaks down the traditional barriers between the races when she allows

Odessa to sit with her in the front seat of the car. It is at this point that Miriam asks

Odessa about the carpools and her desire to join the system. Although Miriam’s action is quite revolutionary, Odessa, on the other hand, behaves in a typical servant manner of the thirties when she points out to her boss that the carpool drives will be there whether she joins in or not and if she really wants to help the cause, she can just write a cheque

44 and pay for the fuel. She further points out, the boycott is not just about the buses, it is about the whole segregation and the demeaning status of the African Americans. She tries to make Miriam see the consequences of her actions and make her think again whether she is ready to see a black family moving into a white neighborhood, a black teacher at a white school or a black politician making decisions at the town hall.

Odessa’s remark is a very similar to the one Hoke had when he was trying to convince

Miss Daisy it was unthinkable for a lady of her social status to drive a streetcar to town, thus both servants try to protect their employers from a possible harm, because they know what is best for them. Miriam makes the final choice when she joins the black maids in a non-violent resistance to the white men who came to discourage them from continuing to organise the carpool drives. Due to all these unconventional depictions of the African Americans, The Long Walk Home tries, perhaps more drastically than

Driving Miss Daisy, to show the blacks as real people. It also presents the audience the impact the boycott had on the lives of both black and white people and the changes they had to undergo in order to cope with the new situation.

The independent director Todd Haynes released his movie Far From Heaven in

2002. The story takes place in Hartford, Connecticut in an idyllic setting of the fifties.

Haynes managed to depict the fifties in such a realistic way that one has an impression of being taken back into the period itself. The movie tells the story of a successful white family living an ordinary life. Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is a typical fifties housewife. She spends her free time with her girlfriends, visiting art galleries or going shopping. Her husband, Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) is a successful businessman, respected by the community. However, their idyllic life comes to an end when Frank turns out to be an “incurable” homosexual and Cathy starts to have a miscegenation

45 relationship with Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). They both eventually destroy their reputation with their behaviour. Although Frank hypocritically shouts at Cathy for threatening his reputation by meddling with Raymond, he eventually leaves Cathy to live with his new boyfriend. Cathy’s miscegenation relationship with Raymond destroys even her long-term relationship with her best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson). Both the homosexuality and the miscegenation are rejected by the society.

Although the main storyline does not develop around Whitaker’s asexual help

Sybil (Viola Davis), her depiction is nonetheless important. She seems to be living her life for the sake of her white employers. Unlike Odessa from The Long Walk Home she is not depicted spending time with her own family. Therefore she appears to be isolated from the African American community in a similar way Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley in

Beverly Hills Cop or Whoopi Goldberg’s Sister Mary Clarence in Sister Act are. At one point she is at Whitaker’s house late in the evening, which suggests she has no other duties but to take care of her employers. Sybil’s appearance and behaviour does not present her as a typical Mammy figure for the larger part of the movie. She is neither corpulent nor sassy, which were the basic characteristics maids were required to have in the thirties. For example in Gone with the Wind, Imitation of Life and The Green

Pastures. Nevertheless, she is protective of her white mistress in possibly harmful situations. She is particularly protective when Cathy is going to Raymond’s house late at night. Sibyl wants to go with her mistress, suggesting it would be dangerous for

Cathy to go alone. Similar attitude can be seen in movies like The Birth of a Nation,

Gone with the Wind or The Long Walk Home. Her undeveloped character reminds the audience of the servants from the twenties who were cast into the roles merely for the amusement of the white audience.

46 The second major African American character is Raymond. He behaves in an untraditional manner. For instance, in spite of having a business degree he still continues with his father’s gardening job. He is also the only black in town who attends an art gallery exhibition. His gentlemanly manners, so different from Frank’s rude behaviour eventually help him win Cathy’s heart. She is very fond of Raymond from the moment she meets him in her backyard. She confines her utmost fears and problems to him without hesitation. She is even more intrigued by his presence at an art gallery exhibition, especially when Raymond demonstrates extensive knowledge of modern art and abstract thinking. Thus, the movie presents him as an educated and humanised black character who tries to leave the black community and become equal to white people. He represents a similar character to Andre Braugher’s Thomas Searles in Glory.

On another occasion when she is emotionally devastated he offers her a ride to change the scenery, which might make her feel better. She eventually joins him and they end up in an all-black bar having lunch and dancing together. Thus she becomes the only white person in the room, in the same way Raymond is the only black person in the art gallery.

Hence, the producers picture both characters having something in common, they both see “beyond the colour of the skin” (Far from Heaven). However, the whole society stands against them, even the blacks in the bar are not altogether happy having miscegenation couple sitting there, nor is the white waiter in the café. The waiter did not mind Raymond sitting in the café by himself, but as soon as Cathy comes in and sits next to Raymond, everyone eyes them with suspicion. Raymond comments on the issue towards the end of the movie by saying “it’s probably the one thing the blacks and whites agree upon (Far from Heaven).” Despite the society’s refusal, Cathy desperately wants to see Raymond in his new place, but Raymond, behaving like the traditional

47 protective servant tells her it would not be the best thing to do. In this scene, a black person is depicted as the one who knows the best possible course of action to take. His behaviour is similar to Hoke’s from Driving Miss Daisy, Odessa’s from The Long Walk

Home or Mammy’s from Gone with the Wind.

Cathy is often described by her friends as being liberal about the civil rights organisations, thus suggesting everyone should be careful around her. Moreover, Cathy asks a NAACP representative about the volunteering possibilities, suggesting she wants to become even more involved in the civil rights movement. During an annual company party one of the guests makes a remark on the Little Rock incident of 1957—President

Eisenhower sent Federal troops in order to ensure African Americans being permitted to enroll into school—saying it could not happen in Hartford, because “there’re no negroes

[here] (Far from Heaven).” Hayden remarkably points out the significance of the remark by focusing the camera on a black servant who hears the remark but continues to serve the white guests. The scene displays the blacks serving the whites as domestic servants while whites regard them as being unimportant. Towards the end of the movie her attitude towards the African American cause changes even more. In one of the last scenes she almost acknowledges Sibyl’s contribution to the family when she tells her: “I don’t know how on earth I would mana[ged]…(Far from Heaven).” If she finished the sentence, it would mean she thinks highly of Sibyl and the domestic servants. It would further harm Cathy’s reputation because it would be another violation of the appropriate behaviour to the African Americans, the one seen at the annual company party.

Furthermore, in contrast with the Miriam Thompson’s story from The Long Walk Home about the black boys jumping into a swimming pool and children not knowing it is an inappropriate thing to be in the same pool as the blacks, Raymond’s daughter Sarah

48 unsuccessfully socializes with three white boys of her age. Later in the movie, the same boys attack Sarah, because she made “the wrong turn” just like her dad, thus the movie indicates the children of the period were very much influenced by the society and unlike

Miriam’s story from The Long Walk Home, these children were just as prejudiced as their parents. Although Haynes tried to present the African Americans in as little stereotypical manner as possible, he nevertheless slipped into the realms of stereotypes.

The last of the selected movies is Tate Taylor’s The Help, which is based on a novel by Kathryn Stockett. It is probably the most popular movie featuring African

American domestic servants in the contemporary era wining almost fifty various awards

—including Octavia Spencer’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actress—and being nominated for almost seventy more. The movie tells a story about the help working and living in Jackson, Mississippi. It follows the lives of Aibileen (Viola Davis) working for

Leefolt family and Minny (Octavia Spencer) working for Holbrook and Foote family.

Although they are not happy with their social status, they are afraid to do anything about it. However, with the help of the white protagonist, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan

(Emma Stone), Aibileen, Minny and several other African American domestic servants come together to tell their stories about the lives they have been living among their white employers. The movie ends with a happy ending, the book’s success gives Skeeter a job opportunity in New York, Aibileen is fired by Elizabeth Leefolt but it does not break her spirit and Foote family assures Minny she can have the job for the rest of her life.

The movie shows the audience yet another stereotypical Mammy character.

Although Aibileen is not the typical sassy-mouthed, corpulent Mammy figure, she nevertheless bears some resemblance of the stereotypical character. For instance,

49 although the audience knows she had a son Treelore, who died at the age of twenty-four, they do not know anything about her husband nor is she ever interested in men, thus she is portrayed as an asexual Mammy figure. Despite the tragedy of her son’s death she continues to serve the white employers, proving her utmost loyalty to them. Even though Aibileen says the children will become as bad as their parents when they grow up, she has nevertheless raised seventeen white children in her life. Therefore, she willingly sacrifices her own happiness, in order to fulfill the white employers’ needs. In fact, during the interviews, one of the maids tells Skeeter she was unable to find another job after her former employer died, because in everybody’s mind the family owned her.

Even Skeeter’s friends are horrified when she informs them at a bridge meeting about

Constantine quitting her family. They seem to think that the maid has no right to quit on her own. The decision belongs to the white employer only and if the situation requires it, she has to sacrifice herself for the sake of the white family. Thus, the whites require her to be the typical self-sacrificing Mammy stereotype. Minny’s sass-mouthing, protective and food-loving behaviour, on the other hand, very much resembles the one

Hattie McDaniel presented in Gone with the Wind. Even though Minny is supposed to use the outside bathroom, she goes to the inside one. However, Minny does not use it, she merely flushes the toilet to make her employer Hilly angry. Minny’s behaviour suggests she will do whatever she wants in order to show her disapproval, no matter what the consequences might be. Minny is eventually hired by an eccentric white woman Celia Foote because she desperately needs someone to cook for her and her husband. In a scene where Minny and Celia talk about Minny’s duties and working hours, Celia does not seem to know anything about the proper maid-employer relationship. Therefore, Minny, as the dutiful servant has to tell her what to do, say and

50 demand from Minny. Thus, the audience is confronted with yet another responsible servant who knows best what the white employer should do in various situations—the previous servants were, for instance Hattie’s Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Freeman’s

Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, Goldberg’s Odessa in The Long Walk Home or Davis’s

Sybil in Far from Heaven. Moreover, Minny is particularly protective of her new employer in a similar way the blacks were in movies like The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind or For Massa’s Sake. For example in a scene where Minny finds out about Celia being locked in a bathroom crying and behaving in a strange manner,

Minny does not hesitate to burst the door open, in order to be of service to her white mistress in the time of need. In opposition with the stereotypical Mammy figures, the movie depicts the main white protagonist as a strong, independent, educated and progressive heroine, whose role is to save the oppressed ones. From the very beginning of the movie, one can see she is different from the rest of the white characters in the movie. She is not a regular housewife nor does she have a boyfriend, she successfully finished her studies at college and has a job at Jackson Journal. Moreover, she quite disapproves of Hilly’s idea about separate bathrooms for the black people in each white residence. Hilly defenses the initiative by stating “they carry different diseases (The

Help).” The viewer is reminded of a scene in Far from Heaven where a black boy is reprimanded by his father when he attempts to enter a pool full of white people. The pool is eventually left empty, because of the contamination by a black body (Scherr, The

Flashing method). Miriam even expresses her doubts about the society early in the movie when she asks Aibileen if she ever wanted to change anything.

It is clear the movie touched upon the racial issues of the sixties. However, the representation of the period might be a bit misleading. For instance, the movie

51 marginalizes the role of the civil rights organisations of the period. The legacy and the impact of the assassination of NAACP’s first state representative in Mississippi, Medgar

Evers, are largely omitted in the movie. Furthermore, it is not Aibileen, Minny and the other domestic servants who decide to talk about their experience being a maid, but it is the white heroine Skeeter who has to come and guide them through the realms of civil rights movement. Louis Beaver had to have a white person to help her turn the pancake recipe into a profit as well. The audience might think that the only way the uneducated domestic servants got to challenge the oppressors is through the help of an educated and ambitious white person. Therefore, the movie presents the lives of African Americans through the eyes of the white heroine. As Rebecca Wanzo points out, only a portion of blacks’ lives is presented. For the majority of the time they are presented in their servant roles, thus one has very little chance to see the blacks in their free time. Their personal lives seem to be omitted. For instance, Aibileen mentions her son’s death and the impact it had on her life but the viewer does not learn anything more about her personality and life for the rest of the movie. Furthermore, Aibileen’s “You is kind, you is smart, you is important” is regarded by The Association of Black Women Historians as yet another stereotypical use of over-exaggerated “black” dialect in the mainstream movie industry.

Other misleading depictions might be the scenes featuring Celia and Minny. The scenes depict the Jim Crow Laws to be no more than a few words on a piece of paper. Minny gets quickly accustomed to the new standard of living and does not lecture Celia about proper manners. Celia nonchalantly joins Minny for lunch in the kitchen and sits with her at the same table. Her behaviour would be unacceptable in the segregated South and not even Miss Daisy is sitting and eating with her friend Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy. It is also unlikely for a white woman to spend a night cooking the best possible dishes for

52 her maid in order to express her gratitude, especially if one considers how hesitant

Cathy was when she was trying to acknowledge Sybil’s contribution to the family in

Far from Heaven. Moreover if a black maid testified in the same way as Minny did when she told Celia about the “terrible-awful” thing—Minny served Hilly a “chocolate” pie made out of her own faeces as a revenge for firing her—, she would have most probably been punished in a more serious manner not just for the confession but for making the pie as well (Jeffers). Skeeter eventually succeeds in getting a job in New

York and is about to leave Jackson. Although the book caused some serious turmoil in the town, both Aibileen and Minny seem unconcerned by it. It seems that their only concern is Skeeter’s happiness. Hence, they sacrifice themselves for the sake of a white person.

Although the movie depicts the segregated lives of African American domestic servants in the South it fails to present the full picture of the everyday life. A contemporary viewer might imagine the life in the sixties to be idyllic because Tate

Tayler purposely omits the dark side of the living in the segregated South (Martel).

Furthermore Taylor acknowledged he has made an alternative ending for Minny character, picturing her leaving Leroy and calling Aibilleen from a public phone.

However, he thought it to be too gloomy and sad to have it in the movie. Therefore he did not include it in the original release, but put it on the DVD edition of the movie

(Vary). He might have been afraid the movie would not be as successful as it was, because of the scene picturing devastated Minny, thus visualising the terrible things she had to endure.

53 Chapter 4

Conclusion

The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part dealt with the historical overview of African Americans throughout the past hundred years. It presented the basic stereotypes of Mammy and Uncle Tom and their use in the early decades of the twentieth century. Then, it showed how the depictions changed in the subsequent decades. The early decades were swamped with African American stereotypes of Coons,

Mammies, Uncles and Brutal Black Bucks in blackface. During the Second World War however, a new wave of black characters came. The studios started depicting the blacks in less demeaning roles, mainly to encourage them to fight in the war. A series of

Blaxploitation movies came after the release of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.

These movies featured black heroes in the leading roles cleaning the ghettoes of the white and black trash. However, these heroes were always under white control. The eighties not only brought independent producers, such as Spike Lee and his alternative movie Do the Right Thing released in 1989, but it revived some of the old servants from the thirties, for example Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy and Odessa in The Long Walk

Home and Best Black Buddies as well.

The second part of the thesis dealt with the analysis of four movies, Driving

Miss Daisy, The Long Walk Home, Far from Heaven and The Help, each set in roughly the same period of the fifties and the sixties. Needless to say, the characters are not absolute clones of the boxed characters from the beginning of the twentieth century. For one thing, none of the maids in the movies is as corpulent as the Mammies of the

Servant era were required to be—Louis Beavers had to put on weight in order to be allowed to play the Mammy role in Imitation of Life (see p. 16). Moreover, some scenes

54 feature blacks rebelling against the established stereotypical standards, for instance,

Hoke stopping the car (see p. 39) or Raymond being educated businessman (see p. 46).

Although the movies featured some revolutionary scenes, they nevertheless failed to depict the servants in any other way than a stereotypical one. Hoke, Odessa from The Long Walk Home, Sybil from Far from Heaven and Minny from The Help are also trying to protect their white employers as much as possible. Their submissiveness, loyalty, asexuality and protectiveness of their white employers are clearly characteristics seen in the Uncle Tom and Mammy stereotypes whose origins date back into the slavery era (Ethnic). Moreover, regardless of the period people seem to like the sassy-mouthed maids more than the submissive ones. For both Hattie McDaniel and Octavia Spencer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for their Mammy roles. However, this notion might well caused some questions about the status of African Americans in the movie industry to be raised. One might criticise Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis for accepting the roles of Mammies in The Help, however, if they did not, someone else would have gladly taken them (Touré). Thus, one is reminded of McDaniel’s remark about playing a maid on the screen and being one in the real life. It is surprising that

Hollywood studios still depict African Americans in demeaning stereotypical roles, especially if one considers how liberal and open-minded the society claims to be.

55 Works cited and consulted

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M. Gill, Kali Nicole Gross, and Janice Sumler-Edmond. Association of Black

Women Historians, 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2013

Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretative

History of Blacks in American Films. Oxford: Roundhouse, 1994. Print.

Chilton, Karen. "Hazel Scott’s Lifetime of High Notes." Smithsonian. Smithsonian

Institute, 16 Oct. 2009. Web. 25 Mar. 2013.

Courtney, Susan. Hollywood Fantasies of Miscegenation: Spectacular Narratives of

Gender and Race, 1903-1967. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005. Print.

Driving Miss Daisy. Prod. Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck. By Alfred Uhry.

Perf. Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, and Dan Aykroyd. Warner Brothers, 1989.

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Ethnic Notions. Dir. Marlon Riggs. Narr. Esther Rolle. California Newsreel, 1986. Film.

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Exec. Order No. 8802, 3 C.F.R. (1941). Web. 20 Mar. 2013

Far from Heaven. Dir. Todd Haynes. Perf. Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis

Haysbert, and Viola Davis. Focus Features, 2002. DVD.

Friedman, Michael Jay. "We Have a Movement." Free At Last 2008: 35-45. Print.

Gone with the Wind. Dir. Victor Fleming. Prod. David O. Selznick. Perf. Clark Gable,

Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Havilland Olivia De, Thomas Mitchell, and Hattie

McDaniel. Loew's Inc., 1939.

Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia:

Temple UP, 1993. Print.

56 Help, The. Dir. Tate Taylor. Perf. Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, and Emma Stone.

Touchstone Pictures, 2011. DVD.

"Inflation Calculator: Bureau of Labor Statistics." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2013.

Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne. "Chocolate Breast Milk: A Review of The Help." Web log

post. Wordpress. N.p., 11 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.

Lally, Kevin. “Far from Hollywood: Todd Haynes breaks convention with Sirk-inspired

melodrama.” Film Journal International Nov. 2002: 12+. Academic OneFile.

Web 17 Apr 2013

Lupack, Barbara Tepa. Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: From

Micheaux to Morrison. Rochester: Uni. Rochester, 2002. Print.

Martel, Frances. "Melissa Harris Perry Breaks Down The Help: ‘Ahistorical And

Deeply Troubling’." Mediaite. N.p., 10 Aug. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.

McGraw, Eliza Russi Lowen. "Driving Miss Daisy." Southern Cultures 7.2 (2001): 41.

Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Apr. 2013.

"NAACP: 100 Years of History." NAACP. NAACP, 2009. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.

"Oscar History | Academy Awards History." Oscar.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.

Padget, Ken. "Blackface!" - Bill Bojangles Robinson. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.

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the Education of African American Youth in the 1990s (Summer, 1991), pp.

342-353

57 Pilgrim, David. “The Mammy Caricature.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

Ferris State University, Oct. 2000. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.

---. “The Tom Caricature.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State

University, Dec. 2000. Web. 10 Mar.2013.

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Století. Brno: Nadace Universitas Masarykiana, 2003. Print.

Scherr, Rebecca. "(Not) Queering “white Vision” in Far from Heaven and

Transamerica." JUMP CUT a Review of Contemporary Media. N.p., n.d. Web.

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Contemporary Media. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.

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Say!" AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives. N.p., 19 Aug. 2011. Web. 5 Apr. 2013.

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log post. The Huffington Post. N.p., 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.

58 English Resumé

The thesis deals with the African American stereotypes present in contemporary movies. The first part of the thesis describes the historical overview of African

American depiction in movies throughout the past hundred years. It presents the basic stereotypes of Mammy and Uncle Tom and their use in the early decades of the twentieth century. Then, it shows how the depictions changed in the subsequent decades.

The second part of the thesis dealt with the analysis of four movies, Driving

Miss Daisy, The Long Walk Home, Far from Heaven and The Help, each set in roughly the same period of the fifties and the sixties. The thesis shows that, the characters in these movies are not absolute clones of the boxed characters from the beginning of the twentieth century. For one thing, none of the maids in the movies is as corpulent as the

Mammies of the Servant era were required to be.

The thesis further shows that although the movies featured some revolutionary scenes, they nevertheless failed to depict the characters in any other way than in a stereotypical one. The submissiveness of domestic servants, their loyalty, asexuality and protectiveness of their white employers are clearly characteristics seen in the Uncle Tom and Mammy stereotypes whose origins date back into the slavery era (Ethnic).

Towards the end the thesis suggests the mass audience tends to prefer the stereotypical Mammy and Uncle Tom figures over less stereotypical characters. It also points out the conflict within the black community, where some people criticise those performers who accept such demeaning roles. Furthermore, it raises a question about the appropriateness of such roles in the twenty-first century.

59 Czech Resumé

Tato práce se zabývá problematikou Afro-Amerických stereotypů v současných filmech. První část popisuje historický vývoj Afro-Amerických stereotypů za posledních sto let. Nejprve predstavuje základní stereotypy Mammy, neboli černošská chůva, strýčka Toma a jejich užití v prvních dekádach dvacátého století. Následně tato práce popisuje vývoj těchto zobrazení v nasledujících desetiletích.

Druhá část této práce se zabýva analýzou čtyř filmů: Řidič slečny Daisy (Driving

Miss Daisy), Dlouhá cesta domů (The Long Walk Home), Daleko do nebe (Far from

Heaven) a Černobílý svět (The Help). Každý z těchto filmů je situován v přibližne stejné době - v padesátých a šedesátých letech. Práce také poukazuje na fakt, že tyto postavy nejsou věrnými kopiemi stereotypů ze začátku dvacátého století. Žádná ze služek není korpulentí postavy, kterou musely chůvy mít v éře sluhů.

Práce dále poukazuje na to, že navzdory přítomnosti převratních scén v těchto filmech, tyto scény nedokážou zobrazit postavy sluhů jinak než stereotypně. Postavy

Hokea, Odessy, Sybil a Minny jse snaží co nejvíce chránit své bílé zaměstnavatele.

Jejich poddajnost, lojalita, nepohlavnost a starostlivost o své bílé zaměstnavatele jsou jasnými charakterovými znaky strýčka Toma a chůvy, jejichž počátky sahají do doby otroctví (Ethnic).

Ke konci tato práce naznačuje, že masové publikum má raději stereotypní postavy chůvy a strýčka Toma nežli jejich poddajnejší protějšky. Také poukazuje na konflikt uvnitř černošské komunity, kde někteří lidé kritizují herce kteří přijmou tyto ponižující role. Navíc práce vznáší otázku o přijatelnosti takových rolí v jednadvacátem století.

60