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2018 Melodramatic Melanin: A Critical Analysis of the Mammy, Mulatta, and Mistress in Black Female Representation on Stage and Film Devair O. Jeffries

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COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

MELODRAMATIC MELANIN:

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MAMMY, MULATTA,

AND MISTRESS IN BLACK FEMALE REPRESENTATION

ON STAGE AND FILM

By

DEVAIR O. JEFFRIES

A Dissertation submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

2018

Devair O. Jeffries defended this dissertation on August 9, 2018. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Elizabeth Osborne Professor Directing Dissertation

Tamara Bertrand Jones University Representative

Jerrilyn McGregory Committee Member

Kris Salata Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii

I dedicate this project to my mother, who was my constant encouragement throughout the process

and who has inspired me to embrace my Black femininity throughout my life.

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Beth Osborne, for going above and beyond her contractual obligation to ensure my success on the completion of this project. I am forever indebted to her for the genuine enthusiasm shown toward my research as well as her overall concern and support of my well-being throughout this process.

I am also extremely appreciative of Dr. Kris Salata for his contributions toward my scholarly development throughout this program and on my project. Together with the guidance from Dr.

Tamara Bertrand Jones and Dr. Jerrilyn McGregory, your collective and invaluable feedback positively impacted this dissertation as well as its future iterations.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... vi

Abstract ...... vii

1. Melon Mine? An Examination of Derogatory Black Female Stereotypes: Mammy, Mulatta, and Mistress ...... 1

2. Ghosts of Dramas Past: The Historical Origin of Black Female Stereotypes ...... 33

3. Judge Ya Mammy: A Respect Check for Black Female Motherhood ...... 61

4. “Get In Where You Fit In”: Every Mixed Chick’s Mystery ...... 97

5. The Evolution of Promiscuity: From Traditional Jezebel to New-Age Mistress ...... 131

6. The End Credits: An Overview & Expectations for Research on Black Female Representation ...... 154

References ...... 159

Biographical Sketch ...... 180

v LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Photo by Roberto Schmidt, AFP/ Getty Images, Source: USA Today (reprint) ...... 6

Figure 2: The New Yorker cover, July 21, 2008, Illustrated by Barry Blitt; Source: Huffington Post (reprint) ...... 6

Figure 3: Outline of project ...... 9

Figure 4: Similarities and differences between the mammy, mulatta, and mistress types ...... 14

Figure 5: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark productions with Black Veras and White Glorias ...... 69

vi ABSTRACT

Black feminist scholars such as Lisa Anderson describe the most common stereotypes as that of the mammy, the mulatta, and the mistress. My research analyzes how each of these negative stereotypes are articulated or challenged in contemporary plays and films by bringing together scholarship that critiques dramatic representation, mass media that disseminates those representations, and social media that reveals popular perceptions of race. I utilize Black feminism to critique the stereotypical representation of Black women in dramatic works, and critical race theory to consider the social and political environment that allows these representations to proliferate. After setting up the historical context of stereotypes from the slavery era to the present day in chapter two, each of the following chapters explore one specific stereotype, beginning with the mammy in chapter three, moving to the mulatta in chapter four, and ending with the mistress in chapter five. Each of these chapters focuses on two case studies include one successful play and one film with a nation-wide release that features

Black female characters and plays on mainstream networks. With theatrical case studies ranging from Lydia Diamond’s Voyeurs de Venus (2006) to Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013), films from The Help (2011) to Dear White People (2014), my work questions how these stereotypes persist and create meaning in popular culture. The work addresses the following questions: How have the mammy, mulatto, and mistress stereotypes functioned and persisted in dramatic works and popular culture in the contemporary era? How do contemporary works adapt, challenge, reinterpret, and reimagine these stereotypes? What does this suggest about shifts in representations of Black women in the contemporary United States?

vii CHAPTER ONE

MELON MINE? AN EXAMINATION OF DEROGATORY BLACK FEMALE STEREOTYPES: MAMMY, MULATTA, AND MISTRESS

It was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge afro and machine gun... Now, yeah, it was satire, but if I’m really

being honest, it knocked me back a bit. It made me wonder, just how are people seeing me?

~Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States1

Introduction: Black Female Representation through the Distorted Societal Mirror

National news and social media consistently evaluated and documented Michelle Obama’s every move during her time as First Lady of the United States. Her many accomplishments, including a Harvard law degree as well as positions as an associate marketing and property lawyer at the Sidney Austin firm, Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of

Chicago, and Vice President of Community and External Affairs for the university’s medical center, provide ample evidence of her abilities. While First Lady, she enjoyed sustained public approval, even when President Obama’s approval ratings reached their low point. Yet, as a

Black woman in the public eye, Michelle Obama never escaped the many ways in which public representations reduced her to a Black female stereotype.

My assessment of the term stereotype is based on two definitions courtesy of Oxford

Dictionary and critical race scholars Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic respectively; “a widely held and oversimplified idea of a particular type of person or thing,” and a “Fixed, usually negative, image of members of a group.”2 Black feminist pioneer Patricia Hill Collins

1 Collier Meyerson, “Michelle Obama Isn’t Holding Back on Racism Anymore,” Fusion, May 12, 2015. Michelle Obama in response to New Yorker magazine cover, July 21, 2008. 2 Oxford Dictionary, s.v., “Stereotype,” Accessed April 2017; Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, (NYU Press, 2012), 173. 1 recognizes stereotypes of contemporary popular culture including “mammies, jezebels, and welfare mothers” as controlling images Black feminism challenges. 3 These representations manifest in figures from nineteenth century minstrel show figure and pancake brand character

Aunt Jemima to Cookie of television series Empire (2015). Though audiences might interpret characters in plays, films, and scripted television series as fictional, these figures undoubtedly inform people’s real-life perceptions. Despite attributes of these popular figures having shifted over time, they largely remain one-dimensional perceptions of Black women.

In her discussion of Basketball Wives and the cultural impact of reality television, literary scholar Sharon Lynette Ward identifies how stereotypical deceptions typically associate Black women with inferior qualities including “being unaffected by hardships, lacking womanly attributes, engaging with unlawful activities, and [being] libidinous.” 4 The danger of reality television is the overt implication that the material being viewed is real though ironically, the situations and events the cast encounter are usually constructed for dramatic effect. Though

Basketball Wives had the potential to promote positive representation of Black women who dominate the cast, the show upholds traditionally damaging images with several scenes of arguing, fighting, and oversexualized women. Communications scholar Tia Tyree explains that

“when taking into account the impact of stereotypes in the United States and the power of television to reproduce them… television and reality television programming can be an informational tool for audiences to gauge who they are, who others are in society as well as what is and is not acceptable behavior.”5 Collins asserts that attempting to “replace negative images with positive ones can be equally problematic if the function of stereotypes as

3 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Routledge, 2002) 5, 69. 4 Sharon L. Jones, “Contemplating Basketball Wives: A Critique of Racism, Sexism, and Income-Level Disparity,” in Real Sister: Stereotypes, Respectability, and Black Women in Reality TV edited by Jervette R. Ward (Rutgers University Press, 2015),141. 5 Tia Tyree, “African American Stereotypes in Reality Television” Howard Journal of Communications 22, no. 4 (2011): 395-397. 2 controlling images remains unrecognized.”6 Therefore, my analysis identifies both the destructive and affirmative qualities of familiar Black female stereotypes in dramatic representation and popular culture to determine how they remain fixed and support damaging perceptions of real-life Black women.

Beginning with Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, popular culture has depicted former First Lady Obama in disparaging ways that are indicative of how stereotypes inform representation. A satirical cartoon featured on the July 2008 cover of the New Yorker illustrates Mrs. Obama as a revolutionary with a machine gun (See Figure One).7 This depiction made her question whether she fit into any recognizable stereotypes: “Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating?”8 Sociologist Michael Eric Dyson argued that, while the New Yorker was known for creating satire about current social and political events, the joke fell flat because it did not consider the embedded racial implications in portraying Michelle

Obama as a Black militant. Instead, the cover helped perpetuate or “signify” existing stereotypes of Black people.9

Literary critic Henry Louis Gates describes signifying as an act that “both sustains and alters,” which manifests in either damaging or constructive behaviors.10 His work applies

Ferdinand De Saussure’s linguistics definition of signifying as “the association between words and the ideas they indicate” to analyze Black cultural history and symbolism. 11 Negative connotations of signifying associate it with Black folklore’s signifying monkey derivative of

6 Collins, 114. 7 While some have argued that this is simply a spoof of Michelle and Barack’s fist bump, others argue that it is a blatant reference to Black militancy. Staff, “New Yorker Editor Defends Obama Cover,” NPR, July 14, 2008. 8 Meyerson, “Michelle Obama Isn’t Holding Back on Racism Anymore.” 9 Gwen Ifill, Michael Eric Dyson, and Eric Bates, “New York Cover Satirizing Obama Raises Controversy,” PBS, July 14, 2008. 10 Henry Louis Gates, The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism (Oxford University Press, 2014), xxxiii. 11 Ferdinand DeSaussure, Course in General Linguistics translated by Wade Baskin, edited by Perry Meisel and Haun Saussy (Columbia University Press, 2011), 67; Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk, “Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Current Debate in African-American Literary Criticism, An Introduction,” Contemporary Literary Criticism 63 (1991). 3 the spirit Esu Elegbara, a messenger and mediator in Yoruban mythology. 12 In songs and narratives, the monkey, engages his friends in a game of “he said, she said” — conflicting reports, essentially gossip — that turn the friends against one another. Once the friends realize the monkey is the source of their animosity, they castrate him so that he is unable to reproduce and will likely think twice about tricking people with the false claim that he was repeating their words.13 The trickster figure has taken many other forms in literature throughout history from West African spider Anansi to U.S. American character Brer Rabbit. 14

Gates also cites the repetition and revision in the wordplay of jazz music and sampling of rhythm and blues songs in hip-hop music as part of the rich cultural history of signifying in the Black community.15 In “Elements of Style,” playwright Suzan-Lori Parks explains her use of repetition and revision to disrupt traditional narratives and expose stereotypes, particularly in Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1992).16 Unfortunately, the New Yorker is one of many outlets that engaged the negative, trickster side of signifying by resuscitating demeaning stereotypes to represent Michelle Obama. In other words, what stereotypes have said about Black women throughout history is informing how Black women are presently represented, and much of those images are hyperbolic or fictitious.

Additional commentary about Michelle Obama made negative assumptions about her demeanor, body, and policies while at White House. Daily Mail journalist Tom Leonard argues that Michelle “has routinely been portrayed as the one who really wears the trousers in the

12 Henry Louis Gates, “The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey,” in Literary Theory: An Anthology edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Blackwell, 1998), 988-989. 13 David G. Myers, “Signifying Nothing,” New Criterion 8 (1990): 61-64. 14 Babacar M'Baye, The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan Narratives (University Press of Mississippi, 2009); Albert Arnold, Monsters, Tricksters, and Sacred Cows: Animal Tales and American Identities (University of Virginia Press, 1996); Joseph A. Opala, The Gullah: Rice, Slavery and the Sierra Leone-American Connection (USIS, 1987). 15 Gates, The Signifying Monkey, xx. 16 Suzan-Lori Parks, The America Play and Other Works (Theatre Communications Group, 2013). 4 Obama household.”17 An image that went viral from Nelson Mandela’s December 2013 funeral shows Barack Obama taking a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and

Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt while Michelle Obama looks away. Though photographer Roberto Schmidt claims Mrs. Obama was laughing with those around her seconds earlier, several news outlets used this single picture to suggest that she was disapproving, controlling, and angry, reinforcing the stereotype of the “angry black woman”

(See Figure Two).18 In 2013, Bob Grisham, a since suspended White high school football coach in Alabama blamed his school’s low-calorie lunches on “fat butt Michelle Obama.”19

His statement — which is similarly based upon little evidence and questionable, considering that Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! nutrition initiative has been in place since 2010 — simultaneously calls her overweight and sexualizes her body. These destructive beliefs about

Michelle Obama represent how cultural stereotypes perceive Black women.

Black feminist author Ayana Byrd emphasizes that there is an enduring “history in this country of white people not showing adequate respect for and devaluing the bodies of black women.”20 Although Michelle Obama is an educated and professional woman, popular representations such as those itemized above have reduced her to Barack Obama’s browbeating “baby mama,” a controlling woman, and a sexual object.21 These disparaging images of the former First Lady are evidence that racism persists in the United States, despite the country’s supposed post-racialism that is ironically attributed to Barack Obama’s

17 Tom Leonard, “Is the Obama Marriage on the Rocks,” Daily Mail, January 17, 2014; Reference from Jane Hall quoted in Jon Scott’s “Fox News Watch,” June 14, 2008. 18 Photographer Roberto Schmidt defended Mrs. Obama, claiming that “photos can lie” and, “In rea lity, just a few seconds earlier the First Lady was herself joking with those around her.” Clyde Hughes, “Michelle Obama, Barack Switch Seats After Mandela Funeral ‘Selfie,’” Newsmax, December 10, 2013; David Jackson, “Photographer: Mrs. Obama Not Upset Over Selfie,” USA Today, December 11, 2013. Throughout the document, “black” is left lowercase only when in quoted. 19 Krissah Thompson, “Michelle Obama’s Posterior Again the Subject of Public Rant,” The Washington Post, February 4, 2013. 20 Evette Dionne, “Why Are White Men Obsessed With Michelle Obama’s Posterior?” Mic, February 5, 2013; Ayana Byrd quoted in Thompson, “Michelle Obama’s Posterior.” 21 David Bauder, “Fox News Refers to Michelle Obama as ‘Baby Mama,’” The Associated Press, June 12, 2008. 5 presidency. The opposite can be said of the current administration’s backlash with phrases like

“Make America Great Again” which suggests that the nation’s long history of social progress, perhaps its’ recent Black President and First Lady included, was moving the country in the wrong direction. This divisive sentiment that determines what is “great” (White) and what is not (Black/other) is simply an all-inclusive term for extreme conservatives who want to restore the United States’ tradition of White leadership. One way of signifying that tradition is through the demeaning stereotypes of non-Whites that dominate U.S. culture, particularly of

Black women.

Figure 1, Photo by Roberto Schmidt, AFP/ Getty Images, Source: USA Today (reprint) Figure 2, The New Yorker cover, July 21, 2008, Illustrated by Barry Blitt; Source: Huffington Post (reprint)

Examples of pejorative racial targeting toward Black women percolate in popular culture and everyday life through social media bullying, red carpet criticism, racial profiling, and job discrimination. While Michelle Obama endured criticism about her body and disposition, Black female celebrities and working-class women have similarly encountered discrimination and unflattering words with racist undertones. Shortly after the July 2016 release of the Ghostbusters remake, dark-skinned, statuesque Saturday Night Live comedienne

Leslie Jones was targeted for social media abuse by individuals on Twitter who called her a

6 “big lipped coon.”22 Singer-actress Zendaya’s red-carpet appearance at the 2015 Grammy awards was tainted by comments from former Fashion Police host Giuliana Rancic, who said her faux dreadlocks made her seem as if she “smell[ed] like patchouli oil or weed.” 23 Black doctor and chief resident at the University of Texas Health Science Center Tamika Cross was deemed unqualified when she stepped forward to help an ailing airline passenger on a 2016

Delta flight from Detroit to Houston; eventually a white male doctor came to the passenger’s rescue.24 Edith Arana’s six years at Walmart, in addition to her previous decade-long experience in retail, was considered insufficient for any promotion that exceeded “a low-level

‘support manager.’”25 In U.S. society, stereotypical assumptions are made about celebrity and everyday Black women alike as their race and gender eclipse their professional and economic status. Black women of all ages and careers are disrespected and disempowered due to negative cultural biases.

Racial discrimination through the reductionist use of stereotypes affects Black women in profound ways. Negative stereotypes of Black women function like a distorted mirror, warping their reflection in a bizarre, unnatural way, and this problem spans class and skill. If talented, accomplished, high-profile individuals like Michelle Obama, Leslie Jones, and

Zendaya, as well as middle and working-class women like Dr. Tamika Cross and Edith Arana are all victims of such negative stereotyping, what hope does any Black woman have in expecting positive representation? Their stories are but few examples of how countless Black women experience unrelenting racism and sexism in the United States. Therefore, I analyze how stereotypes inform mainstream representations of Black women in reality. How were

22 Kristen V. Brown, “How a Racist, Sexist Hate Mob Forced Leslie Jones off Twitter,” Fusion, July 19, 2016. 23 Taylor Bryant, “Zendaya Responds to Rude Comments about her Dreadlocks,” Refinery 29, February 25, 2015. 24 Ashley Hoffman, “Black Doctor Says Flight Attendant Blocked Her from Helping a Sick Passenger,” Time, October 14, 2017. 25 Nina Martin, “The Impact and Echoes of the Wal-Mart Discrimination Case,” Pro Publica, September 27, 2013. 7 these stereotypes established and how have they evolved? Despite Black women whose lives and accomplishments defy damaging assumptions about them, which factors linger and keep them associated with the negative stereotypes that permeate U.S. society?

One of theatre’s most powerful contributions is its ability to represent, respect, and reject reality. Theatre encourages temporary suspension of one’s disbelief to accept the dramatized events of a production and utilize aesthetic distance to understand that the events are not real.

However, stereotypical Black female representations are being perceived without these factors in mind, leading too many people to assume that these portrayals represent real-life Black women.

Therefore, I believe it is necessary to analyze dramatic works in the form of plays and films to question and challenge how prevailing negative stereotypes of Black women manifest in reality.

Of the many Black female stereotypes that exist, Black feminist scholar Lisa Anderson identifies the “mammy-mulatta-jezebel trio” as the most commonly utilized.26 I determine how dramatic representation constructs and propagates the Black female stereotypes of mammy, mulatta, and mistress (jezebel) in U.S. society, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Through my exploration of Black female representation in specific case studies of plays and films, I investigate how these stereotypes manifest in the current age of mass news media and social media interaction (See Figure Three). If we acknowledge that derogatory iconic Black female representations exist in contemporary U.S. society, how do they persist? Essentially, how do academic scholarship, mass media, and social media cooperatively influence the perpetuation of negative Black female stereotypes through dramatic works, including plays and films? Though my exploration will focus on the case studies of dramatic works, my work

26 Lisa Anderson, “Representation and Resistance” in an Anti-Black World,” in Mammies No More: The Changing Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 120. 8 makes use of mass media, social media, and scholarship to analyze the ways in which popular representations of Black women radiate out into U.S. culture.

Black Female Stereotypes (Negative/Derogatory)

Mammy Mulatta Mistress/Jezebel (Mother) (Outsider) (Sexual Deviant)

Case Studies: Dramatic Works (Stereotypes Illustrated in Plays, Films, Television Series)

Academic Scholarship Mass Media Social Media (Data analyzing Representation) (Data demonstrating (Data suggesting Popular Dissemination) Culture Perception)

Figure 3: Outline of project

Black Female Stereotypes Defined and Characterized

The “mammy-mulatto-jezebel trio” is an enduring combination of stereotypes that has been studied and analyzed by Black feminist, African-American studies, and critical race scholars. Black theatre scholarship locates these types within U.S. dramatic works including plays and films ranging from early dramatic literature and minstrel shows to contemporary films and reality television. Intellectuals from related fields likewise identify these three as common stereotypes and situate them within social and historical context. Based on these explanations, I define and identify characteristics of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes as follows:

9 Mammy (Mother) The mammy is, foremost, a maternal character. Her focus is the care of white people, and she is often portrayed as a dark-skinned, asexual, bandana-wearing woman who is generally happy and overweight like Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Anderson calls the mammy a “’good’ Negro,” denoting that she is a model servant who caters to her “’adopted’ white family, rather than her own black family.”27 Similarly, West describes the mammy as a

“subordinate, nurturing, self-sacrificing […] strong black woman,” who usually functions as a single parent taking on multiple roles.28 A focus group from Harris-Perry’s study characterizes the mammy as a woman “who [is not] thinking about sex at all,” while Johnathan Green notes in his Dictionary of Slang that she might express sexual interest in her White male owner/employer.29 Her independence, strength, and lack of sexual interest in Black men can be seen as emasculating. Taken together, the prevailing characteristics of a mammy figure are that of a large, domineering, self-sufficient Black female who loves her White family, covers her nappy, unattractive hair, wears a frumpy dress/smock and apron, and has no family of her own or limited access to them.

In “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and Their Homegirls,” psychologist, Carolyn West describes institutionalized stereotypes about Black women including the mammy and mistress

(jezebel) in historical and contemporary films, television, and popular culture. She identifies how mammy and mistress figures have been illustrated in films like Gone with the Wind and commercials featuring the Aunt Jemima and Pine Sol representatives. She also notes instances in which high profile Black women have been stereotypically characterized. For example, she

27 Anderson, Mammies No More, 10-12, 24. 28 Carolyn M. West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and their Homegirls: Developing an ‘Oppositional Gaze" toward the Images of Black Women,” Lectures on the Psychology of Women: Fourth Edition edited by Joan C. Chrisler, Carla Golden, and Patricia D. Rozee, (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press: 2008), 289-293. 29 Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, (Yale University Press, 2011), 33; Jonathon Green, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (Sterling Publishing Company, Inc, 2005), 36. 10 recalls when a guest psychologist on Oprah’s show called her “the mother of America,” and suggested that her commitment to her professional career was the reason she did not have children.30 Beyond the comment’s insinuation that women in general must choose between motherhood and a career, it also painted Oprah as a mammy figure, taking care of everyone else at the expense of herself and any personal aspirations. While women of any race are assumed inherently maternal, the history of American servitude reveals that Black women are expected to be the nation’s nanny, and they are continually mistaken for retail, restaurant, caregiver, and custodial staff while shopping, eating, and working. West, herself, once received a request to be seated in a restaurant from a White woman who assumed she was a server rather than a patron.31 As these experiences demonstrate, Black women especially are expected to be the ever-available “help,” a role that often connects directly back to the mammy stereotype.

Mulatta (Outsider)

A mulatta is a light-skinned, mixed-race woman whose inability to become a permanent part of White or Black society renders her a confused and tormented outsider. Her life has historically been a ceaselessly futile tug-of-war in which she was never fully accepted in the field amongst her Black slave family nor in the house by her White relatives, and she might only temporarily pass for White because of a White father with financial means. 32 In the slavery era, abolitionists leveraged the mulatta’s nearly White appearance to humanize slaves and make White people more sympathetic to their condition, such as Zoe in Dion Boucicault’s

30 West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and their Homegirls,” 289. 31 Ibid, 287. 32 David Pilgrim, “The Tragic Mulatta Myth,” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, 2000, Accessed October 2016; Cedric J. Robinson, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 51. 11 play The Octoroon (1859) or Eliza in Stowe’s famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).33 Though the mulatta type has shifted over time, she exhibits deep suffering and suicidal tendencies due to the challenges of her conflicting racial identities. Anderson characterizes the mulatta as

“mean, violent, bitter, sullen, shadowy, and untrustworthy.” 34 While a mulatta takes on multiple roles as daughter, playmate, and girlfriend, she often experiences rejection from her family, community, and lover, which contributes to her resentment. Ultimately, the focus of all mulatta descriptions is her distress about her ambiguous identity and unattainable love.

Mistress/Jezebel (Sexual Deviant)

The mistress, or jezebel, is typically dark-skinned, attractive, and in great physical shape. Harris-Perry and West describe them as promiscuous and “immoral,” treading the fine line between “sexually liberated and sexual object.”35 Anderson emphasizes the

“exoticization” of jezebels (mistresses), noting that they are characterized as primal and animalistic, and linked to “prostitution, sexual excess, deviancy, and lesbianism.” 36 Since Black women’s entry into the United States was as property, it was common for White slave masters to take advantage of them as secondary sexual partners. Though these women were forced into submission, some began to see benefits in their sexual relationships with White men, and to use those relationships to establish some agency in their lives. This subtle assertion of sexual power became a way for Black women to counter their degradation during slavery, and to gain some independence and power. This type shifted after the end of slavery as well, as some Black women began to exercise control of their bodies and their sexual power actively,

33 Ariela Julie Gross, What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Harvard University Press, 2009), 61. 34 Anderson, Mammies No More, 45. 35 Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen; West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and their Homegirls,” 294-295. 36 Anderson, Mammies No More, 86-87. 12 sometimes choosing sexually charged relationships with men who were already married or in a committed relationship. A prime example of the mistress is the title character of Carmen Jones

(1954), who seduces an army officer that is already engaged. Overall, the mistress is readily recognized by her sexual availability, a trait that is often portrayed as deviant sexuality, but that clearly has other dimensions as well.

Stereotypical Resemblance: How Are These Types Connected?

Many traits of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress overlap and are suggestions of traditional stereotypical traits rather than absolutes. However, they are all representations of

Black women in the United States and have their historical origins in slavery. Melissa Harris-

Perry explains how associations for the mammy and mistress stereotypes are extreme opposite with seemingly “no inbetween,” in that the mammy was fat and asexual, while the mistress was fit and overly sexual, though both figures are often independent and have a similar skin tone.37

While they share a sexualized characterization, the mulatta is eternally tormented and suicidal while the mistress is usually full of life (See Figure Four). Essentially, Black women are negatively stereotyped in the United States based on their skin tone, body type, presumed sexual preferences, and other superficial traits that formulate their caricaturized representations in dramatic works. Anderson, Harris-Perry, and West argue that these stereotypical extremes are proof that common images of Black female representation need to be reshaped.

My research analyzes how academic scholarship, mass media, and social media cooperatively influence the perpetuation of negative Black female stereotypes in dramatic works, including plays and films. I examine Black female characters depicted as mammy,

37 Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen, 33. 13 Mammy fat, asexual

limited access to brown/dark skin,

family/lover slave/ independent servant Mulatta Mistress sexual, suicidal, bitter lively, immoral physically fit

Figure 4: Similarities and differences between the mammy, mulatta, and mistress types

mulatta, and mistress stereotypes by bringing together scholarship that critiques dramatic representation, mass media that disseminates (often biased) messages, and social media that reveals popular perceptions of race. This chapter frames and contextualizes my study and theoretical approaches, forming the basis for the work that will come.

In Mammies No More, Lisa Anderson reveals the essential problem of Black femininity on stage and screen. She states that, “Because the cultural representations of black women a re not abundant, none of them can be thought of as ‘just a black woman.’”38 Considering that many Americans only exposure to Black women is through various forms of media, “white interpretation […] becomes the so-called black.”39 Anderson’s study is primarily a comparative analysis of the distinct “mammy-mulatta-jezebel trio” represented in plays, television, and movies, seek to rewrite those representations. She focuses on “plays and films written and produced between 1960 and 1990,” arguing that the period’s representations are

38 Anderson, Mammies No More, 1. 39 Ibid. 14 marked by the need for a conscious resistance.40 I follow in her stead, identifying related news and scholarship from various disciplines that inform Black female representation. My case studies pick up where she left of by assessing how stereotypes manifest in the 21st century and incorporating writers the additional analysis of social media, which has proliferated exponentially since Anderson’s book was initially published in 1997. By bringing these representations into the twenty-first century, I explore how these stereotypes continue to pervade contemporary dramatic works despite recent shifts in the focus on race relations in the United States.

As a light-skinned, heterosexual, educated Black female from a middle-class background, I bring my unique cultural perspectives to this study. As a theatre scholar and practitioner, I hope to contribute research centered on Black women to the body of knowledge that will inspire productions featuring positive representations of Black females. I find myself in a daily struggle to define myself against the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes that percolate through society and reify with each appearance in dramatic works. It is my desire to foster awareness of these negative and pervasive cultural stereotypes and to inspire dialogue as well as the perpetuation of more positive representations of Black women in dramatic works and popular culture.

Each chapter that follows will delve into one of the aforementioned stereotypes of

Black women: mammy, mulatta, and mistress. Within each chapter, I have identified two case studies that feature Black females as main characters that either embody those stereotypes in unique ways, with some resisting the trope and others embracing their representation. Because

I am particularly interested in the ways that these stereotypes continue to reverberate through popular culture today, my case studies are all from the contemporary era, which I define as the

40 Anderson, 119, 120. 15 21st century (2000–present). By first creating a picture of how these representations have manifested on stage and screen historically, I explore how they have shifted and remained the same over time to inform my deeper analysis of contemporary manifestations. This analytical strategy allows me to recognize typologies across a range of different types of works from which I hope to develop a continuum of characteristics that typify Black female stereotypes so that they might be appropriately recognized and redefined.

Because of my interest in social media and popular culture, my case studies for each chapter include a play and a film. My chapter focusing on the mammy will analyze Lynn

Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013), and film The Help (2011), which offer different ways of looking at this type, whether the characterizations reify certain tropes or begin to break them down. Similarly, Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand (2014), and the independent film

Dear White People (2014) illuminate different contemporary presentations of the mulatta, while

Lydia Diamond’s Voyeurs de Venus (2006) and film 12 Years a Slave (2013) reveal different ways in which Black women are sexually exploited in a variation of the mistress trope. The plays I analyze have enjoyed successful Broadway, Off-Broadway, and/or regional production runs and the films were critically acclaimed and shown in movie theaters nationwide.

My work primarily utilizes textual analysis aided by production reviews and screenplays. I first read these plays and viewed the films with an inductive approach, taking notes on initial impressions, and then repeated the process, identifying themes within each work. Through deductive reasoning, I streamlined the general themes I discovered into ones that were common among the case studies and included how a character(s) engages with traditional qualities of the stereotype, maintains relationships, and resists the stereotype. From a theoretical approach, Black feminism critiques the stereotypical representation of Black women in dramatic works while critical race considers the social and political environment that allows these representations to

16 proliferate. Specifically, a Black feminist approach identifies stereotypes as controlling images and that portray characters in negative ways. Meanwhile, critical race considers the sociopolitical environment that enables derogatory perceptions about Black women, in these cases, characters, to persist. I implement these ideologies to evaluate the impact of derogatory characterization as it manifests in popular culture and effects perceptions of real Black women. Each chapter addresses the following questions: How have the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes functioned and persisted in dramatic works and popular culture in the contemporary era? How do contemporary works adapt, challenge, reinterpret, and reimagine these stereotypes? What does this suggest about shifts in representations of Black women in the contemporary United States?

He Said, She Said: An Abridged Literature Review on Black Female Stereotypes and a

Call to Action for Revision and Resistance

Black female stereotypes, particularly the mammy, mulatta, and mistress, have pervaded

U.S. dramatic works since the nineteenth century. Scholarly analysis of these tropes varies in focus and methodology, but generally seeks to expose the stereotypes themselves, the conditions in which they emerged, and their impact in ongoing representation of Black women. Some analysis also bridges the gap between representation and real women, delving into how representation plays a very real role in Black women’s daily life and experience.

Film scholar Jorg Schweinitz states that “Stereotypes are developed, articulated, conventionalized and mentally ingrained” schema that are either read critically as constructs or naively perceived as fact.41 Early cinema of the 1920s and 1930s established film as a medium of conventionality that promoted stereotypical characterization through the repetition of

41 Jörg Schweinitz, Film and Stereotype: A challenge for Cinema and Theory (Columbia University Press, 2011), 40. 17 visual images including “character construction and patterns of acting.” 42 Stereotypes are explicit in The Birth of a Nation (1915), the first major motion picture in the United States denoting race relations and distinctions between North and South. Conversely, in German film Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. (The Suitcases of Mr. O.F., 1931), “Alexander Granowski presents an iconic fairy tale about the modern capitalism of the era and reflexively touches on the world of cinema.”43 With a comedy that “through its fictitious film company caricaturizes the stereotypization of film,” the film is one of the first that uses the form itself to evaluate film production and representation.44 Therefore, Granowksi’s film contributed to a trend of dramatic work that recognizes and resists stereotypes through active critique.

Scholarship from various disciplines encourages the analysis of dramatic works to identify the nuances of Black female representation. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen: Shame,

Stereotypes, and Black Women in America analyzes prominent literature with Black female characters including Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Alice Walker’s The

Color Purple, which have been adapted into films by Suzan-Lori Parks and Steven Spielberg respectively. She argues that these works give Black women recognition, an aspect she deems political as it relates to both “human and national identity.” 45 She argues, “the internal, psychological, emotional, and personal experiences of black women are inherently political [...] because black women in America have always had to wrestle with derogatory assumptions about their characters and identity.”46 Harris-Perry “call[s] for the creation of new forms of politics rooted in a deep and textured understanding of black women’s lives;” in other words, one that will not reduce them to stereotypes.47 Similarly, Carolyn West utilizes bell hooks’

42 Schweinitz, x, xii 43 Ibid, ix. 44 Ibid, x. 45 Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen, 4. 46 Ibid, 5. 47 Ibid, 22. 18 assertion that “Black feminist scholars should take an ‘oppositional gaze’ toward the images of

Black women.”48 She argues that Black female intellectuals should combat racism and sexism in the way that they “see, name, question, resist, and ultimately transform these and other oppressive images.”49

Notably, Donald Bogle’s text Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive

History of Blacks in American Film (2001) identifies five tropes established in the 1903 film version of popular novel and play, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He discerns how these caricatured images evolve over time to complicate and add nuance to Black representation. 50 Lisa

Anderson deems early stereotypical representations “myth,” fabricated and exaggerated portrayals of Black women based on assumptions rather than truth. She traces the trajectory of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes on stage and screen from slavery era iterations to more modern characterization at the end of the twentieth century. Portrayals are seen in the plays: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and The Octoroon (1859), A Raisin in the Sun (1959),

Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964), for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf

(1977), and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1989); and in the films:

She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Daughters of the Dust (1991) and Corrina, Corrina (1994). Like her colleagues, she advocates for these stereotypes to be reexamined and rewritten.

In her text The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America,

Tamara Winfrey Harris uses her work on beauty, sex, marriage, motherhood, anger, strength, and health to deconstruct the notion that one is “pretty for a black girl.”51 Applying her ideas to

48 West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and their Homegirls,” 288, 297. 49 Ibid; See also Barbara Christian, New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000 (University of Illinois Press, 2007); Joan Morgan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-hop Feminist Breaks It Down (Simon and Schuster, 2000); Gholnecsar E. Muhammad, and Sherell A. McArthur. “’Styled by Their Perceptions’: Black Adolescent Girls Interpret Representations of Black Females in Popular Culture.” Multicultural Perspectives 17, no. 3 (2015): 133-140. 50 Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American films (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001). 51 Harris, The Sisters are Alright, 15. 19 performance and representation, I suggest concrete strategies that might positively affect Black representation in both dramatic works and actuality. Because of its direct challenge to the mammy, mistress, and mulatta stereotypes, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play, An Octoroon (2014), serves as an example of a dramatic work that consciously critiques these stereotypes. Along with his inclusion of familiar figures and stereotypes, the playwright includes himself as a character playing a role in the racial narrative and commenting on his agency or lack thereof i n contemporary representation. I use this body of scholarship about the mammy, mulatta, and mistress tropes as a call to action for analyzing Black women’s representations and imagining possibilities that push beyond stereotypes.

Contemporary films and plays similarly identify problematic representations of Black women as mammy, mulatta, and mistress figures by evaluating tropes within the dramatic form itself. Vera of Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013) is unsatisfied with being typecast as a maid figure in films, especially after having worked as one in real life. Nottage confirms that she is aware of stereotypes’ impact through Vera’s conscious admission of distaste with how she is being represented. Sam of Justin Simien’s Dear White People (2014) similarly voices her opinions about race and stereotypes through radio and documentary.

While enduring her own identity crisis as a mixed-race woman, she resists images that her environment tries to place on her. In Lydia Diamond’s play Voyeurs de Venus (2006), present day novelist Sara must consider how to compassionately portray historical figure Saartjie

Baartman’s existence of sexualized exhibition and reconcile the parallels between Saartjie’s life and her own. Their disparate positions of agency within slavery and the contemporary era are respectively articulated as Saartjie’s handlers force her into degrading displays of her body, while Sara nonchalantly pursues an extramarital affair with her book editor.

20 Theatre and literary scholarship recognizes how these stereotypes manifest in dramatic works in ways that connect historical moments to the present and acknowledge controlling images of Black womanhood. In “Vera Stark at the Crossroads of History,” Harvey Young argues that the title character both “enacts an extreme caricature of blackness” and “challenges the negative contingences of identity,” an argument that paves the way for my own analysis of this character.52 From the moment we first meet her as a servant in the 1930s to her talk show appearance as a retired maid actress in the 1970s, Vera struggles to define herself as more than a mammy figure in her lifetime. Diamond’s play Voyeurs de Venus merges past and present to comment on collective memory and Black female sexuality. In “Venus: The Iconic Black Female

Figure of Sacrifice,” Connie Rapoo recognizes the parallels between Saartjie’s exploitation as a mistress in her lifetime and Sara’s choice to take on the mistress role in the present day.53

News and scholarship weigh in on how Gardley and Simien characterize mixed-race women, contemporary mulattas, as having reconciled or struggled with their identities. In her critique of The House That Will Not Stand, journalist Anita Gates reviews a May 2014 production in New Haven, delving into the representation of the quadroon sisters and the way in which their mixed race and social position complicate the need to marry during slavery.54 In article, “Black Like Who?” sociologist Bernard Beck explores how the Black students of Dear

White People navigate the university setting and define themselves against stereotypes, specifically

Sam, the young woman who plays the mulatta protagonist.55 Collectively, these works about mulatta figures past and present pose questions related to racial identity within the family and

52 Harvey Young, “Vera Stark at the Crossroads of History,” in A Critical Companion to Lynn Nottage edited by Jocelyn L. Buckner (New York: Routledge, 2016), 114. 53 Connie Rapoo, “Venus: The Iconic Black Female Figure of Sacrifice” in Figures of Sacrifice: Africa in the Transnational Imaginary: 57-67 (ProQuest, 2008). 54 Anita Gates, “The Brady Quadroons: A Review of the House That Will Not Stand,” The New York Times, May 3, 2014. 55 Bernard Beck, “Black Like Who?: The Class of 2014 Considers Race in Dear White People,” Multicultural Perspectives 17, no. 3 (2015): 141-144. 21 the community. Gardley and Simien respectively utilize spaces of past and present with plantation and university settings to illustrate how mixed-race women embrace their racial background. Overall, these scholars explore how contemporary dramatic works engage with Black female identity and sexuality in ways that challenge and complicate stereotypes.

There are also many studies related to the formation of stereotypes and negative attitudes towards Black women. In Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to

Civil Rights, performance studies scholar Robin Bernstein explains the symbolic significance of literature like The Dolls’ Surprise Party (1863) to early North American race relations, “in which dolls come to life and black dolls, without comment or explanation, immediately serve white dolls,” which set a standard for Black women’s societal position.56 While attractive factory dolls existed for both races, they were expensive and uncommon, so dolls were likely to be homemade with makeshift supplies and exaggerated features. Children frequently used the dolls to enact real social relationships between white and Black people, beating, starving, or even hanging their Black dolls and thus mimicking their real-life attitudes and experiences with Black people. Bernstein’s arguments are supported by social science research as well. Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s experiments, conducted in the 1930s and 1940s, reveal that both White and Black children favored White dolls over Black ones.57 Filmmaker Kiri Davis’s documentary, A Girl Like Me (2005), continues this work by exposing the ugly truth that children in the present day, specifically young Black girls, still prefer

White dolls instead of the Black dolls they more closely resemble.58

Social scientists have also explored how stereotypes affect the mental state and self-esteem of Black people. In “Identifying Stereotypes in the Online Perception of Physical Attractiveness,”

56 Francis Elizabeth Barrow, The Doll's Surprise Party by Aunt Laura (Breed, Butler & Company, 1863); Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (New York University Press, 2011). 57 While this study was published in 1950, the Clarks began their experiments in the late 1930s and continued them into the 1940s. Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, “Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children,” The Journal of Negro Education 19, no. 3 (1950): 341-350. 58 A Girl Like Me, By Kiri Davis, US: Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, 2005. 22 computer scientists Camila Souza Araújo, Wagner Meira, Jr., and Virgilio Almeida explain how simple internet searches using the term ugly overwhelmingly return images of Black women, reinforcing stereotypes and skewed beauty norms.59 Psychologists Audrey A. Elion, Kenneth T.

Wang, Robert B. Slaney, and Bryana H. French note that some Black university students and young professionals at predominately White dominated businesses and institutions subconsciously or intentionally link their personal gratification and positive self-esteem with a likeness to Whiteness.

Though most maintain their “racial identity,” they hope to transcend discrimination by striving for

“perfectionism,” which often means provisionally assimilating to the dominant culture.60 Another survey about body image on Black youth aged 14-21 by psychology and African-American studies scholars Valerie Adams-Bass, Howard Stevenson, and Diana S. Kotzin found that participants with high self-esteem were likely influenced by their community and “Black history knowledge,” which provided them with a defense against internalizing negative stereotypes and destructive norms.61

And finally, according to a nationwide Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation survey in 2012,

“67 percent of black women say they have high self-esteem; 85 percent are satisfied with [their] lives, and 73 percent say that now is a good time to be a black woman” in comparison to previous eras of overt racism.62

While these reports demonstrate how some Black people have taken measures to contest societal assaults on their representation and self-esteem, many utilize “double-consciousness,” a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois that describes the coping mechanism employed to maintain a sense

59 Camila Souza Araújo, Wagner Meira Jr, and Virgilio Almeida, “Identifying Stereotypes in the Online Perception of Physical Attractiveness,” in International Conference on Social Informatics (Springer International Publishing, 2016). 60 Audrey A. Elion, Kenneth T. Wang, Robert B. Slaney, and Bryana H. French, “Perfectionism in African American Students: Relationship to Racial Identity, GPA, Self-Esteem, and Depression,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 18, no. 2 (2012): 118. 61 Valerie N. Adams-Bass, Howard C. Stevenson, and Diana Slaughter Kotzin, “Measuring the Meaning of Black Media Stereotypes and their Relationship to the Racial Identity, Black History Knowledge, and Racial Socialization of African American Youth,” Journal of Black Studies 45, no. 5 (2014). 62 Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2015), 120. 23 of Black identity and self-appreciation while functioning in a White dominated world.63 Living with separate public and private personas—one of which is on display in mixed-race company; the other remains “private” within the Black community—is normalized in the Black community. This double-consciousness is often hidden from the Whites with whom Blacks frequently interact and requires the suppression of one’s private cultural experience. It also leaves many Whites unaware of the numerous ways Black people regularly experience racial discrimination. In his January 2017 farewell address, President Obama noted the progress of race relations throughout American history, but also stressed that recent events have made it clear that the United States is not post- racial and the process of uniting the country along racial lines must continue.64 Such statements by prominent Black leaders are partly what drives my critique of dramatic works in anticipation of improved, genuine Black representation and resultant race relations.

It Runs Deep: Stereotypical Representation Theorized

The theoretical frameworks I employ to analyze my case studies include critical race theory and Black feminist theory. In my examination of dramatic works, I focus on how texts, images, and performed representations illustrate and/or challenge characteristics of Black female stereotypes that fit within the mammy-mulatta-mistress trio. Critical race theory and Black feminist theory appear frequently in studies of African American performance to reveal race and gender issues. Taken together, these approaches critically assess how dramatic works and popular culture depict Black women and encourage them to take agency over their own representation. Though comparatively examining stereotypes in dramatic works is a common

63 W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, (AC McClurg & Company: Chicago, 1903), 3. 64 Barack Obama, “Farewell Address” (speech, McCormick Place, Chicago, January 11, 2017). 24 critical practice, my research includes social media and popular culture references consistent with contemporary conversations about iconic and stereotypical images.65

Critical race theory critiques racism and power dynamics, and therefore views race, class, and gender as essential influences on one’s existence. Critical race theory helps me determine how legal policy shapes American culture and consequently how people of color are perceived. Delgado and

Stelfancic take interest in “counterstories” and attempt to analyze “how Americans view race.”66

They assert that because “people have radically different experiences as they go through life,” it is essential to recognize diversity within the law in order to dispel myths and assumptions about people of color that taint their humanity.67 Derrick Bell explains that Blacks in America experience racism

“no matter prestige or position— [and are no] more than a few steps away from racially motivated exclusion, restriction, or affront.”68 Ultimately, Bell encourages Blacks to employ defiant “courage and determination” in order to influence real change.69 Critical Race Theory utilizes “feminism’s insights into the relationship between power and the construction of social roles, as well as the unseen, largely invisible collection of patterns and habits that make up patriarchy and other types of domination.”70 I employ Critical Race Theory as a means to investigate and dispel mythical Black female stereotypes in dramatic works and their resultant consequences for Black women in reality.

Specifically, this theoretical basis reveals how stereotypical stage and screen characters inform perceptions of real Black women by themselves and others of diverse race and gender backgrounds.

Critical race theory is frequently employed in political science, criminal justice, and

Black studies fields but utilized by Black theatre history and performance scholars to critique

65 Lorayne Robertson and Joli Scheidler-Benns, “Critical Media Literacy as a Transformative Pedagogy,” Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal 7, no. 1 (2016): 2247. 66 Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, (NYU Press, 2012), 44. 67 Ibid, 48. 68 Derrick Bell, “Racial Realism” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that formed the Movement edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, (The New Press, 1995), 306. 69 Ibid, 307. 70 Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 5. 25 dramatic representation.71 Specifically, Brandi W. Catanese discusses the controversial challenges of color-blind casting and racial neutrality while Faedra C. Carpenter identifies contemporary Black artists who define and perform Whiteness in order to contest traditional representations of Blackness. From examining racial profiling in performance spaces to thinking about race itself as “an invention, a convenience that encapsulates perceived (or imagined) difference,” critical race theory provides a way to examine how and why race continues to be a divisive category in U.S. culture and the role of performance in reinforcing or undermining that narrative.72 In this way, critical race theory is a significant source for evaluating how and why negative Black female stereotypes persist in current society and will play a significant role in my project.

Just as critical race theory offers ways to parse out how race plays into society, the law, and power, Black feminist theory is a way of extending this discussion to issues of gender and Black femininity. The field is mostly dominated by Black women who analyze the way Black women are represented, as I intend to do in my analysis of dramatic works. Black feminist scholarship identifies the possibilities of reshaping the prejudices and images of previous works into positive and affirming depictions, a possibility that I embrace and hope to catalyze further with my work. Kimberlé

Crenshaw pioneered the study of Black female intersectionality in work that focuses on identity politics and “highlights the fact that women of color are situated within at least two subordinated groups [race and gender] that frequently pursue conflicting political agendas.”73 Because racial and

71 Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (University of Michigan Press, 2010); Daphne Brooks, Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Duke University Press, 2006); Tavia Amolo Nyongó, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (University of Minnesota Press, 2009); Brandi Wilkins Catanese, The Problem of the Colorblind: Racial Transgression and the Politics of Black Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2011); Faedra C. Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2014); Nicole R. Fleetwood, Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness (University of Chicago Press, 2011); Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory (Duke University Press, 2014); Soyica Diggs Colbert, The African American Theatrical Body: Reception, Performance, and the Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2011). 72 Harvey Young’s Theatre and Race (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 5. 73 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that formed the Movement, (The New Press, 1995), 360. 26 gendered groups have competing agendas that are frequently at odds, efforts to contest Black women’s discrimination are often futile.74 Patricia Hill Collins identifies issues of the allegedly post- racial era, which she calls an institutionalized and subtle “new racism” that “relies more heavily on the manipulation of ideas within mass media […] present[ing] hegemonic ideologies that claim racism is over.”75 In other words, by suggesting that society has already dealt with its racial issues, plays, films, and television shows continue to promote old stereotypes in new packages. To counter this, Barbara Christian explains the ways in which Black women throughout generations have used various forms of art to express themselves and assert their value as more than caricatures.76

Black feminism engages with critical race theory in scholarship that challenges White patriarchal structures, policies, cultural norms, and biases that disadvantage Black women and contribute to stereotypes. Ultimately, Black feminists work to reveal the history of sociopolitical oppression that manifests in negative portrayals of Black women on stage and screen as well as in ordinary life, a process that is inherently valuable to this project and my research into contemporary dramatic representations of Black women. Black feminism is most essential to my analysis of Black female stereotypes as it seeks to both critique and revise Black women’s cultural representation.

Black feminist theory and critical race theory expose cultural issues such as racism, sexism, and classism in popular culture like film, television, and music. Ernest Morrell explains how an analysis of popular culture “can help deconstruct dominant narratives and contend with oppressive practices in hopes of achieving a more egalitarian and inclusive society.”77 He suggests that all

American citizens should be critical of societal culture that negatively portrays racial minorities.

74 This is a concept bell hooks touches on in her discussion of voting rights as White women allied with White men when they anticipated Black men getting voting privileges due to their gender. She likens this to modern feminist movements in which White women demand rights for themselves rather than for women of all races; bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (Pluto Press, 2000), 56. 75 Patricia Hill Collins, “The Past is Ever Present: Recognizing the New Racism,” in Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism (2004): 54-55. 76 Barbara Christian, New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000, (University of Illinois Press, 2007). 77 Ernest Morrell, “Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Popular Culture: Literacy Development Among Urban Youth,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 46, no. 1 (2002): 72. 27 Sherell MacArthur similarly acknowledges the legacy of Black women’s resistance against “largely degrading media representations of Blackness.” As she argues, “Centering Black girls’ lived experiences through critical media literacy can teach critical thinking and interrogation and enables

Black girls to negotiate visibility by counternarrating racist, sexist, and classist media narratives with authentic stories of Black girlhood.”78 For McArthur, purposeful media critique encourages one to

“analyze how stereotypes and prejudices are communicated through media.”79

Educator Paulo Freire’s social justice agenda of encourages a shift from oppression to liberation which inspired theatre practitioners Augusto Boal and David Diamond. Boal, author of Theatre of the Oppressed, utilizes theatre as an active tool to change cultural power dynamics, while Diamond, author of Theatre for Living, views theatre as a means to amend “behaviors that create the structure, not only the structure itself.” 80 Boal and Diamond employ dramatic work and performance to push beyond simply critiquing text and actively work through alternative approaches for representation. By identifying how stereotypes are perpetuated by the media, my research provides a basis for analyzing dramatic works, popular culture, and the ways these media co-create meaning. As Collins notes in Black Feminist Thought, awareness of these stereotypes can lead to the intentional rewriting of those types in popular culture, thus extending agency to the very group that these stereotypes attempt to render powerless.81 Therefore, the implementation of critical literacy in my work offers a way to promote the deconstruction of popular negative representations of Black women among those who create, perpetuate, and consume those representations.

78 Sherell A. McArthur, “Black Girls and Critical Media Literacy for Social Activism,” English Education 48, no. 4 (2016): 362. 79 Ibid, 363. 80 Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed (Pluto Press, 2000); David Diamond and Fritjof Capra, Theatre for Living: The Art and Science of Community-Based Dialogue (Trafford Publishing, 2007), 38. 81 Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, 28 The Breakdown: A Blueprint for My Analysis of Black Female Representation

Like Lisa Anderson, I employ a comparative analysis of dramatic works to critically analyze Black female stereotypes and consider how these representations function within current news and entertainment. With the additional inclusion of social media, I merge popular culture with intellectual conversations about stereotypical Black female representation in critical race theory and Black feminist theory. Through my layered analysis of Black female representation in dramatic works, scholarship, social media, I encourage audiences to consider their part in how stereotypes proliferate in dramatic works and popular culture and how these potentially damaging images collectively create meaning about representation. Taken together, these mediums encourage people to recognize the differences between affirming and destructive representation as well as the nuances that lie in between. Awareness of these stereotypes can lead to the intentional rewriting of those types in popular culture, thus extending agency to the very group that these stereotypes attempt to render powerless. My work offers a way to promote the deconstruction of negative Black female representations among those who create, perpetuate, and consume them. Ultimately, I utilize critical race theory and Black feminist theory to unite the scholarly and popular discussions of Black female representations.

Chapter Two includes a detailed historical overview of relevant Black female stereotypes established in works ranging from the slavery era (pre-1865) to the late twentieth century and present day and observe how they progressively signal shifts in representation.

Much like Anderson, I survey works from the slavery era to the present focused on the mammy, mulatta, and mistress tropes to determine what traits established the stereotype and how these qualities have shifted over time.

Chapter Three deconstructs the mammy stereotype using Lynn Nottage’s By the Way,

Meet Vera Stark (2013) and Tate Taylor’s The Help film (2011). In my exploration of these three

29 case studies, I am most concerned with how the mammy stereotype has resurfaced in dramatic works from the contemporary era to influence perceptions of real Black women. These case studies are particularly fruitful because of their direct reinforcement of or challenge to the mammy stereotype in works with a Black female lead character portrayed as an obese, undesirable, and maternal servant. With its focus on racism in the film industry, Nottage’s play covers a seventy-year period in which a Black maid, Vera Stark, navigates her job, her relationship with her white movie-star employer, and her own potential career as a film actress. She ultimately reflects on her experiences and regrets not being able to escape her role as mammy both on screen and in real life. Tate Taylor’s controversial portrayal of The Help’s repressed Black housemaids Aibileen and Minny attempts to champion their voice through the kindness of their White female friend Skeeter. She brings all the town’s Black housemaids together to tell their stories because of her economic access and White privilege. Therefore, Aibileen and Minny are only more than mammies when allowed a safe space by Skeeter. Minny is particularly a prime example of a mammy figure due to her rotund physique, and Aibileen due to raising her employer’s children. By analyzing how these stereotypes are characterized and critiqued, I determine that the major arguments are related to the mammy’s frame, asexuality, independence, and nurturing nature, as well as the lack of ownership over her own representation. How does the mammy stereotype continue to shape the way maternal, plus-size, and/or subservient Black women are represented in dramatic works and popular culture? How might women who possess the traditional qualities of a mammy figure be characterized otherwise?

In Chapter Four, I primarily analyze portrayals of the mulatta in Marcus Gardley’s The

House That Will Not Stand play (2014) and Justin Simien’s Dear White People film (2014). The plight of the mulatta is not often characterized as a central role or from her point of view, a dramaturgical strategy that is often reflected in these works. Gardley’s text reveals that the fate of

30 mulatta mother Beartrice and her three quadroon daughters depends on their relationships with privileged White men. Sam of Dear White People struggles to claim a definite racial identity and decide whom to date. As these works show, the mulatta type has taken on a range of different manifestations in performance. Even so, some of the traditional characteristics remain, including conflicted self-identity, the trope of “forbidden” love, and the potential for tragic outcomes. How has the representation of the mulatta stereotype escaped or remained captive to its tragic fate? How might this stereotype be reimagined in performance so that it challenges assumptions regarding mixed-race women and their complicated relationships with their families, communities, and self-identity?

Chapter Five focuses on the mistress type with case studies such as Lydia Diamond’s

Voyeurs de Venus (2006) and John Ridley’s 12 Years a Slave film (2013). These works illustrate how Black women from different eras and various stations are either forced into or take on a mistress role to achieve some independence. The protagonist of Voyeurs de Venus, Sara

Washington complicates the traditional mistress character as she is married to a White man and carries on an affair with the Black male editor of her book that is ironically about the exploited African mistress, Sarah/Saartjie Baartman. Though Patsey of 12 Years a Slave is considered Master Epps’s property, she attempts to utilize his fondness to lessen the toils of her life on the plantation. While the socioeconomic status of the mistress figure has evolved over time, she remains condemned or exploited for her sexual behavior. My essential inquiry focuses on how Black women continue to be represented as mistresses no matter their financial means, education level, or professional career. How might performance serve as one way to demonstrate how Black women can assert their sexuality without being socially criticized and/or perceived as sexually available?

31 Finally, Chapter Six reveals the connection between the three Black female stereotypes in dramatic works as outlined in the analysis of Chapters Three, Four, and Five. I make further connections between the mammy, mulatta, and mistress tropes as they manifest across my six case studies of plays of films. I recognize parallels between the characters who navigate different time periods or simply speak to a character whose story is set in another era.

Additional parallels include the ways in which the authors like Diamond, Nottage, and Simien dramatize their awareness of the representations their characters represent. I conclude with a discussion of other ways Black stereotypes can be analyzed including within television series, a thread I wished to include but proved too much for the breadth of this study. While the prominence of Black representations on stage and screen has increased in recent years, I hope to investigate how genre, i.e. comic and fantasy stories, affect the images and characters portrayed. Further, a more focused analysis of how an author’s intersectional background informs the work they product is worthy of exploring as I only touch the surface. In essence, this chapter serves as a space to collect and organize the many ideas this project has inspired and presents some fruitful ways that the work may continue.

32 CHAPTER TWO

GHOSTS OF DRAMAS PAST: THE HISTORICAL ORIGIN OF BLACK FEMALE STEREOTYPES

The decision to make central, to marginalize, or even erase a person, a gender, or a collective movement— whether in film, television, or history—does not take place through amoral happenstance. Rather, erasure and placement is political, and the urge to enact this erasure is a key aspect of the programming we are all subjected to from childhood. White men are programmed to take their own centrality for granted and thus, when put in decision-making positions in the entertainment industry, are prone to erase any threat to that centrality.

~Kellie Carter Jackson, “‘Is Viola Davis In It?’”

Like Lisa M. Anderson, I explore the origin of biased Black female representation by posing the question, why are Black women assumed to have specific qualities, beliefs, and demeanors?

Because the United States is still mired in racial division and self-segregation, certain communities only encounter Black people through media representation, which makes representations on stage and screen even more important to long-term formation of public policy and perception. The representations of Black women, in particular, have endured a long history of racial and gendered stereotyping amidst the social and historical backdrop of slavery, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, the “war on drugs,” and today’s “Whitelash” in response to the Obama administration.82 The historical origins of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress serve as a way of tracing how and why these representations endure and remain so damaging to Black women today.

82 John Blake, “This is What ‘Whitelash’ Looks Like,” CNN, 19 November 2016; “Whitelash” was a term used by CNN commentator Van Jones to describe “an old reality [in which] dramatic progress in America is inevitably followed by white backlash.” 33 With a specific focus on the mammy, mulatta, and mistress, I outline the formation and trajectory of these three Black stereotypes in dramatic representation by tracing how they manifest culturally throughout major sociopolitical periods in the United States. Because minstrelsy is the earliest form of original theatre in the United States, and because the stereotypes of Black people that it created have proven to be so pervasive as to, perhaps, serve as the foundation for many that have followed, I focus first on minstrelsy in depth. Beginning with melodrama of the mid-nineteenth century and ending with modern theatre of the late twentieth century, I trace the histories of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes separately. This organization aligns with the chapters that follow, which deconstruct the characteristics of each trope individually through close analysis of films and plays as case studies and provides me with the opportunity to focus on relevant historical examples for each of the tropes. The following discussion historicizes how various political and artistic movements affected the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes within the dramatic works of each era.

Early Black Representation in Minstrelsy

Developed in the early nineteenth century, minstrel shows were the first uniquely American theatrical form, and they have had long-term repercussions on Black representation in the United

States. Because of this, I include history and both male and female representations here. Despite its overt illustrations of race, minstrelsy was part of a larger movement toward increased democracy and privileging the common man from Jacksonian populism of the 1830s.83 In attempts to ridicule intellectualism and slaves, minstrel shows “exaggerate both to the point of caricature.”84 In Black

Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture, literary scholar John

83 Jules Zanger, “The Minstrel Show as Theatre of Misrule,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 60, no.1 (1974): 33. 84 Ibid, 34. 34 Strausbaugh describes how minstrelsy was a multilayered phenomenon with various goals and manifestations that were not unilaterally destructive:

Simply condemning it all as entertainment that pandered to White racism does not

begin to account for its complexities, its confusion, its neuroses. It simultaneously

laughed at and wept for Southern Blacks. In the years leading up to the Civil War,

minstrel songs proposed both pro- and antislavery positions. After the war, minstrel

performers were as likely to be actual Blacks as blackfaced Whites.85

His words articulate the layered agendas of minstrelsy to portray Blacks according to different political purposes and, despite its unflattering beginnings, pave the way for the Black-led performances that followed.

Minstrelsy is a style of theatre born out of White observation of Black slave traditions which uses humor to dramatize stereotypes and satirize social issues, a practice which had been going on for decades prior to the beginning of minstrelsy as a genre. According to Constance Rourke in

American Humor: A Study of the National Character, a traveler visiting Maryland in 1795 called “the blacks” “the great humorists of the nation… Climate, music, kind treatment act upon them like electricity.”86 White performers fashioned slave characters after having witnessed their musical talent, hunting and navigation skills, and seemingly good-natured attitude despite the hardships they faced.87 To portray Black characters, White actors used burnt cork, greasepaint, and shoe polish to darken their skin and embellish their lips and facial features. They also wore disheveled wigs, gloves, and either worn, oversized clothes or tailcoats and formal attire to portray various character types.88

In 1820, for example, Edwin Forrest’s blackface costume and impersonation were so convincing as

85 John Strausbaugh, Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture. (Penguin, 2007) 101. 86 Rourke, 71. 87 Ibid, 71; Rourke discusses travelers who when encountering plantation regions in the South (Maryland, Mississippi, and the Savannah River) and West, speak of Negroes with talent as singers while rowing their masters, and playing musical instruments from banjoes they assembled from gourds. 88 Lott, 6. 35 he “strolled the streets” of Cincinnati that an old Black woman “mistook him for a negro she knew.”89 Because of their interaction, he persuaded her “to join him on stage for an impromptu scene that evening.”90 At the time, Forrest, who would become an iconic American actor, was known for his performance as a slave in backwoodsman play “Hunters of the Kentucky.”91

Soon the fabled moment arose when Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) Rice, the so-called “Father of Minstrelsy,” imitated a song and dance he saw a limping, elder Black stableman perform as he tended to horses. It inspired his new character in the backwoodsman play The Rifle: “Wheel about, turn about, Do jis so, An’ ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow,” and minstrelsy was born.92

Minstrel shows capitalized on the idea of the supposed comic nature of Black people to dramatize them as simple character types that could be easily reproduced. From “this new entertainment,” Rice enjoyed popularity in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s which was said to be unmatched by that of any other

American comedian of his time,” and the form itself reached the height of its popularity between

1850 and 1870.93

Minstrel shows were usually three acts with jokes and songs, a speech, and a skit or short play. Zanger and Lott credit Edwin P. Christy and the Christy Minstrels troupe with outlining the basic format for minstrel shows in the 1840s, though Strausbaugh notes that Daniel D. Emmett also contributed to early formations of the genre which earned him “the loudest bragging rights.”94 The structure included “three characteristic elements of Black minstrelsy: the End Man – Interlocutor relationship of the First Part, the stump speech of the Second Part or Olio, and the Burlesque of the

Third Part.”95 When the dignified White Interlocutor posed a question to the clownish, singing and

89 Rourke, 72. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid, 72-3. 93 Rourke, 72; Mel Watkins, On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying, and Signifying—The Underground Tradition of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture, from Slavery to Richard Pryor, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). 94 Zanger, 33; Lott, 37-38; Strausbaugh, 102. 95 Zanger, 33. 36 dancing End Men, they responded with a witty remark and mocked his pompous stature. And yet, always reinforcing the superiority of the white audience and the relative “safety” of the Black characters being portrayed, when the Interlocutor replied, he would confirm, “the audience’s conception of its own superiority to the Black.”96 The first part ended with a walkaround, featuring dances like the cakewalk.97 In the cakewalk, couples, with men performing women in drag, formed a square perimeter and mimicked White mannerisms with “a high leg prance, backward tilt of the head, shoulders, and upper torso.”98 One of the most famous examples is Dan Emmett’s “Dixie,” which he wrote as a member of the Bryant’s Minstrels.

The Second Part, “Olio,” usually included the Stump Speech in which a Blackface actor delivered a comic monologue full of multisyllable words used incorrectly and rumination about topics allegedly too complex for slaves to understand.99 This portion of the show was likely in response to public lectures held at the Lyceum lecture hall in favor of adult education from the

1820s to the early 1900s, some of which supported women’s suffrage and abolitionism. The third part was often an extension of the Olio and included low burlesque, a style of mocking “upper-class entertainment such as Shakespeare’s plays and Italian opera.”100 In 1833, TD Rice remixed opera, transforming “Ernani,” while several troupes from 1861-1880, including the Ethiopian Serenaders,

Bryant’s Minstrels, and the De Angeles West Coast company, parodied Shakespeare’s Richard III,

Hamlet, and Othello.101 These pieces often included Mammy and Sambo figures in farcical situations in which slaves spoke positively about their life on the plantation. Shows with anti-slavery leanings included runaway slaves, uprisings, and trickster figures.

96 Zanger, 34. 97 This portion was derived from the competitive “prize walk” in which slaves were judged by their master and the winning couple received a cake as their prize, giving meaning to the phrase, “take the cake.” Rourke, 78; Kislan, 32; Strausbaugh, 105. 98 Kislan, The Musical: A Look at American Musical Theatre (Hal Leonard Corporation, 1995), 32. 99 Zanger, 35. 100 Ibid, 37. 101 Ibid, 36-37. 37 Many of the characters developed in these early minstrel shows became inextricably linked with negative Black stereotypes. Rice’s song “Jump Jim Crow,” became the namesake for a comic, raggedly dressed Black slave who sang and danced to a halting and happy tune, and the larger symbol for the racist “Black Codes” governing the era from post-slavery Reconstruction to Civil

Rights.102 George Dixon’s “Zip Coon” joined Rice’s “Jim Crow” in portraying the “pure” coon, a clownish, undependable male figure who mimicked mannerisms and style of dress akin to the White dandy character.103 Additional stereotypes that regularly appeared in minstrel shows include the friendly, “comic philosophizing” Uncle Remus or Rastus; the neglected, pickaninny child Topsy; the uneducated and often disheveled Sambo; and the mammy, mistress, and mulatta, each of which will be explored in more detail below.104 These types became stock characters that were utilized throughout different stages of the minstrel show, and many also became enduring stereotypes.

Versions of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress figure emerge in the Black female characters of minstrelsy as mostly comical and hypersexual. Because there were few female performers in the antebellum minstrel shows, most women’s roles were played by men in drag, particularly in “cross- dressed ‘wench’ performances,” which suggests these roles were heightened, most likely for comic effect.105 Women characters were mainly seen “in skits and in dance numbers, played by men ludicrously padded and wigged.”106 White male actors Francis Leon and Rollin Howard dressed in drag to play female characters including mammy and mulatta, the latter of which often serves as a mistress.107 The mammy figure, often named Aunt Dinah Roh, was a maternal character dedicated

102 Dale Cockrell, Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and their World (Cambridge University Press, 1997); C. Vann Woodward and William S. McFeely, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (Oxford University Press, 2001), 7; “Jim Crow” also become synonymous with Negro, thus Jim Crow laws signified Negro laws. 103 Bogle, 4-5; James H. Dormon, “Shaping the Popular Image of Post-Reconstruction American Blacks: The ‘Coon Song Phenomenon of the Gilded Age,” American Quarterly 40.4 (1988): 451-452. 104 Bogle, 5. 105 Lott, 6. 106 Zanger, 34. 107 Toll, 78-79, 118-119. 38 to the plantation family she serves.108 Early iterations of the mulatta wench or yeller gal portrayed her as erratic, but attractive to the male characters because of the combination of her light-skinned or almost-White features and the anticipated promiscuity of Black women. Later representations show men either “titillated or disgusted,” as evidenced in TD Rice’s romantic duet of “Tell Me Joey,

Whar you Bin,” (1840) which featured a wench character who danced ballet style in matching costume with an unruly Topsy wig.109 The jezebel character is sexually exploited by her slave master and often included in the burlesque shows. Shows like Lubly Fan (1844) portray Black women as

“grotesque,” having large lips, while “Gal From the South” (1854) sexualizes and abuses women’s bodies.110 In scenes where a Black female character is approached by the dandy figure, she is expected to “provide companionship and sexual pleasure, comply with male plans and desires, and tolerate all manner of demeaning behavior to remain an ideal woman.”111 Such scenes reinforce the expectation that Black women exist to satisfy the sexual needs of the men who surround her; she has no will, no ability to demur, and no ability to stand up against the many types of physical and emotional abuses that she is forced to endure in the process of pleasing the men. This is a particularly damaging representation, as it reestablishes the oversexualization of Black women and, within the context of the minstrel show, tacitly reinforces the behavior of the men who abuse them.

Role reversals further complicate race and gender identity with Whites playing Black and men dressed as women. These actors utilized blackface as “a doubled structure of looking,” a mask to make Black women sexual objects while embodying the alleged predatory Black male figure who fantasizes about White women.112 These roles establish a trend of Black female representation that associates them with qualities of heightened femininity — either a nurturing matron or a hypersexual

108 Toll, 78-79. 109 Zanger, 37. 110 Watkins, 109. 111 William J. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (University of Illinois Press, 1998), 327-328. 112 Eric Lott, Love & Theft: Black Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (Oxford University Press, 2013), 150, 156-157. 39 and promiscuous woman waiting for a sexual encounter with a White man. Within this act of

“blackface transvestism,” particularly when White actors play the mulatta wench, Black women are made desirable objects.113 Therefore, both Black male characters and audiences are observing Black women as uncharacteristically attractive, a gaze that portrays them as sexually available.

Though some minstrel songs showed sentimentalism toward slaves and their plight to prove their moral worth, most representations remained thick with basic humor.114 The exploitation of

Black as funny “was deeply resented by the anti-slavery leaders of an early day, and in the end, they went far toward creating the idea that the Negro lacked humor.”115 Rourke claims that “After the

Civil War, it would still have been possible to reveal the many-sided Negro but minstrelsy with its air of irreverence seems to have blocked the way,” suggesting a lack of nuance and complexity to the character of African Americans and, with it, perhaps a lack of humanity as well.116

However, not everyone was susceptible to the potential corruption of the minstrelsy form.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke “addressed anti-slavery meetings,” which were part of a larger movement of lectures on human and women’s rights “advertised in the same columns that displayed the offerings of various minstrel companies in New York.”117 In Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early

Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture, humanities scholar William J. Mahar emphasizes that, like their slave ridicule, White minstrel performers “showed an equal disdain for those women who gave public lectures.”118 Lott notes that abolitionist newspaper The Liberator was founded in 1831, the same year TD Rice popularized minstrel show figure Jim Crow.119 The paper which ran from 1831-1865 had religious leanings and advocated for the “immediate and complete

113 Lott, 151. 114 Rourke, 74. 115 Rourke, 74. 116 Rourke, 74. 117 Mahar, 93 118 Ibid. 119 Lott, 21. 40 emancipation of slaves” in the United States.120 By 1834, it had a three-quarters Black subscriber rate including abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass, whose oratory skills were a “living counterexample to the narrowness of the pro-slavery definition of humans.”121 Douglass was so inspired by The Liberator that he established the North Star anti-slavery newspaper in 1847.122 In an

1848 North Star article, Frederick Douglass expresses his distaste for minstrel shows, calling blackface imitators “the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.”123

By the 1840s and 1850s, White producers promoted minstrel shows featuring Black actors and entertainers and, despite continuing blackface and maintaining some of the stereotypes for a time, Black-led minstrels progressively adopted more authentic types of representation. In these productions, “black facepaint doubly signified blackness as a performance trope and racial identity,” since Black minstrels portrayed fictional versions of themselves.124 Billy Kersand’s version of “Old

Aunt Jemima” became so popular that it inspired the pancake brand that exists today.125 Thomas

Dilward and William Henry Lane in blackface created (more) authentic portrayals of African

American life that appealed to both Black and White audiences.126 Dilward, a dwarf whose small frame attracted curiosity, was credited with being amongst the first Black performers to demonstrate authentic Black dance on stage in blackface, a feat that was matched internationally by William

Henry Lane and the Ethiopian Serenaders. Meanwhile, Pat Chappelle’s Rabbit Foot Company was a long-running troupe who toured Southern regions with shows of little plot in favor of cakewalks,

120 Peter C. Riley, The Black Abolitionist Papers: Volume III: The United States, 1830-1846 (University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 9. 121 Roderick M. Stewart, “The Claims of Frederick Douglass Philosophically Considered” in Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader edited by Bill E. Lawson and Frank M. Kirkland (Wiley Blackwell, 1999), 155-156. 122 David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), 16-18. 123 Frederick Douglass, The North Star (27 Oct.1848). 124 Stephanie L. Batiste, Darkening Mirrors: Imperial Representation in Depression-Era African American Performance (Duke University Press, 2011), 14-15; Rourke, xvii; Cockrell, 60. 125 Toll, 256. 126 Toll, Blacking Up, 227; Watkins, On the Real Side. 41 ragtime music, and circus acts.127 Ma Rainey gained popularity with the Rabbit Foot Company as a

“coon shouter,” singing blues songs about her life experiences which led her to a record deal in

1923. Under her tutelage, Bessie Smith also gained recognition as a blues singer. And so, while Black minstrelsy maintained many of the troubling stereotypes that were the hallmark of the form itself, it also provided salaries, jobs, and opportunities for many Black performers who were able to jumpstart careers in the performing arts. At the same time, minstrelsy characters like Aunt Jemima have continued to endure, persisting in the representation of Black women. Ultimately, Blackface minstrel shows of the late slavery years established common Black stereotypes including but not limited to the mammy, mulatta, and mistress.

A Dramatic Trajectory of Mammy, Mulatta, and Mistress Characters

From this point of the chapter, my historical overview focuses on the mammy, mulatta, and mistress as separate tropes that manifest in plays and films throughout different time periods.

Beginning with nineteenth century melodrama as a form that follows minstrelsy, I consider how these character types are informed by their period and influence the evolution of the trope. This approach helps keep the focus on the individual stereotypes and how they inform their individual moment, rather than attempt to cover every political event that might be loosely connected to a general study of racial stereotyping. My focused organization on the individual stereotypes helps delineate the various characteristics that have been associated with each trope over time. This chapter also follows my exploration of the three types through case studies of plays and films in chapter three, four, and five. Correspondingly, I begin with the mammy and trace the various spaces in which she is a maternal figure, the mulatta’s racial identity struggle as a social outcast, and how the

127 Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Ragged But Right: Black Traveling Shows, Coon Songs, and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz (University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 248–289. 42 mistress transforms from hypersexualized victim to sexually independent being. As much as the mammy, mulatta, and mistress character types have distinct qualities, there are some features that overlap and complicate them, especially as the types interact with other characters and evolve over time. Therefore, separating these tropes individual sections allows me to simultaneously reiterate similarities and emphasize differences. Because chapter six addresses how the mammy, mulatta, and mistress trope evolve and manifest in twenty-first century theatre and popular culture, I conclude this chapter with twentieth century examples that point toward connections in contemporary representation.

Mammy: From Plantation Maid to Caring Mother

The overweight, nurturing mammy from minstrelsy can be seen in nineteenth-century melodrama as well. One-dimensional, stereotyped characters are a prominent feature of the genre, and plots often end in clear-cut poetic justice, with the morally good rewarded and the bad punished. George Aiken’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), the most famous adaptation of Harriet Beecher

Stowe’s famous abolitionist novel, demonstrates the form at work. In the play, Aunt Chloe, Uncle

Tom’s wife and the mammy to the slave-owning Shelby household, is known for her excellent cooking, faithful service, and caring for her husband and kids. While she is a faithful slave to the Shelbys, she is hurt that their financial strain prompts them to sell Tom to another family.

When she hears of their plan, she worries about her children and tries to convince Tom to run away. She states, “Why don’t you run away? Will you wait to be toted down the river where they kill niggers with hard work and starving? I’d a heap rather go there, any day!” 128 These statements from Aunt Chloe as a mammy figure, show anti-slavery leanings that align with runaway stories, and are particularly interesting coming from a mammy figure who is speaking

128 George Aiken, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Or, Life Among the Lowly (Samuel French, 1859), 141. 43 to her own husband in an attempt to preserve his happiness rather than that of the slave- owning family. Likely due to the abolitionist origins of the source materials, Aunt Chloe is a revolutionary mammy in this way, as she has both a marriage to a kind Black man and is loyal to him over the white family that she cares for; however, her Black family is quickly torn apart when Uncle Tom is sold and Aunt Chloe is left behind to continue on as the Shelby’s mammy without her husband.

Though a slight departure from stage performance, another tradition established during this period includes the use of caricaturized Black women as brand ambassadors to advertise products.

One of the most recognizable examples of this trend is the Aunt Jemima (1889–present) breakfast foods brand, which took its name from a late-nineteenth century Black minstrel song and the character it inspired.129 The company debuted with plus-sized Black spokeswoman Nancy Green in a bandana, apron, and collared dress, an image utilized at the Chicago World’s Fair and through television commercials in later eras until its revision to a Black female of average build with pearl earrings and a natural hairstyle in 1989.130 With this marketing choice, Quaker leveraged the cooking prowess of the mammy archetype to sell pancake mix and build a massive commercial enterprise.

Thus, the stereotypical representations that began with minstrelsy and melodrama and continued to resonate in early films, were reinforced with performance and advertisements that spread far outside of theatre spaces during Jim Crow and beyond. Even the contemporary reimagining of Aunt Jemima continues to recall these early points of departure; while Aunt Jemima may be slimmer and free of a headscarf, the close-up of the smiling Black woman’s face is likely to ghost the original Aunt Jemima for some consumers.

129 Uncle Ben’s rice is another example of similar stereotypical advertising, though it was not introduced until 1943 and branded with the well-dressed elderly Black servant figure in 1946, an image that remains in the present. Cream of Wheat’s initial Rastus figure (1893-1925) is also part of a group of stereotypical advertisement figures; Moss H. Kendrix, “The Advertiser’s Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben,” Museum of Public Relations, 2015, Accessed November 2016. 130 Maurice M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (University Press of Virginia, 1998). 44 Early films like The Birth of a Nation (1915) continue the trope of a blindly devoted, overweight female housekeeper in the Cameron household. The film dramatizes the conflict between North and South during and after the Civil War, illustrated through the Stoneman and Cameron families respectively. Though Mammy is not a major character, her devotion to her Southern slave masters and her consistently asexual presence in the background is significant. When she encounters the Stoneman’s butler carrying the bags, for example, she demonstrates her careful attention to her duty by staying focused on her tasks; she shows him where to put the bags but does not stop to chat. She also either purposefully ignores or is oblivious to his sexual advances, reinforcing her asexuality. Film historian Donald Bogle reiterates the many ways in which she conforms to traditional characteristics of the mammy stereotype: “representative of the all-black woman, over-weight, middle-aged, and so dark, so thoroughly black, that she was desexed.”131

Often, film mammies remain known only as Mammy, as if it is unnecessary to provide a name for a character that is merely a type—an extra—rather than a deeply drawn or complex character. In another characteristic example, Mammy—a character who fulfills the mammy trope so well that she is literally named “Mammy”—in the film Gone with the Wind (1939) seemingly has no family of her own and stays loyal to her mistress, Scarlett, and her family, even during Reconstruction after the Civil War should have granted her freedom. Though her status would have technically changed to servant as opposed to slave following the war, there is no visible difference in her role. As an early film representation, Mammy of Gone with the

Wind establishes a pattern of erasure in which Black women’s names, bodies, and lives are either nonexistent or not their own.

131 Bogle, 14-15. 45 Later iterations of mammy archetype similarly include maids and nannies like Delilah of Imitation of Life (1934), who becomes a surrogate mother to White widow Bea and her daughter Jessie. Bea has Delilah cook pancakes in the front window of her restaurant to relieve her debt. Eventually, Delilah becomes the face of Bea’s pancake brand, reminiscent of

Aunt Jemima, and is offered twenty percent of the profits. However, Bea defers power over her earnings to Bea and continues to work as her housekeeper and pancake representative, demonstrating a need to have a subservient relationship with her employer. Delilah’s deference reinforces the expectation that Black women are immature and need guidance from

White superiors even when they are offered some autonomy to make their own decisions.

Delilah is also a single-mother to a White-passing daughter named Peola whom Delilah tries to convince to embrace her Black identity. When Peola rebels and estranges herself, Delilah appears stagnant in her position as a servant and dies heartbroken and helpless. She allows her work obligations to prevent her from prioritizing her daughter’s welfare and their relationship.

Regardless of their profession, some mammy characters significantly alter the trope by making family their main concern. Lena (Mama) Younger of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A

Raisin in the Sun (1959) functions as mother to her two kids, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren who share a rundown one-bedroom apartment in Chicago. After using her recently deceased husband’s insurance money to put a down payment on a house in a White neighborhood, she entrusts most of the money to her adult son Walter Lee, Jr. to pay for her daughter Beneatha’s college tuition and utilize the rest of money on a business investment for the family’s benefit. Hansberry describes her intent to subvert tradition with Lena’s character whom she calls “The Black matriarch incarnate: The bulwark of the Negro family since slavery; the embodiment of the Negro will to transcendence.” 132 Lena champions Beneatha’s

132 Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun/ The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (New York: New American Library, 1966), 88-89. 46 education and Walter’s professional endeavors as potential markers of this transcendence.

While Lena “takes the risk” on the family’s move during a volatile and racially divisive housing market during the height of Civil Rights action, she falls into traditional mammy habits of submissive behavior and conservative thinking by giving Walter control of the family’s fate.133

When Walter’s partner squanders the money and leaves him penniless, the Youngers move into their new home despite their indefinite future. Therefore, Lena’s submission to Walter

Lee simply shifts the mammy figure’s tradition of deference from White employer to Black male family member; from racial subservience to gendered subordination. Nevertheless, Lena proves evolutionary as a mother figure whose sole priority is her own family.

Even as multifaceted maternal figures with prominent personal lives emerged, some remain slave/submissive characters. For example, Belle, of Alex Haley’s miniseries Roots

(1977), is a cook on Dr. William Reynolds plantation. When Kunta Kinte— renamed Toby by his owners— is punished for running away and sold to Dr. Reynolds, Belle tends to Kunta’s wounded foot and helps him find spaces of hope among the otherwise terrifying circumstances of slavery. They eventually fall in love, marry, and have a daughter together, attempting to make the most of the life they have. However, Belle is not naïve to the many ways slavery produces endless suffering as she states, “white folks break up families.” 134 Belle helps shape previous iterations of the plantation slave mother as she is seen caring for and developing a relationship with her own husband and child. Through the series subtitle: The

Saga of an American Family, Haley makes Belle’s family an important part of American history and through Belle, he illustrates a slave mother’s life separate from her plantation duties.

133 Margaret B. Wilkerson, ““A Raisin in the Sun:’ Anniversary of an American Classic,” Theatre Journal 38, no. 4 (1986): 450. 134 Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family (Burbank: Warner Brothers, 1977), Film. 47 More recent films illustrate traditional and revisionist versions of the mammy trope. In The

Color Purple, Celie and Sofia represent different facets of the stereotype. Celie is raped and beaten by her father who separates her from her children and forces her to marry a man she calls Mister.

Mister also rapes Celie and tasks her with maintaining his disheveled house and unruly children.

Throughout the film, Celie’s body is familiarly not her own and she is denied access to her own children while expected to take care of Mister’s. Therefore, she remains docile and carries out her duties without much resistance, only brave enough to leave Mister with encouragement from his mistress Shug with whom she adopts a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, Mister’s son Harpo has an outspoken wife named Sofia who is jailed after she refuses a White woman’s request to be her maid.

Sofia’s rebellion is met with a violent beating and imprisonment, after which she becomes the woman’s maid anyway. Sofia then rarely sees her children and becomes a subdued version of herself, even allowing Harpo to openly have a mistress. The mammy role is forced on both Celie and Sofia, particularly as self-sacrificing and maternal figures whose housekeeping duties take precedent over their own lives and desires.

Late twentieth century representations of the mammy attempt to further adjust the trope with mother characters who willingly sacrifice for their own family. For example, Gloria Matthews of Waiting to Exhale (1995) is a single mother for years after realizing her son’s father is gay. Between running her own salon and raising her son, she learns to relax her parenting and allow love into her life when she finds love with her new neighbor. Gloria represents a common trope in Black women who sacrifice romance and other personal fulfillment to raise their children alone, though she later allows love to be a possibility in her life. Meanwhile, Josephine Joseph (Big Mama) of Soul Food

(1997) brought her three daughters and their families together for dinner every Sunday. When she passes after a diabetic coma, the family soon falls apart which is only remedied by her grandson convincing them that upholding the dinner tradition is what Big Mama would have wanted. The

48 family also discovers that Big Mama has left them money which is at the root of much of the family’s tension. In this way, her spirit and sacrifice continue to take care of her family even after her death. Gloria and Big Mama show that the maternal qualities typically associated with the mammy stereotype have become family-oriented, and not only give the character a name, but a fulfilled life, even if much of requires the care of others.

Mulatta: From Tragic Mulatta to White-Passing Girlfriend

The mild-mannered mulatta slave of minstrelsy becomes the tragic mulatta in mid- nineteenth century melodrama, mostly due to her bi-racial identity. Though mulatta is often a catch all-term for women of mixed-race identity of Black and White heritage, including quadroons and octoroons. Aiken’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) features mulatta slave Eliza who escapes a Kentucky plantation to prevent her son, who has been sold, from being taken from her. Eliza demonstrates her kind nature when, faced repeatedly with life-or-death situations while fleeing slave catchers, she refuses to engage in violence. Meanwhile, Zoe, the title character of Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1859) is also a slave in danger of being sold, though she spent much of the play believing that her father, the recently deceased plantation owner, had freed her years earlier. As “the mixed-race heroine,” Zoe “undergoes several transformations in which her contradictory body is pushed and pulled between its multiple significations according to a higher system of racial laws.”135 She shares a mutual attraction with

White plantation heir George, but anti-miscegenation laws prohibit their romance, which leads

Zoe to self-sacrificing suicide. In this way, Zoe is the epitome of the tragic mulatta (though she is a very light-skinned octoroon): beautiful, light-skinned, and enacting the tragedy of the

135 Daphne Brooks, Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Duke University Press, 2006), 39. 49 mixed-race woman who is forever trapped by the drop of blood that dooms her to always being outside of white society, no matter how close she may come to “passing” for white.

William Wells Brown’s The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) was “the first published play by an African American writer,” which addresses issues of mixed-race racialized violence.136 The play features Melinda, a prominent mulatta character as part of its major plot line. In the play, plantation owner Dr. Gaines lusts after his biracial slave Melinda, who, in secret, has married Glen, a slave of Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Gaines’s brother-in-law. Dr. Gaines goes to great lengths to hide Melinda from his wife after she requests that Melinda be sold. Mrs. Gaines nearly poisons Melinda before she and Glen escape and follow the North Star toward Canada. Despite Dr. Gaines sending hunters to catch them, they find freedom on a ferry to Canada. Mrs. Gaines derogatory statements about

Melinda as “that mulatto wench” and “that yellow wench,” dramatize her jealousy that her husband is sleeping with his slave, especially a mixed-race one produced from generations of sexual abuse.137

Dr. Gaines asserts his privilege over Melinda as his “attractive” property which is “part of a larger cultural history of violence.”138 In “Reconstruction of Whiteness: William Wells Brown’s The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom” literary scholar John Ernest names Brown, a “manipulator of the conventions of blackface minstrelsy [who] managed to cover a lot of cultural, ideological, and literary ground.”139

In other words, Brown utilizes many character types from minstrelsy but manages to create a story that critiques U.S. race relations, especially through Melinda, who is shown to be sexually pursued by

Dr. Gaines and nearly murdered by Mrs. Gaines because of her status as a mulatta.

While mid-nineteenth century mulatta characters are largely compassionate slaves attempting to preserve their families, often leveraged for the abolitionist movement, the early

136 John Ernest, “The Reconstruction of Whiteness: William Wells Brown’s The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom,” Modern Language Association 133, no. 5 (1998): 1109. 137 Brown, 21. 138 Ernest, 1114. 139 Ibid, 1109. 50 twentieth century sees mulatta characters as devious harlots vying for the attention of unavailable men. DW Griffith’s ground-breaking—and racist—film, The Birth of A Nation

(1915) signals a departure from the humble mixed-race slave who prioritizes family or romance. Lydia Hamilton Smith, the biracial common-law wife of Pennsylvania Representative

Thaddeus Stevens inspired Griffith’s Lydia character, a manipulative, sex-crazed mulatta mistress who lusts after a progressive northern White Congressman, Austin Stoneman, in a home separate from his children.140 Their illicit relationship, in which Lydia often clings to

Stoneman and nearly undresses in his presence, influences his decision to advocate for mixed- race marriages and ultimately leaves his own (White) daughter at the mercy of a malicious mixed-race man.141

Zora Neale Hurston’s Color Struck (1926) continues a shift toward the flirtatious mulatta with the light-skinned Effie who causes a brown-skinned couple, John and Emma, to break up at a cakewalk competition. While John is primarily responsible for flirting with Effie, the play perpetuates colorism by portraying her as more desirable explicitly because of her light skin.142 With their seductive demeanor toward men who are initially legally or romantically off-limits, characters like Lydia and Effie signal a shift in the representation of the mulatta that removes sexual innocence and adds promiscuity.

During the mid-twentieth century, the mulatta stereotype adopted “mean, violent, bitter, sullen, shadowy, and untrustworthy” qualities as mixed-race characters experienced rejection in their familial, community, and romantic relationships. 143 Mulatta characters often struggled

140 Marc Engal, Clash of the Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War (Hill & Wang, 2010), 314. 141 Michael Rogin, “The Sword Became a Flashing Vision:” D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Representations, No. 9, Special Issue: American Culture Between the Civil War and World War I (1985), 150-195. 142 David Krasner, A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927 (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002), 113-130; Faedra Chatard Carpenter, “Addressing 'The Complex'-ities of Skin Color: Intra-Racism in the Plays of Hurston, Kennedy, and Orlandersmith,” Theatre Topics 19, no. 1 (2009): 15-27. 143 David Pilgrim, “The Tragic Mulatta Myth,” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, 2000, Accessed October 2016; Cedric J. Robinson, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before 51 with their mixed-race identities and assimilated into dominant White society for the prospects of financial security and long-term relationships. Imitation of Life (1959) is a film adaptation and remake in which a Black nanny’s fair-skinned daughter Sarah Jane passes for White to secure job opportunities and pursues a relationship with a White boyfriend. She is conflicted about her mixed race and distances herself from her Black mother but feels remorse after her death. Likewise,

Adrienne Kennedy’s play Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) dramatizes the psychosis Negro Sarah endures when rejecting her Black features and aspiring to White culture. Sarah is tormented by her

Black heritage and claims that her father raped her mother, a questionable claim considering the fractured mental state that ultimately leads her to suicide. While mixed-race characters previously experienced rejection in their personal and professional lives, characters like Sarah Jane and Negro

Sarah represent a shift in the mulatta trope that see the mulatta alienating herself from her Black identity by living as a White women in order to gain job security or partnerships, a trend that continues into late the twentieth century.

As evidenced by more recent works, the mulatta persona remains scorned by love and family as well as caught between Black and White societies. Contemporary mulatta characters often have strained family interactions and utilize either hypersexual or hidden identities to secure relationships and income. Prominent light-skinned characters exhibit promiscuous tendencies by vying for men’s attention for stability or status. For instance, Jane Toussaint of Spike Lee’s School

Daze (1988) flaunts her long, straight hair and light skin as measures of beauty. As the head of her own sorority, Jane promotes colorism to insult dark skinned women and keep them out of her group. She throws herself at a fraternity leader on campus who uses her for sex and shows her little respect. Because of the film’s historically Black college setting, Jane’s character symbolizes a racially

World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 51; Diane A. Mafe, Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature: Coloring Outside the (Black and White) Lines (Springer, 2013), 130; E. Barnsley Brown, “Passed Over: The Tragic Mulatta and (Dis)integration of Identity in Adrienne Kennedy’s Plays.” African American Review 35, no. 2 (2001): 281-295. 52 insecure and desperate mulatta figure, a trope that continues in various ways in many representations of light skinned and mixed-race characters often lumped into the mulatta stereotype. The mulatta characters of series Queen (1993) and film Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) push privileging a bit further as they utilize their physical features to pass for White to find love and opportunity. In Queen, the title character is not accepted by her White plantation family and later raped once a Confederate soldier realizes that she is Black. Over the course of her life, several violent racial encounters fuel her identity issues and eventually lead to her brief stay in a psychological ward until she able to discuss them with her husband. Similarly, Daphne of Devil in a Blue Dress has a White mayoral candidate boyfriend who believes she is White. Once his family realizes that she is passing, they pay her off to disappear and Daphne retreats to the Black club scene to spend time with her half-brother, with whom she eventually retreats to avoid social ostracization.

Through characters Queen and Daphne, modern portrayals of the mulatta figure demonstrate persistent identity issues and how deceiving others by passing affects their relationships and daily lives.

Mistress: From Desired Slave to Sexual Vixen

Historically, the mistress and tragic mulatta tropes overlap in several ways. Most importantly, both of these types relied on a cultural and social mindset in which Black women were seen as hypersexualized and property and, as such, neither needed nor had the ability to consent to sexual advances. The Jezebel or mistress type was one of the rationalizations of slavery, because it gave White men an excuse for engaging in sexual relations with Black women; the mistress trope depicted Black women’s sexual desire as insatiable and unsatisfied by Black men. Therefore, as the rationalization went, mistresses desired White men too.

Moreover, since slave women—as property, rather than people—could not be legally raped,

53 consent was neither possible nor necessary. By this logic, Black women were seen as hypersexualized in their desire for sexual relations and, due to their status as slaves, unable to say no to a white man’s advances without serious, potentially life-threatening, repercussions.

Many tragic mulattas, quadroons, and octoroons emerged from these unwanted sexual encounters, and these women went on to play out some version of the mistress trope in their own lives. However, one of the most distinct differences between the mulatta and mistress stereotypes is skin tone, as the former must be mixed-race or light skinned while the latter can be of various complexions and must only be promiscuous or perceived as such.

Plays of nineteenth century melodrama include prime examples of White slave masters rationalizing the sexual abuse of slave women. In George Aiken’s play Uncle Tom’s Cabin

(1852), mulatta slaves Cassie and Emmeline are sexually abused by their master Simon Legree.

The younger Emmeline is whipped for overtly resisting Legree’s advances and eventually runs away with Emmeline to escape constant violation. In Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1859), the title character Zoe is pursued by cruel slave master McClosky, who plots who preys on

George Peyton’s financial misfortune and outbids another benefactor for Zoe at an auction.

Though Zoe loves George and ultimately poisons herself to avoid her fate, McClosky relentlessly plots on how to make her his mistress. These characters demonstrate the long- term impacts of White men’s sexualized thinking on the Black women who were enslaved, and the overlap of the mistress and mulatta tropes. Though these women are victims, their status as slaves makes them sexually available to their owners and therefore, early iterations of the mistress trope.

As the mistress type moves into the twentieth century, she takes on a more predatory role. In the most dramatic example, D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915) shows mulatta servant Lydia lusting after her master Austin Stoneman. She is characterized as sexually aggressive

54 toward the congressman whom she manipulates into championing interracial causes. She also socially benefits from her relationship with him by doing little to no housework that would be expected of most slaves. Zora Neale Hurston’s Color Struck (1926) also portrays Effie’s flirtations as the cause of couples’ break-up at a cakewalk competition. While John deserves some fault for allowing Effie to distract him, she is portrayed as seductive force that exacerbates latent issues in his relationship with Emmaline. Despite vacillating from predator to victim, these initial representations of the mistress character establish Black women as sexual and desirable, as well as manipulative.

Musicals of the 1930s and 1940s portray philandering and manipulative Black female characters and continue to distinguish the mistress from the tragic mulatto. Based on the 1927 play Porgy, Porgy and Bess (1935) illustrates the Black community of 1920s Charleston and focuses on the “ill-fated love affair between Porgy, a crippled beggar, and Bess, a ‘loose’ woman with a penchant for hard liquor, cocaine, and abusive men.” 144 Essentially, Bess relies on her relationships with three different men for shelter and protection, and largely functions as Porgy’s “live-in lover.”145 Though Bess seems most attached to Porgy’s kindness, her attraction to what the other men offer drives much of the conflict. Other Black female characters have asserted sexual authority by engaging in relationships with taken or married men, as does the title character of Carmen Jones (1943), who seduces Joe, an engaged army officer. While Joe is on military leave to marry another woman, he is tasked with delivering the delinquent Carmen to the police and though she uses flirtation to escape, their subsequent relationship encourages his violently jealous tailspin in response to every man she attracts and

144 Ray Allen, “An American Folk Opera? Triangulating Folkness, Blackness, and Americaness in Gershwin and Heyward's Porgy and Bess,” Journal of American folklore 117, no. 465 (2004): 246. 145 Alice Marguerite Terrell, “Themes of Blackness: Commonality and Unity in Selected African Heritage Literature,” PhD diss., Drew University, 2017. 55 entertains.146 Characters like Bess and Carmen, whose roles were reprised in 1950s film adaptations, embody traditional mistress qualities as calculating and immoral figures in theatrical representation.

By the 1970s a significant shift in the representation of Black women had occurred and mistresses were commonplace on the big screen. Films and mini-series of the mid- to late-twentieth century continued to portray the mistress figure as either helpless sexual victim or uninhibited vixen — a sexually provocative woman— with Black heroines and protagonists. Though

Blaxploitation films such as Cleopatra Jones (1972) and Foxy Brown (1973) included strong, physically fit heroines to mimic their male counterparts in Sweet Sweetback’s Baaaadasss Song (1971), Shaft (1971), and Superfly (1972), they further sexualized and exploited women, as the name of the genre itself suggests. The title character of Foxy Brown poses as a prostitute to exact revenge on the gang who murdered her boyfriend but is drugged and raped once her cover is blown. Though she eventually recovers and completes her vendetta, Foxy’s body is objectified as both an impersonating sex worker and an unwilling sexual object. Despite the powerful perspective on slavery in Alex Haley’s oft-celebrated ancestral narrative Roots (1977), Kizzy’s recognizable status as adverse slave mistress to Master Tom is “a representation of black women’s powerlessness.” 147 Like most slave women in previous dramatic works, Kizzy is a defenseless sufferer of Tom’s sexual abuse with little power to change her circumstances and she opts not to pursue any social benefits she might gain from pushing their relationship any further. Together, these characters reveal the sexual prevalence of the mistress stereotype and lack of agency over their bodies, regardless of a characterization as protagonist or prey.

146 Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 87; Ironically, Dorothy Dandridge, played the leading role in the film adaptations for both Porgy and Bess (1959) and Carmen Jones (1954), and “was promoted as Hollywood’s first African American leading lady” but because she was “trapped within the old Hollywood formulas and stereotypes,” her career further demonstrates how Black women are typecast in theatre and in real life. The film version of Carmen Jones (1954) was remade in 2001 as Carmen: A Hip-Hopera with pop singer Beyoncé Knowles as the lead. 147 Delia Mellis, “Roots of Violence: Race, Power, and Manhood in Roots,” in Reconsidering Roots: Race, Politics, and Memory edited by Erica L. Ball and Kellie C. Jackson: 81-96 (University of Georgia Press, 2017) 86, 90; Roots was remade into a mini-series again in 2016. 56 Films of the late twentieth century prove comparable to previous eras in their portrayal of sexualized Black women as repackaged mistresses who either refuse commitment, exhibit tastes for non-heteronormative sexuality, or flaunt their bodies for money. During the early twentieth century, juke joint singer Shug of The Color Purple (1985) is rejected by her preacher father for sinful behavior like having sex before marriage and sleeping with Mister, Celie’s husband. Though

Shug enjoyed casual sex with Mister, she develops a romantic connection with Celie as they bond over the abused they have both suffered over the years as women. By simultaneously entertaining three male suitors and rejecting a monogamous relationship, Nola of She’s Gotta

Have It (1986) embodies the independent and promiscuous qualities of a mistress. Nola is also courted by a young woman named Opal who is sexually attracted to her, and their relationship is symbolic of her freely exploring her sexuality. Within the realm of social expectations, Nola and Shug refuse to conform to heterosexual normativity by entertaining physical relationships with women. This perceived sexual deviancy is another quality associated with mistress figures who neither settle on a monogamy nor heterosexuality. Further, within the circumstances of their environment, both Shug and Nola exercise a modern mistress mentality of choice regarding with whom they have sex and relationships.

Black female objectification persists in films of the 1990s with women who are objects of male characters’ voyeuristic gaze. In Friday (1995), Craig takes interest in Debbie even though he already has a girlfriend. Early in the film, Craig and his friend Smokey ogle Debbie as she runs through the neighborhood in a sports bra and tight shorts. There is also a scene in which a middle- aged woman named Mrs. Parker has an extra-marital affair and attracts men in her neighborhood with revealing clothes and sexual gestures while tending to her front yard. Because their bodies are objectified by the male characters, Debbie and Mrs. Parker unknowingly and intentionally figure as mistress characters in the film. Although Diamond of the The Players Club (1998) claims that she is a

57 stripper only to support her college tuition, she is degraded by her peers for exposing her body in a public setting. Because Diamond freely chooses to display herself, she gives the impression that she is sexually available, an assumption that she struggles against with unwanted advances from male characters throughout the film. Thus, modern film representation still often depicts Black women as unrestrained and irresponsible sexual beings that are too free with their bodies, sexual habits, and who, in Diamond’s case, exploit themselves for monetary gain.

Contemporary plays take a similar approach in representing Black women as sexual conquests and mothers to kids by multiple men. Inspired by The Scarlet Letter’s (1850) Hester

Prynne, Hester La Negrita of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood (1999) is a Black single mother of five labeled a slut by her children’s fathers who refuse to help her raise or financially support them.148 Though Hester’s supposed promiscuity is expected of a mistress, her lack of sexual restraint proves socially alienating and financially detrimental when her sexual partners cast her aside. Hester is a character whose perceived sexual irresponsibility socially ostracizes her and limits her opportunities. While some mistress figures utilize their bodies for professional and economic advancement, Hester appears a desperate jezebel whose only gift was children she does not have the means to care for alone. Like her film counterparts, Hester represents a movement toward mistress characters who openly exploit themselves for money and attention.

The Influence of Historical Representation on Contemporary Television and Film

Despite the mammy, mulatta, and mistress trope becoming less degraded since minstrelsy, many unflattering qualities remain staples in Black female characterization. For the mammy, maternal instincts are a potentially powerful association with her image, and yet, the expectation that

148 Carol Schafer, “Staging a New Literary History: Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus, In the Blood, and Fucking A.” Comparative Drama 42, no. 2 (2008): 181; Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A (2000) about a Black female abortionist, is also inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850). 58 she must always sacrifice personal fulfillment to care for others is a damaging representation.

Though the mulatta figure progressively learns to navigate disparate identities, contemporary characters reveal her inner struggle to embrace her biracial status. Mistress characters have transformed from enslaved assault victims to women who take control over their bodies and reject normative sexuality, which in some ways reinforces ideas about their hypersexual and deviant sexual habits. Regardless of how these types have evolved from overtly degrading images, Black women deserve more nuance and authenticity. According to Africana studies scholar Kellie Carter Jackson,

We continue to only “see” black women in film when their images are peripheral—

which is another way of saying that black women are barely seen in historical films.

An apparent exception are films such as The Color Purple (1985), Eve’s Bayou (1997), or

The Help (2011), which feature black women centrally and which all give the surface

appearance of historicity, but in fact are fictional stories, based on novels rather than

the lives of real people, and mainly portray women who occupy subordinate roles

(such as maids). There has yet to be produced a collection of biographical and

historical films about black women which would be comparable to the set produced

by Hollywood in 2013—films in which we would see filmic portrayals of real black

women.149

Thus Jackson recognizes that, despite some standout pieces that revere Black women, their representation largely remains problematic, inauthentic, and incomplete. As she notes, these films give the “surface appearance of historicity, but in fact are fictional stories,” and these stories dramatize women who play the roles of servants and other peripheral characters—

149 Kellie Carter Jackson, “‘Is Viola Davis In It?’ Black Women Actors and the ‘Single Stories’ of Historical Film,” Transition 114, no. 1 (2014): 173-184. 59 versions of the mammies, mulattos, and mistresses who have been central in the representation of Black women since the days of minstrelsy.

Though each theatrical piece must be assessed according to factors like its era, setting, and target audience, it is difficult to determine the formula for dismantling stereotypes in a culture so intricately ensnared within them. Is it because housekeeping mammy characters of the Jim Crow era like Nottage’s Vera Stark (2011) and The Help’s Aibileen and Minny exist that a maternal self- sufficient character can thrive in the present? Did the sacrificial position of mixed-race slaves like

Beartrice and her quadroon daughters enable the critical stance of college student Sam? To what extent has time period and social status separated a contemporary mistress like Sara from slave women Venus and Patsey? In the following chapters, I explore the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotype as separate and enduring images.

60 CHAPTER THREE

JUDGE YA MAMMY: A RESPECT CHECK FOR BLACK FEMALE MOTHERHOOD

“I want you to be my mommy.”150 These were the controversial words directed at

Beyoncé by White British singer Adele at the 2017 Grammy Awards during an acceptance speech. Though Adele likely intended to express her admiration and suggest that Beyoncé should have won the award instead, Black Twitter exploded as fans expressed their disgust with Adele, who was seconded by country singer Faith Hill, turning Queen Bey into a

Mammy, “a mother in service to them.”151 Conversely, Beyoncé is one of the most motivated and respected pop artists of this generation. She also happened to be pregnant at the time with twins of her own. Since she prides herself on her image as a mother, sex symbol, and performer, and has skillfully cultivated a complex and nuanced public image of powerful and positive Black femininity, Black fans revealed their disillusionment with her being reduced to a mammy to take on a maternal role to a White woman, like many Black women since the slavery era. How could a musical legend like Beyoncé be diminished to a mammy figure?

While many fans came to her aid about Adele’s possible slight, Beyoncé cried and expressed appreciation at Adele’s later speech for the night’s biggest accolade, Album of the

Year. This speech might be considered clarity in that it emphasizes how worthy Beyoncé’s album was of winning that year’s Grammy award. Upon taking the stage Adele states,

Five years ago, when I was last here, I also was pregnant, and I didn’t know.

And I was awarded that shortly after — I found out shortly after, which was the

150 Giovanni Russonello, “Beyoncé’s and Adele’s Grammy Speeches: Transcripts,” The New York Times, 12 February 2017; Adele’s full quote is “I adore you and I want you to be my mommy;” the latter is used to emphasize the reason fans may have were frustrated and may have interpreted the statement as a mammy comparison and insult. 151 Denene Millner, “Beyoncé is Not the Magical Negro Mammy.” NPR, February 15, 2017. 61 biggest blessing of my life. And in my pregnancy and through becoming a

mother I lost a lot of myself. And I’ve struggled, and I still do struggle being a

mom. It’s really hard. But tonight winning this kind of feels full-circle, and like

a bit of me has come back to myself. But I can’t possibly accept this award. And

I’m very humbled and I’m very grateful and gracious. But my artist of my life is

Beyoncé. And this album to me, the “Lemonade” album, is just so monumental.

Beyoncé, it’s so monumental. And so well thought out, and so beautiful and

soul-baring and we all got to see another side to you that you don’t always let us

see. And we appreciate that. And all us artists here adore you. You are our light.

And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black

friends feel, is empowering. And you make them stand up for themselves. And I

love you. I always have and I always will.152

Beyoncé responds “I love you. Thank you. I love you,” with tears streaming down her face.” 153

Certainly, Beyoncé understands the phenomenon in which Black women who can seemingly do everything are demeaned as mammies in the dominant narrative, and not appropriately recognized but that seemed not to be Adele’s intention.154 Instead, she recognizes that

Beyoncé’s ability to do it all is undeniable. Ironically, Beyoncé was criticized for working too much to have kids before the birth of her first child, Blue Ivy in 2012. Now that she is the mother of three kids, how did she become mother to all? Or rather, why would fans interpret Adele’s words as meaning that Beyoncé was simply a mammy?

152 Clarisse Loughery, “Grammys 2017: Read Adele’s Speech in Full, ‘My Artist of My Life is Beyoncé,” Independent, 13 February 2017. 153 Philiana Ng, “Beyonce Cries After Emotional Adele Dedicates Her Album of the Year GRAMMY to ‘Lemonade,’” Entertainment Tonight, 12 February 2017; Michaela Coel, “Adele’s Tribute to Beyonce was a Frank Admission of Privilege. I Salute It.” 154 Patricia J. Williams, Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2016). 62 Typical mammy characteristics include unattractive, overweight, caregiving, and subservient, but most of all, maternal. The mammy type originated during slavery for Black maids who functioned as a surrogate mother, housekeeper, cook, nanny, and sometimes wet nurse for the White family that employed them. The expectation that the mammy bury herself in work implies asexuality in her personal life, meaning that she either has no partner and family or has little time to spend with them. Therefore, even when Black women have kids, most of their nurturing is directed to the children of families they work for as a nanny and housekeeper. A traditional example of this figure includes the comedic and jovial maids of minstrelsy.

Characters like Aunt Dinah Roh were initially performed by White male actors as a loyal maternal figure to a plantation family. In melodramas such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Aunt

Chloe is known for her excellent cooking, faithful service, and caring for her husband and kids. Likewise, early films like The Birth of a Nation (1915) continue the trope of a blindly devoted slave. Characteristically, Mammy of film Gone with the Wind (1939) seemingly has no family of her own and stays loyal to her mistress, Scarlett, and her family, even during

Reconstruction after the Civil War should have granted her freedom. Though her status would have technically changed to servant versus slave following the war, there is no visible difference in her role. For the single mammies, familial void produces a sense of independence in the agency they are allowed outside of their work environment though they are still largely perceived as domestics in social spaces.

Later iterations of mammy archetype similarly include maids and nannies like Delilah of Imitation of Life (1934), who becomes a surrogate mother to her White or White passing children. Even as multifaceted maternal figures with personal lives emerged in films like Lena

(Mama) Younger of A Raisin in the Sun (1959) who functions as mother to her two kids, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, Belle of Roots (1977) remains a submissive slave character.

63 The subservient and comic mammy trope has proliferated in works ranging from Forrest Gump

(1994) with his childhood maid Viola to the male portrayed title characters of Big Momma’s House

(2000-2011) and the Madea character of Tyler Perry’s film series (2006-2018), who take on responsibilities for other people’s children. Therefore, even contemporary plays and films portray

Black women as mammy figures with maternal instincts for either their employer’s children or their own. Regardless of time period, economic status, or personal obligations, enduring characteristics of a mammy figure associate Black women with caring for children in addition to or other than their own.

How does the mammy stereotype contribute to the representation of large, nurturing, and submissive Black women in dramatic works and popular culture? How does this stereotype continue to reverberate through popular representation? What alternate possibilities exist for women who might otherwise fit into this stereotype? The main Black female characters in Lynn Nottage’s play By

The Way Meet Vera Stark (2013) and the Academy Award-winning film The Help (2011) reinforce, subvert, or transform the mammy stereotype. Through characters Vera, Aibileen, and Minny, I analyze how the mammy stereotype proliferates in these two case studies and influences perception of Black female representation in the U.S. culture. Though all of these characters are afforded limited opportunities as housekeepers during the Jim Crow era, they find ways to create bonds within their personal spaces and accomplish the unexpected in their profession to make their lives more than housekeeping. Vera helps her actress employer rehearse lines which prepares her to transition from a real-life maid to one on the big screen. Despite many of her parts being typical mammy figures, Vera personalizes the role to create an image she feels is her own. While she makes sacrifices to love her husband Leroy, she finds his support an endearing and necessary part of her life. Meanwhile, Aibileen and Minny find themselves personally invested in their jobs as nannies and housekeepers, especially since their home lives are disheartening. While they mostly comply with

64 their employers’ expectations, they both find redemption for their mistreatment. Together, Vera,

Aibileen, and Minny flirt with traditional qualities of the mammy in their lack of social agency but defy the type through their personal and workplace relationships, and through challenging demeaning treatment from their employers. I also find that reviews vary on how effectively By the

Way, Meet Vera Stark and The Help reify or destabilize the mammy stereotype.

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark: Nottage’s Title Character Plays Her Own Version of

Mammy in Her Career, Relationships, and Assertive Approach

Vera Stark Defines Stereotypes through the Ages

Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013) is a comedic investigation of stereotypes through three distinct ages of Hollywood that utilizes layers of historical racism, colorism, and classism through purposeful characterization, doubled roles, and complicated relationships. The play focuses on different stages of Vera Stark’s life as a maid and as an actress typecast as a maid. Act One begins in the 1930s with Vera, “an African-American beauty” attending to her “White” employer Gloria, a successful Hollywood actress whose career she supports by reading the corresponding lines of servant figures. 155 Vera’s befriends other aspiring actresses Lottie, a “pretty, heavyset, brown-skinned woman” and Anna Mae, a

“fair-skinned African-American.”156 Vera also forms a bond with Leroy, who later becomes her husband, is an educated musician and as a personal valet to White director Maximillian

Von Oster.157 When Gloria hosts Von Oster at her home, Anna Mae accompanies as his

“Brazilian” date, hoping to break into the industry and achieve success. Vera, Lottie, and

155 Nottage, 14-15, 94. 156 Nottage, 24, 26. 157 Nottage, 36; Though no description of Leroy’s skin tone is offered here, the dialogue between he and Vera about race implies that he is visibly Black, i.e. brown-skinned. 65 Leroy allow her charade but mock her method of race swapping.158 Vera and Lottie also work in tandem to impress Von Oster with an impersonation of oppressed Negroes.159 Von Oster is so moved by their act that he casts them along with Anna Mae in his film The Belle of New

Orleans, starring Gloria.

Act Two features a scene from the film in which Gloria plays ailing octoroon mistress

Marie, who is looked after by her French singer friend Cecilia (Anna Marie), and her maids

Tilly (Vera) and an unnamed slave woman (Lottie). The play then shifts to a 2000s panel discussion during which scholars Herb, Carmen, and Afua reflect on the racial discrimination

Vera and others experienced by featuring her perspective in a 1970s talk show interview.

While Vera aspires to Gloria’s reputation and opportunities, skin tone places them in disparate social classes and she is typecast as a maid throughout her career in performance and real-life.

During what was one of her last public appearances, Vera reveals how difficult it was to navigate racism in the industry which affected the roles she was offered, strained her personal relationships, and defined much of her career.

Nottage reveals that Vera as well as the other female characters were inspired by former actresses in the industry. Her initial questions for the play were centered on the lives of

Black female actresses in the early film industry: “Who are these women in early Hollywood?

These beautiful, talented, African American women who were very much ingénues, but were unfortunately pushed to the margins. What were their lives like? What were their aspirations?”

These questions linger in the present day with Black female actresses yearning for respectable roles.160 Nottage notes that she carefully crafts her characters as “ordinary, extraordinary

158 Nottage, 26-30. 159 Nottage, 24, 54. 160 Lynn Nottage, “On Creativity and Collaboration: A Conversation with Lynn Nottage, Seret Scott, and Kate Whoriskey,” by Jocelyn Buckner, A Cambridge Companion to Lynn Nottage, edited by Jocelyn Buckner (New York: Routledge, 2016), 182. 66 women” who come from hard-working female ancestors, particularly those who “were raising white children… and helped shaped the sensibilities of this country.”161

The novelty of Vera Stark is Nottage’s methodical use of a theatrical text which dramatizes the careers of Black actors and entertainers to comment on stereotypes within the entertainment industry. Notably, Vera’s role is portrayed by an actress playing an actress who initially works as a maid to finance her acting. Vera’s colleagues in Act One: valet/musician

Leroy Barksdale, fellow maid Lottie McBride, and socialite Anna Mae Simpkins respectively become filmmaker Herb Forrester, professor Carmen Levy-Green, and journalist Afua Assata

Ejobo, her critics at the 2003 colloquium in Act Two. During the panel, they show Vera’s

1973 controversial interview with Brad Donovan played by the actor who played director Von

Oster in Act One. The use of doubled roles in this segment functions as Nottage’s analytical plot device for critiquing stereotypes by allowing modern characters to comment on their predecessors/former selves, the roles the actors formerly played in Act One. This shift in actor representation also suggests some evolution in class status and occupation through the decades which has been a slow process for Black representation in dramatic works and real life. Through moments like these, Nottage acknowledges the various ways Black actors, artists, and scholars endure and evaluate stereotypes. She critiques the very medium she creates and is therefore, very aware of the character tropes and intention behind the work. In “Vera Stark at the Crossroads of History,” cultural historian Harvey Young reiterates that because “every female character is African American, Nottage invites audiences to consider the role of performance in the fabrication and maintenance of social identity.” 162 Young emphasizes that this play establishes “how their manipulation of speech, dress, and gesture enables them to reveal

161 Ibid, 184. 162 Harvey Young, “Vera Stark at the Crossroads of History,” in A Critical Companion to Lynn Nottage edited by Jocelyn L. Buckner (New York: Routledge, 2016), 110. 67 the artifice and thin construction of racial and class categories.”163 Collectively, these characters illustrate the persistent issue of representation for Black actors and entertainers during the Jim

Crow era.

Vera Stark is a mammy character that both represents and critiques the stereotype by articulating the complicated nature of Black womanhood and the ongoing self-negotiation about when to conform or resist restrictive cultural standards. Vera embodies traditional mammy characterization through her brown skin tone, servant role to employer Gloria, and lacking personal life or family obligations. However, as a brown-skinned “beauty,” Vera resists many of the characteristics that pervade typical mammy characterizations with brief marriages during her lifetime, revisionist maid portrayals in film, and a clear, vocalized discontentment with discrimination and criticism when interviewed (in the play) later in her career. Through the talk show scene and the consequent scholarly discussion which analyzes it, Nottage pays homage to Black actresses of the early to mid-twentieth century like Hattie McDaniel and

Theresa Harris who paved the way for Black representation on stage and screen by enduring demeaning stereotypes for sheer visibility. Because Vera’s role is seen and critiqued in each of the three distinct eras, she is the common denominator that unites these disparate decades and serves as one way to measure how much theatrical Black representation has changed over time. Of particular interest to this chapter is Vera’s agency within her circumstances as a maid and an actress, her attempts to maintain meaningful relationships despite her demanding career, and her efforts to subvert degrading images and influence her own representation.

Through the title character, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark has generated conversation about the mammy and other Black stereotypes past and present in accounts from scholars, actors, and audience members. Pushing the Status Quo: Vera is a Maid, Not a Mammy

163 Ibid. 68 Though Vera leaves her housekeeping job behind for a thriving acting career, being typecast as a maid because of skin tone makes her feel as if the role is inescapable. Because of this, she resents her White passing cousin Gloria’s success. Theatre scholar Soyica Diggs

Colbert describes how the exchange between Vera and Gloria in Act One sets the tone for how “racial designations become intertwined with professional roles,” which are apparent

Figures 5: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark productions with Black Veras and White Glorias. From left to right, Photo by Sara Krulwich, Source: New York Times; Second Stage, 2011, Stephanie J. Block (left), Sanaa Lathan (right); Photo by Jeff Swensen, Source: Pittsburgh Playhouse, 2014, Maria Beacotes-Bey (left), Kelly Trumbull (right); Photo by Allen Weeks, Source: The Chicago Tribune, Penumbra Theatre, 2015, Norah Long (left), Crystal Fox (right)

throughout the play.164 During an interview Vera gives on The Brad Donovan Show in Act Two,

Vera grows progressively tense and more frustrated when Gloria, her cousin, former employer, and fellow actress, is revealed as a surprise guest. The interview recalls how Vera resumed her role of Gloria’s housekeeper as her co-star in The Belle of New Orleans and is undeniably jealous of Gloria having passed for White to score leading lady roles and popularity.165 Diggs Colbert notes that the familial ties between Vera and Gloria “complicate the easy dichotomy of black help and white employer” to comically comment on the “histories and hearsays that produce America’s miscegenated family tree.” 166 In reality, slaves often

164 Soyica Diggs Colbert, “Playing the Help, Playing the Slave: Disrupting Racial Fantasies in Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” Modern Drama 59.4 (2016), 401. 165 Since my next chapter about the mulatta stereotype addresses colorism in depth, I here simply acknowledge its role in the play as the root of discriminatory casting based on skin tone which privileges Gloria and suppresses Vera. 166 Diggs Colbert, 401. 69 shared blood ties with the White family they served and though these relations were no secret, they were not recognized as relatives since it would upset the social order of racial divide and hierarchy. Therefore, slaves and their master’s family performed their roles as separate entities inhabiting completely disparate worlds. This served versus server relationship involved Black and mixed-race slaves working for their White slave master fathers, half siblings, and family members. The relationship between Vera and Gloria personifies this toxic, historical tradition since Gloria needed to be White to establish superiority over Vera.167 Vera ultimately blames

Hollywood colorism for Gloria’s success as a leading lady compared with her own mostly static representation as a maid.

Though Vera personalizes her filmic maid roles to deviate from the mammy stereotype, she receives criticism from scholars, decades later. A 2003 panel on Vera Stark’s legacy features a recording of her 1970s talk show appearance. Hosted by filmmaker Herb Forrester

(played by the actor who played Leroy in Act One), professor Carmen Levy-Green (played by the actor who played Lottie in Act One), and journalist Afua Assata Ejobo (played by the actor who played Anna Mae in Act One), the panel deems Vera’s performance in the fictional

1930s film The Belle of New Orleans strikingly similar to that of Hattie McDaniels’ role of

Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Herb suggests that though Vera was “breathtaking” in the movie, “ultimately she was still just another shucking, jiving, fumbling, mumbling, laughing, shuffling, pancake-making mammy in the kitchen.”168 His biting words equate Vera with an

Aunt Jemima-like figure and echo the criticism that Black actors past and present receive for accepting roles that perpetuate stereotypes.

167 Similar portrayals of families separated by racial lines is also present in television series like Roots (1977/2016) and Underground (2016-17) in which slave children serve their White slave master father. 168 Nottage, 100. 70 Though Nottage draws direct comparisons to Hattie McDaniel, perhaps Prissy, also of

Gone with the Wind is a more fitting contemporary to Vera in that she was a young, slender maid whose outspokenness was punished by her White family. A former Broadway dancer who notably never married or had children, actress Butterfly McQueen acknowledges that though “the part of Prissy was so backward,” it allowed her to make a living. 169 However,

McQueen was quickly unsatisfied with how that role typecast her throughout her career. She states, “I didn’t mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn’t mind being funny, but I didn’t like being stupid.”170 At the end of her career, Vera likewise despises the expectation that she be subservient on and off screen. Consequently, she becomes less popular in the business as she increasingly resists her societal and theatrical role as a mammy and freely expresses her opinion.

Despite the criticism Vera and real-life maid actresses largely received from the Black community, some utilized the limited type/number of roles Hollywood offered them to make a living not dependent on actual servitude. Though McDaniel and McQueen are the most recognizable comparisons of Black mammy figures from the 1930s, the lesser known actress

Theresa Harris was Nottage’s actual muse when fashioning Vera Stark. Like McDaniel, Harris performed alongside famous actors like Bette Davis, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow, but is perhaps best known for her role as a charming maid and confidant to her promiscuous White employer in Baby Face (1933), starring Barbara Stanwyck. Similarly, Vera’s role as Tilly in The

Belle of New Orleans is a maid to lustful octoroon Marie, played by Gloria. However, Harris’s tale is less dramatic than that of Stark’s. Instead of alienating herself from the entertainment

169 “Butterfly McQueen. 84. ‘Gone With the Wind’ Actress, Dies from Burns.” Jet Magazine, Entertainment, 60. 170 Ibid. 71 industry with controversial remarks and fading into obscurity by her early 60s, Harris comfortably retired from acting in her early-mid 50s and spent the remaining years of her life with her husband until her death at age 78.171 Nottage’s choice to make Vera outspoken about her representation in the film industry suggests that agency has a cost; while Vera progressively works to disrupt and undermine the tradition of the mammy figure, her own life and career suffer the consequences. Nottage illustrates through Vera that resisting cultural norms is not as simple as critics suggest and that audiences’ compliance contributes to accepting and supporting damaging representations.

Vera’s Personal Relationships Are Dictated by Her Career

Vera’s personal life both upholds and challenges the mammy stereotype. Typical of a mammy/maid figure, Vera seems to have no children or consistent partner, but attempts a personal life with two brief, “problematic marriages.”172 Her lack of children is likely because she tends to Gloria as both family and employer. Black feminist and sociologist Carolyn West determines that “The Mammy image reinforces the belief that Black women” make “personal sacrifices within [their] family, community, or workplace” and “happily seek multiple roles” without expecting any assistance from others.173 Since both are adult women at age 28, Vera functions as a nurturing personal assistant to Gloria rather than a mother figure. Gloria relies on Vera for the confidence and prowess to succeed in her high-profile career as an actress, so their interaction reinforces the typical mammy narrative in which Black maids provide personal advice and support. However, the basis of their relationship is characteristically one-

171 “Vera Stark Biography.” 172 Nottage, 83. 173 Carolyn M. West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and their Homegirls: Developing an ‘Oppositional Gaze" toward the Images of Black Women,” Lectures on the Psychology of Women: Fourth Edition edited by Joan C. Chrisler, Carla Golden, and Patricia D. Rozee, (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press: 2008), 290. 72 sided in that Gloria offers essentially no support to Vera in return. During their reunion at

Brad Donovan’s talk show in 1973, Gloria even apologizes for “taking her for granted all these years.”174 However, Gloria referring to Vera’s maid years as “a gorgeous time” makes it clear that she has a skewed view of their non-reciprocal relationship.175

Vera meets her first husband Leroy Barksdale, a “trumpeter for the Petie Owens

Orchestra,” outside a film studio in 1933. They discuss their simultaneous admiration and disappointment for Black actors who have made it on screen albeit in demeaning roles with

Vera, even stating “I sense judgment in your voice,” when she tells Leroy about her desire to break into the industry.176 Though he initially picks on her with a “spot on impression of

Stepin Fetchit,” he encourages her career, stating, “You don’t seem like the kind of gal who’d just stand around back, waiting on small opportunities. You seem like the one folks should be paying money to see.”177 Leroy plays a small but significant role in establishing that Vera experienced romance and support at some point during her life, even if short-lived.178

Meanwhile, Vera’s second husband, the abusive, philandering “prizefighter” Dortch Ross, is only briefly mentioned with the implication that the relationship is either too ugly or insignificant to provide any details. Therefore, the text focuses solely on how Vera’s supported

Leroy as a friend and partner, despite their relationship not lasting long-term.

Vera empathizes with Leroy’s violent response to persistent bigotry, though it limited her career. Her candid interview in which she speaks about her life and legacy is analyzed by modern-day academics in a 2003 panel, including Herb, Carmen, and Afua. Herb, host of the panel, explains that Leroy “accidentally beat a drunk heckler to death with his trumpet,” and

174 Nottage, 98. 175 Nottage, 88. 176 Ibid, 41. 177 Nottage, 41. 178 Nottage, 83. 73 served time for manslaughter.179 Afterwards, “Vera’s career took a major hit, because she stood by him throughout his troubles.”180 She reveals that “back then, love came with a price” since “Celestial Pictures terminated [her] contract because of Leroy.” 181 However, Vera puts the “unfortunate” event in context, stating that she understands Leroy’s frustration:

He was backed into a corner and came out fighting. Young people don’t know

this, but we had to be fighters back then… But I make no excuses for him. He

reacted humanly, too humanly perhaps... I’m sorry for the man that who was on

the dark side of his historic rage, but it happened…182

Panelist Afua emphasizes the significance of Vera’s unfiltered opinion in that era, stating,

“She’s challenging them to understand Leroy’s historic rage. Remember, these sorts of things don’t get said on popular television.”183 Afua’s statement acknowledges that in her own way,

Vera made conscious decisions to defy discrimination during the height of her career in the

1930s and when clarifying her decision to support Leroy in the 1970s. While Vera’s marriage efforts distinguish her from the traditional mammy whose family is absent or non-existent,

Leroy’s behavior compromises her work and is portrayed as the reason for their relationship’s demise. Their failed union illustrates how Black women often had to sacrifice their partner and family for their careers.184 Vera resolves, “I had that kind of unfortunate love for Leroy, and it’s only after a couple cocktails and a sedative that I make peace with it.”185 Their inability to coexist further perpetuates the expectation that Black maids are unable to establish or maintain a romantic partner.

179 Nottage, 83. 180 Nottage, 83. 181 Nottage, 81-82. 182 Ibid, 74-81. 183 Nottage, 81. 184 Patricia Hill Collins. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (Routledge, 2004) 60, 185 Nottage, 81-83; “Vera Stark Biography,” By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Finding Vera Stark, 2013, Accessed 2017: Nottage’s website for the play further explains the racially charged argument during a musical performance that led to Leroy’s imprisonment for murder. 74 Beyond the Apron: How Vera Subverts Mammy Characterization

Vera’s is unable to escape the mammy role on screen and off which she contests with her acting and physical appearance. Though she initially made concessions by accepting caricaturized roles to work as a Black actress, Vera found ways to complicate the static, conventional mammy character and personalize the role including advocating for her lines in a film with a typical maid attending to her mistress. Knowing that her talents far exceeded the parts she was given throughout her career, she fought “tooth and nail for the last line in early

1930s film The Belle of New Orleans,” because the studio “didn’t want Tilly, a Negro woman to have the final word.”186 Her line, “Stay awake, and together we’ll face a new day” also humanizes the maid figure who shows sympathy and hope for her mistress’ condition as she lay dying. Leroy describes her as “a damn good actress [that] Hollywood didn’t treat right.” 187

He explains that when Vera is “of course, playing a maid,” she had her ridiculous pickaninny- like costume taken in “two inches around the waist and the hips, so it looked real sexy.” 188

Vera’s carefully planned choice to update her wardrobe attracted the director’s attention and allowed her “get a little more than they was willing to give her.” 189 However, her choices had some material consequences, as she recalls the film being “very daring for its time. It was banned in most theaters in the South.”190 Therefore, Vera’s defiance signals some progress in being released with her last impression, despite some censorship. Additionally, while becoming more politically involved with civil rights protests, Vera recalls having “publicly turned down the role of Hanna Gunn in the film The Ghosts of Alabama.”191 By literally reshaping her attire,

186 Nottage, 92. 187 Ibid, 84-85. 188 Ibid, 84. 189 Ibid, 85. 190 Nottage, 92. 191 Nottage, 76. 75 creating a lasting image, and rejecting particular parts, Vera resists the asexual and compliant mammy role as well as the limitations the industry tries to place on her abilities.

Throughout the 1970s talk show, Vera expresses her own frustrations with racism in

Hollywood which meant that her brown skin determined the role she would play literally and figuratively her entire life. She resolves that she chose to play a maid for years rather than continue to work as one: “I’ve had to battle all of my career! It’s easy for people to point fingers today, but, honey, should I not have taken that role and cleaned toilets and made beds in someone else’s home instead?!”192 Vera’s statements incite direct real-world comparisons to that of Hattie McDaniel, best known for playing Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). In response to criticism from the NAACP as well as a 1945 Cleveland Gazette article calling her a

“Tom,” McDaniel asks “Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? I’d being making $7 a week being one.”193 What proves troubling is that despite the slight progress and personal economic advancement they achieve in taking these roles, they play into

White expectations of their subservient role in society and reify stereotypical images that upwardly mobile Black-led organizations like the NAACP wish to escape. Vera asserts that her career “opened doors in Hollywood,” and laments that although her representation has shifted among her “over fifty-five pictures, all anyone seems to remember is The Belle of New

Orleans.”194 Vera says her “old tongue can’t be restrained,” and that she “marched with Dr.

King and was one of the first actresses in Hollywood to be outspoken about the Civil Rights

Movement of the fifties.”195 Vera’s open dialogue about racism in the entertainment industry challenges talk show decorum which remains mostly subdued in the 1970s despite the country

192 Ibid, 92. 193 “No Hope for the Negro in Films As Long As Hattie McDaniel ‘Toms,’” Cleveland Gazette, February 17, 1945, 9. 194 Nottage, 78. 195 Nottage, 75. 76 having recently passed civil rights legislation. As “a classically trained actress,” modern-day panelist Carmen relates to Vera’s struggle to escape stereotypes.196 She states,

I’m a woman of a certain girth, so I know how easy it is to be ascribed a role

and become imprisoned by it. At the academy I played Juliet, Nora, Medea,

classic roles, but in the professional world I’m offered the same crumbs that in

many respects defined Vera’s career.197

While Vera voices how her career was progressive for its time, Carmen confirms how Black women remain the object of traditionally harmful images.

Vera Stark’s Reviews & Impact on Mammy Characterization

Beginning in 2011 with various Off-Broadway and regional productions, audiences have recognized Nottage’s multifaceted characters who defy the mammy and other stereotypes. The initial 2011 Second Stage Theatre and 2012 Geffen Playhouse productions in

New York and Los Angeles respectively feature the likes of a “vibrant and fresh” Sanaa

Lathan, famous from film Love and Basketball (2000) and an “equally effective” Merle

Dandridge, best known for series Greenleaf (2016—) that “shine[s] as well.”198 Strong performances in additional regional productions in Atlanta and St. Paul from versatile and established Black actresses including Toni Trucks of series Barbershop (2005), Kellee Stewart of film Guess Who (2005), and Crystal Fox of OWN network’s The Haves and the Have Nots (2013-

2017) set the tone for the play’s success.199

196 Nottage, 82. 197 Ibid. 198 Ibid; Ben Brantley, “A Black Actress Trying to Rise Above a Maid,” New York Times, Theatre Reviews: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, May 9, 2011; Samuel Garza Bernstein, Los Angeles Theatre Review: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Stage and Cinema, October 2, 2012. 199 Other productions include Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Long Beach, and Pittsburgh which launched and reinvigorated the careers of Dawn Ursula, Brandi Feemster, Tamberla Perry, Adanna Kenlow, and Maria Becoates-Bey; Crystal Fox is Nina Simone’s niece. 77 Through Nottage’s characterization of Vera in By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, audience members watch and discuss a renewed representation of the mammy in social media and online news reviews. Social media response about Vera Stark yielded production reviews from a diverse population of audience members from various cities that transcend the typical 40-50 age range.200 Twitter users, particularly Black female professionals aged 25-40, posted positive reviews about the play. #VeraStark was “hilarious” and “#awesomeplay.” Reviewers

“HIGHLY recommend #VeraStark esp if ur a scholar of/interested in the hist of black actors in film” because it “makes us laugh—and think about why we’re laughing.”201 Reviews for various universities account for most of the 174 public Instagram posts with the hashtag

#verastark which likewise demonstrates diverse interest. 202 Reviews from primarily middle- aged White male theatre critics emphasize content flaws that potentially affect Vera’s characterization. Chicago Tribune journalist Chris Jones argues that the competing stylistics of realism and satire in the Act 1 to Act 2 transition as well as the embedded film distract the play’s intention to debunk stereotypes.203 While Jones acknowledges that Vera Stark imbues

Black actor stereotypes with “‘subversive readings,’ wherein [racial] minority and women actresses filled a role and undermined its objective elements at the same time,” New York Times reviewer Ben Brantley similarly states that “much of the comic material feels stereotyped in itself.”204 It is telling that most Black audience members who reviewed the play had kind reviews and little to no criticism, seemingly supporting Nottage’s presentation of Black women, while White critics analyzed its plot structure to question her effectiveness at

200 Don Aucoin, “Theater Audiences are Growing Older,” Boston Globe. June 17, 2012. 201 Twitter: Theater in Dallas: @TheatreThree, “#VeraStark makes us laugh…” (26 June 2014); Black female professor under 40: @blackwritergonerogue: “This play is hilarious.” (23 October 2013); Black female Marketing/Advertising Pro, Maya, @wayamaya, “HIGHLY recommend #Vera Stark,” (26 October 2013); Black female food blogger under 40: Nadine, @BKFoodie97, “#awesomeplay (10 November 2013). 202 These universities include Ursinus College, Pomona College, Arizona State, University of Florida, University of Iowa, University of Washington, and Brown University; Instagram, Explore: #verastark. 203 Chris Jones, “’By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,’ at the Goodman Theatre,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2013. Accessed 2017. 204 Ibid; Brantley, “A Black Actress. 78 subverting stereotypes. Regardless of their varying opinions, these social media posts and articles reveal that Nottage’s play has undeniably generated discussion about Black female stereotypes.

While these major theatre critics are certainly entitled to their perspectives on new work, the complexity of Nottage’s work has also earned additional scholarly scrutiny. Nottage utilizes different time periods (1930s, 1970s, and 2000s) and different dramatic formats in addition to the play itself (the film scene of The Belle of New Orleans, Vera’s filmed interview video, and the academic colloquium) to repeatedly demonstrate the many ways in which Black actors were, are, and continue to be typecast in the entertainment industry. Tony Adler of the

Chicago Reader finds that the “academics have no real dramatic function” other than “to make their points, and then make them again. And again.”205 Though Adler expresses annoyance at the play’s repetition in the colloquium scene and otherwise, maybe repetition is the point.

Nottage implements repetition to illustrate how dramatic works perpetuate race and class differences through recurrent stereotypical representation like the mammy figure. Therefore,

Nottage’s creative response to stereotypes in By the the Way, Meet Vera Stark stresses that debunking racism is a complex and recurring problem. Unlike Adler, I perceive Nottage’s work as composite, carefully constructed, and very aware of its metaphysical exploration of stereotypes, particularly the mammy.

Regardless of their opinion on the play’s overall effectiveness, critics and fans alike acknowledge Nottage’s reverence of early Black actresses and attempt to challenge stereotypical assumptions. Vera both embodies and rejects the mammy stereotype through her choices and performance of self in her career and otherwise. She is not maternal in that she is neither

205 Tony Adler, “Second Act Troubles Afflict By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” Reader, Arts & Culture, May 8, 2013, Accessed 2017.”; A similar argument surrounds scholarship about Saartje Baartman as well as the Suzan-Lori Parks and Lydia Diamond plays for which her story forms the plotline. 79 caring for her employer’s nor her own children, but she provides Gloria unreciprocated nurturing and assistance as her servant, which is typical in some relationships between a maid and female employer who may require the same level of child-like assistance. Though she attempts to have romantic connections, her career obligations and ambitions together with her husbands’ problematic personalities largely contribute to her unsuccessful love life. She accepts her mammy role for visibility on screen but refuses to play it as written, which is an issue that often plagues contemporary Black actresses. Thus, Nottage’s work provides a logical segue into film and television representation in which Black actors often find themselves conflicted between securing work, visibility, and authenticity. The characters articulate an awareness of the stereotypes and racial assumptions they simultaneously embody and resist.

Toni Trucks, star of the 2013 Alliance Theatre production, said in an Atlanta Tribune sponsored Google Hangout session that she believes playing Vera’s role was an opportunity to reveal that during the Jim Crow era, Black female actresses’ “parts were limited but their talents were not.”206 As a Black female actress of today, she recognizes that her “obstacles are definitely present but different because of the hard work of the actors that came before

[her].”207 Trucks’s perspective suggests the parallels between Vera’s story of Black actors struggling for roles and authentic representation during the Jim Crow era, and Black actors enduring the same in the present.

I similarly explore how social discrimination affects the main Black female characters in the film The Help (2011) as they conform to or deviate from the traditional mammy stereotype in their roles as nannies and housekeepers. Like Vera, Minny and Aibileen experience hardship in their careers that limits their personal lives, though they forge bonds

206 Atlanta Tribune, Google Hangout Live, You Tube, 23 October 2013. 207 Ibid. 80 with the women for whom they work. Albeit from the perspective of a White protagonist, the illustrated livelihoods of Aibileen and Minny become the spotlight. How does the film’s characterization of these women as maids render them recognizably compliant servants even as it creates their distinct and multidimensional identities?

The Help: Maids Minny and Aibileen Play Maid, Make Friends, and Speak Up

Whose Story Is It? The Help through Skeeter’s Eyes

White director Tate Taylor’s The Help (2011) is based on White author Kathryn

Stockett’s novel of the same name. The film dramatizes the dichotomous coexistence of White housewives and their Black maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. Inspired by the loss of her family maid Constantine, burgeoning writer Skeeter Phelan is the film’s narrator and protagonist, and she provides the outlet and means through which Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and other town housekeepers tell their stories. Throughout the film, Hilly Holbrook uses her social influence as president of the Jackson Junior League to pressure other housewives and harass the maids. While most White women in Jackson are concerned with upholding social appearances through racial discrimination, Skeeter forms bonds with the maids she secretly interviews to compile a book that provides a glimpse into their authentic experiences as distinct personalities, rather than just hired help. As a college-educated, single woman unconcerned with outward appearances, Skeeter is an outsider amongst the White suburban housewives who proliferate in her community and comprise the group of town socialites.

Aibileen and Minny both embody and resist traditional characteristics of the mammy figure in their appearance and professional decorum. While Aibileen is of an average build, what shape she may have is downplayed to give her a plain, figureless appearance. Amongst her housekeeping duties, Aibileen’s primary responsibility is to take care of the Leefolt’s child, Mae Mobley, with

81 whom she forms a bond. Aibileen goes above and beyond the typical care expected of a nanny who does simply what is asked of her by showing Mae love she does not receive from her mother. Her relationship with Mae seemingly fills a void since Aibileen is single with a deceased child. Despite her love for Mae, Aibileen reaches a breaking point and decides her nannying does are done when she is falsely accused of stealing. In her capacity as surrogate mother, Aibileen reifies the mammy stereotype, though she cares for Mae more than is obligated by her position until her dignity is challenged, and she pushes back at the expense of their relationship.

Minny is a large woman whose body type is more closely aligned with the conventional mammy stereotype. Meanwhile, Minny works for racist Hilly and her senile mother but is fired after using their indoor bathroom. When Minny retaliates by cooking Hilly a chocolate pie full of poop, she is blacklisted from the maid circuit until hired by the endearing Celia Foote, whom Hilly hates for marrying her ex-boyfriend and ostracizes from the community. Minny and Celia form a bond over their distaste for Hilly as well as feminine issues. With her stature and culinary skills, Minny upholds traditional qualities of the stereotype. While her family in the form of kids and an abusive marriage slightly challenge the trope, her overt challenge to racism is revolutionary for her era.

The maids’ personal lives and workplace bonds contend with predominant iterations that have no significant or reciprocal relationships. While Aibileen’s husband is absent and her grown child is deceased, Minny has young kids that she attempts to shield from her abusive husband. In contrast to dramatic works like Gone with the Wind (1939) which marginalize the Black maids as secondary, rather than primary characters, The Help humanizes Black women who are otherwise portrayed as compliant and ignorant servants unworthy of their employer’s attention. White female characters Skeeter, Mae, and Celia show immense compassion for their Black maids in The Help whose stories comprise the film’s major plotline. However, the maids risk their livelihood while

Skeeter and Celia merely suffer some social alienation. Nonetheless, the interracial female bonds

82 between Aibileen and Mae and Minny and Celia demonstrate the important role Black nannies played in the lives of White women and children during the period between Jim Crow and Civil

Rights. Collectively, their workplace behavior, relationships, and individual choices establish their inclusion in the mammy trope though their characters are prioritized in the narrative as multifaceted figures that personalize the type.

Further, maids Aibileen and Minny develop close relationships with the women of the families that employ them. However, they are perpetually cognizant of the difference between their situational domestic bonds and social class status. Since the film primarily illustrates their lives as housekeepers, to what extent do Aibileen and Minny fit into traditional tropes of the mammy figure? In what ways do they resist social expectations and find agency in their representation? How does the film demonstrate specific details about the precarity of their daily existence? What has been the cultural response to the film’s story and characterization in movie reviews and social media posts?

Like Vera Stark, The Help has layers. The film’s protagonist Skeeter is author Stockett personified as both are White women disseminating Black women’s stories. The film’s setting within

Southern rural Mississippi during the Civil Rights era further illustrates the complexity of race relations in the United States.

The Maids Fight for Family

Traditionally, mammies are unmarried or have little time to spend with their own families due to housekeeping obligations for the family that employs them. The Help demonstrates the practical ramifications of this for Aibileen and Minny in different ways.

The Help makes no mention of Aibileen having a husband or long-term relationship. Even subtexts within the memories of her recently deceased son insinuate that she raised him on her own.

83 When Skeeter asks Aibileen “What does it feel like to raise a child when your own child’s at home being… looked after by someone else?,” she reflects on her son’s death at 24.208 Aibileen explains how Treelore was neglected after a serious accident at his lumber yard job when his “lungs were crushed.”209 While Aibileen was tending to another family’s needs, her son’s employer “threw his body on the back of a truck, drove to the Colored hospital, dumped him there and honked the horn.”210 After the hospital was unable to care for him, she brought him home and he quickly passed on her living room couch. Unfortunately, she claims that because of her limited time away from work, she “didn’t even get a chance to pray for Treelore,” whom she claims God took quickly so she would not have a chance to argue.211 Her pointed focus on Skeeter and rejection of Minny’s consolation give the sense that this may be Aibileen’s first time telling this story, and only because

Skeeter asked. Though Skeeter and Minny are very empathetic and attempt to comfort her, Aibileen resists their touch and recounts the events in a deadpan manner as if Treelore’s death is a distant, though undeniably painful, memory. Her demeanor suggests that she has become accustomed to holding in her feelings which she is rarely, if ever, allowed to express. Her suppression of this tragic loss reveals how Black women are often tasked with the responsibility of caring for everyone else while no one in turn cares for their well-being. Further, without a partner to help, she had no choice but to be her son’s sole caregiver and spend her final moments with him the best way she could. Her story about his death reveals how deeply she continues to grieve his death over two years later.

Minny offers a slight twist to the conventional mammy who either has no husband or rarely gets to see her husband. Her home life is not a happy or fulfilling one though. Minny’s husband

Leroy is an abusive alcoholic and Minny spends her limited time at home attempting to pacify him

208 Taylor, np. 209 Taylor, np. 210 Ibid. 211 Ibid. 84 and protect her five kids from his wrath. On the phone with Aibileen, Minny recalls the “terrible awful thing” she did to Hilly by giving her a contaminated pie and worries that she “ain’t gone never get no work again.”212 She states, “Leroy gone kill me.”213 Seconds later, he slaps her causing her to drop the phone and Aibileen is forced to hang up to avoid hearing her screams. While Minny’s relationship status may signal a departure from the conventional mammy, her marriage is not to be celebrated and further perpetuates additional stereotypes about Black relationships being dysfunctional.214 Minny’s quick-witted temper at work arises from the need to vent frustrations about her husband’s volatile behavior. This characterization further omits or incriminates Black men and makes Black women victims to their violence. The portrayal of Leroy and Minny’s marriage suggests that when Black couples have the audacity to exist, they are doomed to fail.

Aibileen and Minny Form Meaningful Relationships and Resist When Necessary

Aibileen is a mostly deferential maid for the Leefolt family, and her primary job is to care for their child Mae. Aibileen voices frustration to Skeeter and other neighborhood housemaids that pregnant housewife Mrs. Leefolt attends social functions with friends and spends little time maintaining her home or bonding with her kids, even having neglected basic hygienic needs like changing her young daughter’s diaper at night.215 Because Mae yearns for attention she is not getting from her mother, Aibileen fills a surrogate role by teaching her the affirming mantra

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”216 Though nannies typically care for the children they watch, Aibileen’s special attention to Mae’s emotional void encourages a particularly close emotional bond that surpasses obligation. Though Mr. Leefolt advises Mrs. Leefolt that they cannot

212 Ibid. 213 Ibid. 214 In “The Past Is Ever Present, Recognizing the New Racism,” Patricia Hill Collins addresses how the tradition of strained relationships originated in slavery, pgs. 53-86 215 Tate Taylor, The Help, script, np. 216 Ibid. 85 afford it, she is bullied by housewife Hilly Holbrook into installing a separate outdoor bathroom for

Aibileen. Soon after the bathroom is installed, Mae voices her devotion to Aibileen by exclaiming

“Me and Aibee bafroom, Momma” and attempting to use the facilities before her mother drags her into the house.217 This exchange reveals where Mae’s loyalty lies since Aibileen is her primary caretaker.

The Leefolts are mostly unappreciative of Aibileen’s efforts to make up for what they lack in nurture, but she endures her job for the children’s sake until the very end of the film. Once Skeeter’s book is published, Hilly is angry that the chocolate pie incident is included and fears that the town will learn her secret even though her name is not mentioned. Because Hilly believes that all the maids are conspiring against her, she seeks revenge on Aibileen as an easier target since blackmailing

Minny led her to Celia and kept her out of reach. Mae’s attachment to Aibileen is heartbreakingly clear in their final scene together after Hilly has accused Aibileen of stealing and the Leefolts dismiss from the Leefolt residence. Aibileen’s bond with Mae is apparent as she collapses, cries, and screams out “Don’t go, Aibee. Please don’t leave.”218 Until this moment, Aibileen has been mostly complicit in following the rules of a domestic worker in favor of keeping her job and keeping the peace. She resists the mammy stereotype when her honor comes into question and is willing to let Mae go to defend it.

Because she believes that all the maids are conspiring against her, she accuses Aibileen of stealing from the Leefolts who fire her due to peer pressure. Disgusted that she is unable to defend herself, Aibileen curses Hilly and leaves a distraught Mae crying as she says goodbye to her and nannying for good.

217 Ibid. 218 Ibid. 86 While Minny reifies the typical physicality and cooking style of a mammy, she adamantly resists the mammy’s stereotypically obedient nature. This contributes to her vastly different relationships with her two employers, Hilly and Celia. Minny’s first employer, Hilly, is overtly racist and fires Minny for using the indoor restroom during a terrible storm. Minny, however, takes the concept of revenge to the extreme. After first raising a “pie behind Hilly’s beehive, dreaming of smashing it into her head,” she bakes an “apologetic” chocolate pie and offers it to Hilly disguised as a peace offering. Hilly eats two pieces before Minny reveals that it was made with a hint of poop.

Mortified, Hilly retaliates by labeling Minny a thief to prevent her from working in other homes until social outcast Celia Foote requests her help.

Having been abused by her own husband as well as vindictive White employers like Hilly,

Minny covers her fragile state with a rough exterior and defensive posture, which is only contested by Celia’s persistent kindness as her new house maid. Minny is at first taken aback by Celia’s compassion and lack of racial boundaries which complicate the typical dynamic in which a White employer only interacts with their Black help when making demands. Celia earns Minny’s trust after paying her fair wages and spending quality time together at the same table discussing their personal lives. Minny ultimately becomes Celia’s domestic mentor and friend, teaching her how to cook and maintain her home. Journalist Dyane Jean Francois contends that Celia is child-like and “responds to [Minny] as if to a mother. This relationship is meant to counterweight the blatant racism of other characters, most notably Hilly who now refuses to share a bathroom with [Minnie], the maid who raised her.”219 The two prove a great match due to their shared disillusionment with Hilly and demonstrate mutual respect by helping one another through social mishaps, miscarriage, and abuse.

At one point, Celia even tells Minny, “I just want you to know I’m real grateful you’re here.”220 Like

219 Dyane Jean Francois, “Film Review: How ‘The Help’ Failed Us,” Huffington Post, 14 August 2011. 220 Taylor, np. 87 Aibileen and Mae, Minny and Celia create one of many female bonds that make the film powerful.

Uncharacteristic of most of the relationships between White employers and their Black employees,

Celia returns the care Minny provides during Celia’s miscarriage by tending to Minny’s wounds after

Leroy batters her face in a fight. Their interaction demonstrates the strength of female bonds within the film across racial boundaries, especially in empowering one another and helping each other cope with painful situations.

As the oldest maid character featured in the film, Constantine epitomizes the conflict Black women in this era felt when having to choose between their work family and actual family. Though

Constantine is a minor character with few scenes, Skeeter considered Constantine family and friend, having shared a close bond like that of Aibileen and Mae Mobley. When Skeeter returns from college and learns that Constantine has been fired, capturing her story becomes partial motivation for her book. Like Mrs. Leefolt who was coerced into firing Aibileen, Mrs. Phelan feels compelled by dinner guests to fire Constantine after her daughter’s early arrival at the front door rather than the kitchen door interrupts the meal. In this case, Constantine’s years of loyalty to her employer are forgotten in a moment of anger at the expense of her job. Though Mrs. Phelan is ashamed of her role in the incident and tries to conceal what happened, Skeeter’s relentless pursuit of Constantine’s story eventually compels her to tell the truth. Unfortunately, Constantine moved and passed away before Charlotte had a chance to reconcile with her and, like Mae; Skeeter is devastated by the loss.

When White families fire the housekeepers they have grown close and accustomed to due to societal pressure and concerns about their reputation, it reveals that maids are dispensable, despite the length or quality of the relationship. Though most of the maids’ transgressions, from coming inside the main door instead of the back door and from using the inside bathroom instead of an outhouse during a storm should be forgiven, the maid’s White employers feel obligated to follow racist traditions that chastise and disadvantage Black help. Tense interactions such as these illustrate ever-

88 present class differences between maids and their mistresses, as well as signify the dissolution of a significant relationship from which both parties feel psychological loss.

The female bonds between White female employers and their Black maids suggest that the political implications of the Jim Crow era, particularly racist friends, are outside influences that interrupt these otherwise positive relationships. Like Adele wanting Beyoncé to be her mommy,

White women from the Jim Crow era often sought connections with their nannies, some having closer relationships with them than their own mothers. It is unfortunate that generational racism socially and domestically caused those relationships to be manufactured, strained, and sometimes broken apart over time. The feminine bonds within the film show how women of all races share some similar concerns, even if they are not able to agree about how to tackle them in the same way.

The Film’s Impact and Criticism: Could These Maids’ Images Still Use Some Help?

The comparable experiences of housemaids Aibileen, Minny, and Constantine illustrate the lack of agency they have in their work status. Though they deviate in some ways from the traditional mammy types, their roles contribute to their strained familial relationships which they replace with female bonds in their workplace. Although these characters submit to their subservient position to some extent, they are given much more depth than their predecessors Mammy, Aunt Chloe, and

Aunt Jemima, and selectively allowed to speak their minds, albeit only through the film’s White female protagonist. The Help makes some progress in diverting from the original mammy stereotype since Skeeter’s mission to collect Black women’s stories—which typically go untold—forms the basis of the plotline. Yet Skeeter’s book filters the Black maids’ narrative through her White female perspective as does Taylor’s film which is based upon Stockett’s novel which keeps Skeeter as the agent of change. Further, the little bit the film shares about the maids’ personal lives is tragic and

89 disheartening, which is an overarching criticism of mainstream Black female representation, particularly for the mammy figure.

Questions about the historical accuracy, idealized truth, and omission of certain facts concerning the vulnerability of a Black female maid form the bulk of criticism about The Help.

According to media scholars Kathleen McElroy and Danny Shipka, when compared with other civil rights films like The Butler (2013) and Selma (2014):

The Help as a fictionalized story, written and directed by a white woman and

man respectively, was found the least favorable overall from reviewers. Though

there are compelling, Black female characters, some critics argued that their

story is disseminated through the White perspective both in the context of the

film (and novel) through the White female protagonist, as well as the screenplay

and direction that created the movie.221

For some viewers, The Help is among several films and creative works guilty of “racial ventriloquism,” in which Black stories are told from a White perspective based on uninformed assumptions that contribute to stereotypical representation.222 The success of The Help was complicated by a lawsuit, in which novelist Kathryn Stockett sent her brother’s maid, Ablene

Cooper, a letter informing her that The Help was mostly fictional, but “inspired [by another] family housekeeper.” Cooper deemed Stockett “a liar” and sued for the use of her likeness without attribution in 2010.223 Despite the case being dismissed, it raised questions of authenticity or intent within her novel and the subsequent film which are undeniably loosely based on the author’s experiences with Black housekeepers. 224

221 August Wilson? In next version include film review from McElroy & Shipka, “I Give Civil Rights Four Stars…,” 1-15 222 Claire O. Garcia, Vershawn A. Young, and Charise Pimentel, From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Help: Critical Perspectives on White-Authored Narratives of Black Life (Springer, 2014), 4. 223 Holbrook Mohr, “Author’s Letter is Focal Point in ‘The Help’ Lawsuit,” The Final Call: Associated Press, September 5, 2011, Accessed 2017. 224 Ibid. 90 Likewise, critics assert that these stories are not authentic to Black women’s experiences, that they villainize and exclude Black men and make White men liberal heroes, and cast White women as either the saints or sinners of the movement toward Civil Rights. 225

While it is likely that some issues were left out to establish camaraderie between White women and their Black housekeepers, the film omits the gruesome narrative of how many Black women were raped by their White male employers since, save for Celia’s husband, White male characters in the film rarely interact with the Black maids directly. 226 Having secretly worked with Celia, Minny takes off running upon seeing Johnny, thinking he will harm her in some way for trespassing or being at the house without his knowledge. Instead, he promises her he means no harm, thanks her for helping Celia, and helps her carry the groceries. While the exchange between Minny and the Footes shows the possibility of healthy interactions, the suppression of sexual harassment in the film and often in real life, is a real issue that made my own grandfather work longer hours to prevent my grandmother from having to take a housekeeping job.

Scholars and audience members alike voice their frustration with The Help as one of many contemporary films that continues to show servant class Blacks in an era of struggle for basic civil rights, as if the déjà vu of current news is not reminder enough. The film simultaneously supports the tradition of representing Black women as mammies in service to the masters, while celebrating the small victories they accomplish when they oppose those roles of loyalty and compliance. Even with the Oscar nominated and winning performances of revered actresses Viola Davis (Aibileen) and Octavia Butler (Minny), as well as a strong cameo appearance from Cicely Tyson (Constantine), many Black audience members feel that both

225 Commentary, A Critical Review of the Novel The Help, Its Audio Version, and the Movie, Blog, 2010. 226 Trysh Travis, “Is The Help Realistic? It Depends.” Black Past. 91 actors and audience deserve more nuanced roles told from their perspective. Francois of The

Huffington Post claims that “The only positive thing about this movie is that it put several Black actors on a screen before a wide audience.”227 Akiba Solomon is similarly critical of the film’s

“historical whitewash” and argues that “there are too many group hugs to be trusted as an accounting of the Civil Rights movement.”228 Their statements contest that there is more to the maid’s story, particularly their livelihood and the authentic experiences of their social environment. Therefore, mammy figures like Aibileen and Minny amongst other stereotypes in contemporary films irritate an already sore spot within the Black community that through both ancestral heritage and social discrimination they are unable to forget but wish to move past nonetheless.

Regardless of criticism, film and novel sales, as well as memes and gifs featuring favorite quotes by and about Aibileen and Minny reveal the film’s impact on popular culture.

Literary scholar Suzanne W. Jones describes the The Help’s popularity and success:

The movie held the number one spot in box offices for several weeks after it

was released in August 2011… Three months after the film’s release, it had

grossed $160 million at the box office. Both novel and film have been discussed

in likely and unlikely television venues, such as The View and Hardball. Add to

that, DVD purchases, Netflix rentals, e-books downloads, and readership and

viewership [that] may someday surpass that of Gone with the Wind.

These figures suggest that this story with prominent maid roles has impacted a large audience and potentially influenced their views on mammy representation. 229 Minny’s cooking is an

227 Francois, np. 228 Akiba Solomon, “Why I’m Just Saying No to ‘The Help’ and its historical Whitewash,” Colorlines, 10 August 2011. 229 Pamela McClintock, “‘The Help’ Audience: Just Who Exactly Is Going to See It?”, Hollywood Report, August 26, 2011, Accessed November 2017. 92 audience favorite. “Minny don’t burn chicken,” “Fried chicken just tend to make you feel better about life” and in response to keeping Minny’s employment secret from Celia’s husband,

“Ain’t he wonderin’ how the chicken so good.”230 These memes about Minny’s love for fried chicken reiterate the traditional mammy stereotype and emphasizes her influence on Celia when Minny teaches Celia how to cook. Other posts enjoyed satirizing Aibileen’s mantra for her surrogate child, Mae: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” 231 With these few words, Aibileen uses the time she has with Mae to encourage and mentor her, affirming her with assurances she is unlikely to hear from her own mother. Utilizing its flawed grammar, viewers remixed the statement into: “You is broke. You is tired. You is a teacher,” and “You is petty. You is messy. And you is extra.”232 Some critics of the film may be repurposing

Aibileen’s mantra to poke fun at her character and at the film, but even in jest, Aibileen’s inspirational phrase is also a testament to her strength and enduring positivity in the face of adversity throughout the film’s majority. This minor show of defiance—bringing care and attention to a child desperately in need of love—is one enduring way of bringing the mammy into the twenty-first century. Yet it is the deviations from the mammy type that have retained the most staying power, as Minny’s infamous pie scandal is one of the scenes that has received the most appreciation on social media. With memes like “Minny Jackson: Have you tried her chocolate pie?,” “Humble Pie: You DON’T want a piece of this,” “Eat my shit,” and “Eat yo pie bitch,” it is clear that her character’s distinct personality and fulfilled retribution delighted many fans of the film.233 Minny’s defiance is atypical of a traditional mammy and the most

230 Pinterest, “Minny Don’t Burn Chicken;” Pinterest, “Fried Chicken…”; Tumblr, “Ain’t He Wonderin’.” 231 Amino Apps, “You is Kind…” 232 Pinterest, “You is Broke;” Pinterest, “You is Petty.” 233 Pinterest, “Minny Jackson…”; Pinterest, “Humble Pie…”; Tumblr, “Eat my Shit;” Pinterest, “Eat yo Pie, Bitch.” 93 perceptible quality of her character. Collectively, these social media posts expose how the film affects popular culture’s perception of Black female mammy figures.

According to Solomon, a journalist for Colorblind, “Implicit in The Help and a number of other popular works is that notion that a white character is somehow crucial or even necessary to tell this particular tale of black liberation.”234 Atlantic reporter Alyssa Rosenberg claims that The Help “softens segregation for a feel-good flick. Even more than in the book, the film downplays the ugliness of Jim Crow and fixates on the goodness of its White protagonist.”235 I agree with critics who suggest that The Help being told from Skeeter’s perspective, as orchestrated by director and screenwriter Taylor, falls short in some respects concerning the harsh realities Black maids faced in the Jim Crow South. Perhaps Tate Taylor’s screenplay and Stockett’s novel coupled with the primarily White production team is another point of critique as assistance from Black screenwriters and crew members may have contributed to balancing the film’s multiple perspectives. However, Taylor, whose other directing credits notably include racially charged short film Chicken Party (2003) and James

Brown biopic Get on Up (2014), has a clear investment in championing Black stories and tackling racism. Though in their own ways Aibileen, and Minny deviate from the traditional mammy, the film largely depends on the stereotype due to its time and context. Much of what separates them from mammies of the past is the bit the film exposes about their personal lives, but these details about Aibileen’s deceased son and Minny’s abusive husband seem to do more damage than good in terms of explicating their character, since it reinforces the trope that mammie have a broken or absent personal life. Though criticized for its authorship origins, the film champions strong female relationships that transcend race and class divisions

234 Solomon, np. 235 Alyssa Rosenberg, “‘The Help’: Softening Segregation for a Feel-Good Flick, The Atlantic, 10 August 2011. 94 with Black housekeeper’s roles at the forefront. Ultimately, The Help provides a focused depiction of Black maid’s lives whose physicality, behavior, and relationships determine the extent to which they accept or resist mammy associations.

Mammy Revised or Memorialized?

Vera Stark and The Help have been widely seen and despite mixed reception and varying reviews, recognized for their attempt to stage captivating Black female characters and challenge stereotypical assumptions surrounding the mammy figure. Together, these works reinforce and challenge the mammy as a recognizable stereotype. Vera Stark straddles the line between full-on mammy and revolutionary by consciously utilizing the stereotype as she deconstructs it. Aibileen and Minny bear close resemblance to the traditional trope in their duties as housekeepers and nannies as well as in the stories they share about their experiences.

However, they disrupt typical mammy obligations when they become close to Skeeter as she authors their stories and forge bonds with the White women they care for that surpass the expectations of their duties. By actively resisting Hilly’s targeted disrespect, Minny and Aibileen defy typical depictions of a docile mammy. Though the format and method of storytelling of these dramatic works differs in so far as audience demographic and accessibility, viewers readily identified and analyzed both the realistic and problematic representations of the mammy stereotype via social media, blogs, reviews, and scholarship. In this digital age of social media and instant web platforms, creative artists might benefit from considering existing audience criticism to improve how their work is received in terms of demystifying preconceived notions about Black women, particularly those who otherwise fit the physical and social characteristics of the mammy trope.

95 How do By the Way, Meet Vera Stark and The Help collectively inform representations of the mammy trope? Although Black women of all skin tones might have been a nanny or housekeeper, Brown and dark-skinned women are typically portrayed in these roles onscreen as are

Aibileen and Minny. The brown-skinned Vera Stark from Nottage’s play previously makes this point as she voices her frustration at being typecast due to her appearance throughout her career.

However, Vera, Aibileen, and Minny find individual ways to maintain relationships and navigate their circumstances, privileges from which the earlier iterations of the mammy figure were excluded.

These dramatic works use historical racism as an empathetic lens to challenge contemporary racism and demonstrate a new form of Black female resilience and strength in spite of the racism that remains. Recognizing how this trope has transformed and remained the same is important because it reflects societal attitudes about race which have progressed in some ways and remained stagnant in others. Overall, these dramatic works generate fruitful discussion and uncover ways in which the mammy stereotype has begun to shift over time. Issues of colorism and class are particularly fruitful in my discussion of the mulatta figure in the following chapter.

96 CHAPTER FOUR

“GET IN WHERE YOU FIT IN”: EVERY MIXED CHICK’S MYSTERY

Mulatta Under the Microscope: Women of Black and White Parentage in Historical &

Dramatic Representation

In 1863, New York World journalists David Croly and George Wakeman persuaded readers against Abraham Lincoln’s reelection by manufacturing the term miscegenation to suggest that

“newly freed slaves would attempt to mate with white women to create mixed-blood mulattos.”236

Derived from the Spanish word for mule or hybrid, mulatto is a term “originally used to mean the offspring of a ‘pure African Negro’ and a ‘pure white.’” 237 While White men feared that

Black men would sexually assault White women and produce mixed-race children, the reverse was actually true; it was very common for White men to sexually abuse Black women, and this behavior accounted for most mixed-race children during slavery.238 Though mixed-race denotes at least two separate racial backgrounds that may include but are not limited to Black and White, this study uses the terms mixed-race and the feminine mulatta interchangeably by focusing on the latter. While

White women typically entered socially acceptable and often profitable relationships with their husbands, Black women were property who bore children with men they could not marry.

Therefore, is the shame and secrecy about mixed-race children because enslaved Black men are indeed not the founding fathers for most mulatto lineage? Is it because White men are not supposed to be attracted to Black women? Considering how slavery has impacted the spectrum of Black skin tones, why does the US insist on upholding racially divisive, all-or-nothing categories that seem to

236 Errol G. Hill and James Hatch, A History of African-American Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 313. 237 Sharon M, Lee, “Racial Classifications in the US Census: 1890–1990,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 16, no. 1 (1993): 75-94. 238 Sally G. McMillen, Southern Women: Black and White in the Old South (John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 31-40, 220. 97 implicitly rely on the one-drop rule ideology, rather than allowing an individual to identity with a multiplicity of races?

Slavery led to many of the United States’ race related issues. Persistent phenomena like racism and colorism use superficial measures to separate light from dark. The one-drop rule is one such measure, which “historically defined anyone with any ‘drop’ of black blood as black,” and

“applies primarily to people of mixed African-European background, and not to other patterns of so-called ‘racial intermixture.’ It applies only to Americans of entirely or partially African descent.”239

The one-drop rule is such “an important factor [in] shaping racial identity, particularly for multiracial

Americans with black ancestry,” that it was recently cited by Mariah Carey and Halle Berry, which

“suggests that even our most well-known mixed-race celebrities are not ‘post-race.’”240 Since slavery, the decennial U.S. census has utilized the one-drop approach for racial categorization.

Until 1930, people of Black and White parentage, regardless of ratio, were classified as Black or mulatto.241 During this period, some distinctions included quadroon and octoroon, who have respectively one-fourth and one-eighth Black blood.242 Since 1930, the census has only included Black or other as possible categories for a mulatto person. 243 According to sociologist Sharon M. Lee, “Eventually in the United States, the terms mulatto, colored,

Negro, black, and African American all came to mean people with any known black African ancestry.”244 This established system of racial categorization informs my explication of mixed- race or mulatta women of Black and White parentage in dramatic works.

239 Nikki Khanna, “If You’re Half Black, You’re Just Black: Reflected Appraisals and Persistence of the One-Drop Rule,” The Sociology Quarterly, 5.1 (2010), 96; Winthrop D. Jordan, “Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States,” Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies 1, no. 1 (2014), 101. 240 Khanna, “If You’re Half Black,” 96; Sika Dagbovie-Mullins, Crossing Black: Mixed-Race Identity in Modern American Fiction and Culture (University of Tennessee Press, 2013), 106. 241 Lee, 75-94. 242 Ibid, 77-78. 243 Ibid. 244 F. James Davis. Who is Black?: One Nation's Definition (Penn State Press, 2010), 5-6. 98 Interracial sex and marriage, miscegenation and amalgamation, remain issues “the discourse of race has yet to transcend.”245 Former Suits (2011–present) actress Meghan Markle, who married

British Prince Harry in May 2018, has received much media coverage and criticism about her mixed- race heritage, both in the US and the UK. Seemingly an affront to the “whitelash” of the current administration in response to former mixed-race president Barack Obama, controversial commercials from companies like Amazon, Cheerios, Humira, and Swifer have featured healthy, interracial couples and families.246 Alexandros Orphanides of NPR argues that regardless of the

United States’ rapidly growing mixed-race population, “the hope that a mixed-race future will result in a paradise of interracial and ethnically-ambiguous babies is misleading” and does not acknowledge the extent to which racism is a culturally embedded “active system.”247 Literary scholar Michele

Elam determines that since “mixed race people are neither new nor apparently increasing,” inquiries should focus on “Why we see more people as mixed race now” and “How do people self-identifying as mixed see themselves?”248

According to the enduring one-drop rule, any trace of Black blood, especially in the form of physical features makes one Black. Though light skinned people, like myself, are likely mixed-race, they may not always identity as other than Black for lack of ancestral data or familial ties to another race. Since slaves were often separated from their families and/or not acknowledged by their White slaveholding relatives, those without immediate interracial families (i.e. parents or grandparents), might be unaware of their true racial makeup.249 Yet for individuals who could pass for White, their racial identity may manifest differently. In late nineteenth-century Louisiana, White passing octoroon

245 Tavia Nyongo, “The Amalgamation Waltz: Race,” Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 23. 246 John Blake, “This is What ‘Whitelash’ Looks Like,” CNN, 19 November 2016; “Whitelash” was a term used by CNN commentator Van Jones used to describe “an old reality [in which] dramatic progress in America is inevitably followed by white backlash.” 247 Alexandros Orphanides, “Why Mixed-Race Americans Will Not Save The Country,” Code Switch: Race and Identity Remixed, NPR, 8 March 2017. 248 Michele Elam, The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium (Stanford University Press, 2011), 6. 249 Though DNA kits are now readily available, many rely on racial/ethnic percentage rather ancestral background, save for Ancestry.com. 9 9 Homer Plessey would likely have been able to ride on a “Whites only” railway car instead of being arrested had he not been part of known experiment to test whether physical features were reliable traits to segregate Black and White. Racial distinctions of skin color, hair, and other physical features are markers that have perpetuated colorism to divide the Black community since slavery and prove that race is complicated.250

Contemporary internet memes use either satire to promote light-skinned versus dark- skinned rhetoric or critique that divide as self-damaging and inconsequential to predominate

White society. Some memes perpetuate skin-tone based stereotypes with light-skinned women portrayed as mean, uppity, and self-centered in a summer post explaining that “You gotta text light skinned girls today ‘Merry Christmas’ to get a reply on December 25 th.”251 Others challenge a dark-skinned woman’s mixed-race, light-skinned people’s involvement in Black

Power, and critique the stereotype that singing abilities correlate with skin tone. 252 Referring to the latent jealousy that began with light skin privileging during slavery, one meme even cites darker lion Scar’s betrayal of lighter lion Mufasa in animated film Lion King (1994) as to blame for “how light skin vs. dark skin beef got started.”253 Though most of these memes are meant in jest, there is some truth to the privilege light skinned people received as domestic versus field slaves, through passing or, as Gardley portrays, marrying White partners, causing a rift with their dark-skinned contemporaries. This type of divisiveness within the Black race often exacerbates identity struggles for light-skinned and mixed-race people.

Alternate ideology dismisses colorism by recognizing that according to persistent one- drop rule racial classification, all people with some trace of Black identity are Black and

250 Kerr. 251 “You gotta text a light skinned girl ‘Merry Christmas’ now to get a reply on December 25th,” Me.me, Accessed March 2017. 252 “Dark skin girls be like I’m mixed. With what— Charcoal?,” Memes.com, Accessed March 2017; “You’re too light skinned for Black Power,” Tumblr, Angela Davis Black Power: I’m High Yellow, Mixed Race, and Pro Black as Hell. Miss Me With the Bullshit; “Not all dark men cannot sing, not all light skin men can sing,” Pinterest. Accessed March 2017. 253 “How light skin vs. dark skin beef got started,” Pinterest, Accessed March 2017. 100 treated thusly. A poignant meme features slave men of both complexions with chains around their necks, stating “Team Dark Skin, Team Light Skin. Didn’t Matter Then. Doesn’t Matter

Now.”254 Another features the once socially conscious rapper Kanye West interrupting intra- racial dialogue like he interrupted Taylor Swift’s 2009 VMA acceptance speech, stating, “I’ma let this light skin vs. dark skin BS continue… but Willie Lynch started colorism to divide & conquer slaves.”255 These critical examples from popular culture reveal how systematic racism continues to oppress Black people and encourages them not to perpetuate hegemonic colorism amongst themselves. Unfortunately, these posts reflect real opinions of Black people who have long been pitted against one another based on skin tone. Because art reflects life, theatrical works likewise channel or challenge these colorist sentiments.

In dramatic representation, a mulatta is a mixed-race woman whose light skin and dual identity proves problematic to racial categorization in a country that prefers easy definitions of

Black and White, and this identity shifted over time. Since the mulatta stereotype includes mixed- race characters of Black and White parentage, I focus on dramatic works with mixed-race characters and use mulatta and mixed-race interchangeably. Mixed-race as opposed to biracial works best for my study as a broader term that can mean any mixture of two or more races, which accounts for quadroon and octoroon. Beyond the horrendous conditions of slavery, a mulatta endured psychological warfare from occupying the space between her Black field hand family and her

White plantation owning relatives. Since slavery, this intermediary space between Black and

White has fueled colorism, “the allocation of privilege and disadvantage according to the

254 CK Matters, “Team Dark Skin, Team Light Skin. Didn’t Matter Then. Doesn’t Matter Know.” Me.me. Accessed March 2017. 255 “I’ma let this light skin vs. dark skin BS continue but Willie Lynch started colorism to divide & conquer slaves,” Memegenerator.net, Accessed 2017, The existence of Willie Lynch is controversial/disputed as well as the speech cited as the source for colorism, Kanye West’s line “I’ma let you finish but…” comes from him interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV awards to voice his support for Beyoncé instead; “White people be like ‘house slaves and field slaves still beefing,’” Pinterest, Stop with the Light Skin vs. Dark Skin Madness, Accessed March 2017. 101 lightness or darkness of one’s skin.”256 Therefore, a mixed-race woman’s hybridity and light skin subsequently made her an outsider within both White and Black society.257 Historically, slaveowners emphasized a mulatta’s Blackness to justify enslavement and separate her from freedom. Conversely, slavery-era abolitionists utilized a mulatta’s nearly White physicality and genteel mannerisms to elicit sympathy for slaves’ lives and experiences.258 Though a mulatta’s light skin and fractured racial identity remain consistent characteristics of representation, stereotypical factors like a cruel or miserable demeanor, financial or emotional motivation, and complicated or ill-fated relationships shift from the slavery era to the present day. I incorporate the history of racialized relationships and privileging of lighter skin to explore how the mulatta stereotype is represented in Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand (2014) and Justin

Simien’s Dear White People (2014).

Dramatic representation illustrates the trajectory of the mulatta figure beginning with abolitionist literature and early film from mild-mannered slave to promiscuous mistress. I provide a brief review of the stereotype’s qualities and their evolution as detailed in chapter two. In the mid-nineteenth century, abolitionists leveraged the representation of the tragic mulatta to serve their needs. Zoe, the title character of Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1859) falls in love with White plantation heir George but commits suicide when she is sold to a rival owner McClosky, refusing to be with anyone else. Because George wins her back soon afterwards, Zoe represents a tragic mulatta who makes fatal decisions based on irrational thoughts. Early twentieth century mulatta characters are portrayed as mischievous women who seduce and manipulate engaged and taken men. Lydia of DW Griffith’s The Birth of A Nation

(1915) functions as progressive Congressman Austin Stoneman’s common law wife and

256 Meghan,Burke and David G. Embrich, “Colorism,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 2 (2008): 17-18. 257 Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2014). 258 Ariela Julie Gross, What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Harvard University Press, 2009), 61. 102 heavily persuades his position on interracial marriage. With her sexual behavior and manipulation, Lydia’s character encourages the promiscuous mulatta trope that endures in subsequent representation. In works of the mid-twentieth century, the mulatta stereotype adopted “mean, violent, bitter, sullen, shadowy, and untrustworthy” qualities as mixed-race characters experienced rejection in their familial, community, and romantic relationships.259

Much of the bitterness associated with mulatta characters comes from their identity and relationship issues. For example, in film Imitation of Life (1959 Sarah Jane passes for White to encourage relationship prospects and job security, and therefore, distances herself from her

Black mother. Similarly, Adrienne Kennedy’s play Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) commits suicide because she is unable to accept her mixed-race and Black features, blaming her dad for her tainting her beauty. Therefore, Sarah Jane and Negro Sarah represent a part of the mulatta trope that rejects her family and Black identity to enjoy privilege that is uniquely possible for fair-skinned women.

As evidenced by more recent works, the mulatta persona remains scorned by love and family as well as caught between Black and White society. Contemporary mulatta characters often have strained family interactions and utilize either hypersexual or hidden identities to secure relationships and income. Prominent light skinned characters including Shug of The Color Purple

(1985), Jane Toussaint of Spike Lee’s School Daze (1988), and Leticia of Monster’s Ball (2001) exhibit promiscuous tendencies by vying for men’s attention for stability or status. The main characters of television series Queen (1993) and film Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) pass for White to find love and opportunity while the title character of film Belle (2014) struggles to date and be accepted amongst her White relatives amidst periods of societal racism. How has the representation of the mulatta

259 David Pilgrim, “The Tragic Mulatta Myth,” Ferris State University, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, 2000, Accessed October 2016; Cedric J. Robinson, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 51; Diane A. Mafe, Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature: Coloring Outside the (Black and White) Lines (Springer, 2013), 130; E. Barnsley Brown, “Passed Over: The Tragic Mulatta and (Dis)integration of Identity in Adrienne Kennedy’s Plays.” African American Review 35, no. 2 (2001): 281-295. 103 stereotype escaped or remained captive to its tragic fate? How might this stereotype be reimagined in performance so that it challenges assumptions regarding mixed-race women and their complicated relationships with their families, communities, and self-identity? An archetype that was first utilized to emphasize likeness and encourage humanity regressed into a “tragic mulatta” figure

260 perpetually distressed about her seemingly incompatible and indefinite racial identities.

However, I explore modern representations that challenge the mean-spirited mulatta wench stereotype in favor of a self-sufficient revolutionary.

I explore how mulatta characters authenticate their Blackness and belonging within the Black community through a hyperawareness and performance of self. What measures do mulatta women take to be accepted amongst their critical Black audience? The play The House That Will Not Stand and the film Dear White People, both of 2014 and both created by Black men, are among current dramatic works that feature a prominent mixed-race female character who either accepts or resists traditional qualities associated with the mulatta stereotype. Unlike early dramatizations that portrayed suffering mixed-race women, these works feature strong-willed mulattas whose stories concerning family, love, sex, and identity, are told from their perspective. Beartrice, the mulatta mother of Gardley’s text, is ruthless in her efforts to keep her three quadroon daughters financially secure and free from mimicking her life as a placée, mistress to a White suitor. Meanwhile, Sam White of Simien’s Dear

White People vacillates between a public Black radical identity and guarded relationships with her

White father and boyfriend. Colorism factors heavily in the setting of each dramatic work and influences how Beartrice and Sam navigate these facets of their life. Collectively, these mulatta characters claim agency over their identity and circumstances, endure complicated familial and romantic relationships, and measure their accomplishments within the societal norms of their era.

260 Anderson, Mammies No More, 45; Early iterations of the mulatta stereotype included suicidal tendencies which continue in some modern literature; i.e. from Lydia Maria Child’s short story “The Quadroons” (1842) to Achmat Dangor’s novel Bitter Fruit (2001). 104 The Multifaceted Mulatta: Marcus Gardley Illustrates a Mixed-Race Family’s

Illusory Freedom, Fragile Bonds, and Futile Feats in The House That Will Not Stand

Plaçage and Colorism in Historical New Orleans

During the nineteenth century, “A small, wealthy free mulatto elite concentrated in

Charleston and New Orleans challenged any attempt at a clear-cut definition of race or a notion that blacks were inevitably destined for slavery.” 261 New Orleans offered one of the very few exceptions to the widespread practice of slavery; due to its African and French influence, and its resulting diverse Creole and mulatto population and multilingual culture, mixed-race women could operate outside of the rigid structure of slavery via plaçage.262 New Orleans was founded as a

French colony in 1718 and vacillated between French and Spanish rule until the Louisiana Purchase made it property of the United States in 1803. New Orleans’ “Afro-Creole population came from families who were freed during the colonial or antebellum era, were Catholic, were often mixed-race or of lighter skin color, were French-speaking or bilingual, were educated, and were often wealthier than their black non-Creole neighbors.”263 Nineteenth century New Orleans functioned within a three-tiered classification system in which White, mixed-race, and Black people were granted privilege and access respectively.264 For people of color, the “paper bag” test is one such “marker that distinguishes ‘light skin’ from ‘dark skin’ and [is] believed to “center” blackness on a continuum stretching infinitely from black to white.”265 Black literature scholar Audrey Kerr states, “Because interracial marriage was not permitted between mixed people and whites, a system of extramarital unions known as plaçage emerged [which] permitted white men to keep interracial mistresses, often

261 Gross, What Blood Won't Tell, 20. 262 Creole is a term to describe both people of French descent born in the Americas and people of mixed African and French descent while mulatto is a general term to describe all mixed-race people; Rebecca J. Scott, “Paper Thin: Freedom and Re-Enslavement in the Diaspora of the Haitian Revolution,” Law & History Review 29, no. 4 (2011): 1061-1087; Lawrence J. Kotlikoff and Anton J. Rupert, “The Manumission of Slaves in New Orleans, 1827-1846,” Southern Studies 19, no. 2 (1980): 172-181. 263 Emily S. Clark, A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (UNC Press, 2016), 27. 264 Audrey Elisa Kerr, "The Paper Bag Principle: Of the Myth and the Motion of Colorism." Journal of American Folklore 118, no. 469 (2005): 271-289. 265 Kerr, 272. 105 in a lifelong-relationship, living in separate homes.”266 Typically, these partnerships resulted from meeting at quadroon balls and included arrangements that the woman’s mother agreed to, even though they “did not prevent the white male from also taking a white wife and raising a ‘respectable’ family.”267 Thus nineteenth century New Orleans “provides a particularly apt vehicle for examining the absurdity of, and damage created by, the monetary valuation of women,” as illustrated by the main characters in Marcus Gardley’s play The House That Will Not Stand.268

First produced in 2014 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Gardley’s The House That Will Not

Stand (2014) adapts Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba: A Drama About Women in the Villages of Spain (1945) in which intimidating mother Bernarda forces her adult daughters to mourn her second husband and prohibits them from dating. 269 Gardley self-describes the work as “a drama about free women of color in New Orleans in 1836 that portrays the unique privilege mixed-race women possess due to nineteenth century plaçage.”270 While women in other regions of the United States were subject to the awful conditions of traditional slavery, mixed-race women of New Orleans could participate in a system of plaçage and effectively become entirely financially dependent upon white men of means. In The House That Will Not

Stand, Gardley portrays six mixed-race women: Beartrice, the mother and a mulatta; her three quadroon daughters, Agnès, Maude Lynn, and Odette; Beartrice’s sister Marie Josephine, and

Beartrice’s former friend La Veuve. The fact that Gardley chooses to represent various mixed- race women in The House That Will Not Stand challenges one-dimensional mulatta stereotypes

266 Kerr, 282. 267 Kerr, 282. 268 Chirico, 621. 269 Of the 121 public Instagram posts: @the3rdtwin: “entertaining, thought provoking, heart wrenching + inspiring piece of work. I can’t wait to see what else this playwright has to offer the world,” @annie_g_0509: “Got to watch an awesome play tonight,” and @aigbinosun: “Talk about breathing life into a piece, these sisters were making magic tonight;” Twitter: @kgdwyer: #TheHouseThatWillNotStand was powerful, moving, eloquent,” @jdwyer: “Incredible, moving, important,” @MDreaux: “#TheHouseThatWillNotStand play is incredible…” 270 Gardley, 1; Miriam Chirico, “The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley (Review),” Theatre Journal 66.4 (2014): 619. 106 and suggests that the issue of representation is becoming much more complex than it has been in the past.

Because the play revolves around Beatrice and her daughters Creole beneficiaries, I focus on how their financial means and social status are significantly jeopardized when Lazare,

Beartrice’s White long-term lover dies. Coupled with the lingering inquiry into Lazare’s sudden death, issues of colorism and financial security drive the plot including Beartrice’s daughters determining whether they will attend the quadroon ball and secure an affluent White suitor like their father. The title of Gardley’s play is inspired by a Bible verse that states: “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” since colorism pits light against dark and demonstrates how

Black people segregate themselves based on skin tone to assimilate into predominately White culture.271 Gardley “pulls a historical drama up into the present” with “contemporary slang” and an innovative approach to colorism and the Louisiana Purchase, reminiscent of Beyoncé’s

“Formation” video, which pays tribute to New Orleans culture past and present. 272

In his descriptions of the characters, Gardley details each woman’s qualities, including skin tone, personality, and relationship status which either conform to or contend with the traditional mulatta stereotype. Beartrice is Lazare’s calculating mistress who was primarily with him for financial security. In name as well as personality, Beartrice’s character is an homage to

Lorca’s fierce and maternal Bernarda and likely the loving but sharp-tongued Beatrice of

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1612). Reminiscent of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1900) and Brady Bunch’s (1969-1974) Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, Beatrice’s three daughters have distinct personalities that determine how they process their father’s death and respond to their mother’s

271 Gardley, 1; Mark 3:25. 272 Anita Gates, “The Brady Quadroons: A Review of ‘The House That Will Not Stand’ In New Haven,” New York Times, 3 May 2014; Chris Jones, “Powerful ‘House That Will Not Stand’ Brings Racial Past into Present,” Chicago Tribune, 20 June 2016; Adelaide Lee, “The House That Will Not Stand,” Reviews, Theatre Mania: For Theatre Everywhere, 26 June 2016; Michael Billington, “The House That Will Not Stand Review— Unlike Any Other Play in London,” The Guardian, 20 October 2014. 107 demands, particularly about attending the quadroon ball, which allows White men to court mixed- race women.273 Though she is the eldest sister, Agnès is young and naïve, hoping to emulate her mother’s success by finding a wealthy White partner. Maude Lynn is the middle child who is most affected by her father’s passing and is victimized by her sisters for her chaste and melancholy behavior. Finally, Odette is the youngest daughter who desires romance over money and social status. Altogether, each woman represents different facets of mulatta characterization that challenge the typical one-dimensionality of the stereotype. Though she tries to rescue them from reliving her fate as a placée, Beartrice and her daughters largely conform to many traits of the traditional mulatta stereotype. As they attempt to ensure agency over their livelihood, their family bond and relationships are tested, and their accomplishments are debatable.

Independent Woman: Beartrice Literally Takes Justice Into Her Own Hands

Beartrice’s ability to achieve autonomy over her circumstances in an era of bondage through her relationship with Lazare modifies characteristics of mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century mulattas. Though Beartrice seeks a relationship with a White proprietor, she is emotionally stable and intentionally utilizes their partnership for economic means versus true passion. Once her patron

Lazare dies under mysterious circumstances in Act One, Beartrice states her claim over his property including the deed to his house to ensure financial security for their three quadroon daughters.

Determined to save them from her fate as a mistress or placée, Beartrice forbids her daughters from attending the masked ball, and expects “that the house go into mourning for seven months in honor of their father, the only white man she loved as much as Jesus.”274 This statement acknowledges the

273 Gates, “The Brady Quadroons,” New York Times. 274 Gardley, 6. 108 history of Christianity in which masters typically convinced their slaves that Jesus was a White enforcer who cursed them as the descendants of Ham, the alleged father of African nations.275 The comparison to Jesus also suggests that Lazare was a savior of sorts for Beartrice and her children, except that Beartrice’s part in his crucifixion seems to curse her family. Though Beartrice benefitted from her relationship with a wealthy White man, she asserts, “that she would rather die than see her daughters become placées and thusly the property of white men even if it meant increasing the family fortune.”276 Beartrice is even willing to barter with Lazare’s wife to make sure her daughters are financially set. Throughout the play, her daughters’ financial well-being is of the upmost importance and she justifies her harsh words and cruel behavior as necessary to maintain her claim of Lazare’s home and possessions. Thus, while she was still subject to the restrictions of the plaçage system,

Beartrice enjoyed a level of freedom that was unavailable to most mulatta women during slavery.

Beartrice clearly chafes under those restrictions, however, and is willing to take action to ensure that her daughters are free from plaçage.

The tragic mulatta trope usually depicts desperate and mild-mannered women, who tragically take their own lives, like Zoe in The Octoroon or Sarah in Funnyhouse of Negro. Beartrice’s desperation manifests differently. Her cunning and capacity to murder are emphasized in speculation about her romantic relationships by Marie Josephine, her clairvoyant sister, and La Veuve, her “sworn enemy.”277 In Act One, Marie Josephine calls Beartrice “cold, callous, malicious and mean but still a lady,” who baked her former White partner, Armand, a lethal sweet potato pie upon finding him in bed with her “dearest friend, Madame La Veuve,” illuminating the origin of their feud. Because

275 Jacquelyn Grant, “White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus,” in Women’s Studies in Religion edited by Kathleen McIntosh and Kate Bagley (Routledge, 2017); Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African American Ideas about White People (Oxford University Press, 2000), 210-211; The representation of White Jesus and/or the White oppressive interpretation of the Bible was contested by abolitionist Sojourner Truth and later by Black nationalist groups like Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association and the Black Panther before and after the popularization of Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ portrait. 276 Gardley, 7. 277 Gardley, 2. 109 Beartrice afterwards had a “tight knit story for authorities” about Armand’s mysterious disappearance, Marie Josephine believes this is evidence that she likely killed both him and Lazare, who is planning revenge and to “push down on [the] house till it won’t stand.”278 Though Marie

Josephine’s story provides an indirect account of Beartrice’s threatening behavior, it insinuates that she is wrathful and willing to take drastic measures for assured financial security. Likewise, La Veuve suggests that “Monsieur Lazare is not the first of Beartrice’s lovers to die from unnatural causes.”279

La Veuve believes that housekeeper Makeda overhearing Beartrice and Lazare’s violent argument hours prior to Beartrice “detailing every task [of his funeral arrangements] like she had been planning it for weeks,” is proof that Beartrice murdered him.280 However, Makeda states, “She may be crass, calculating, and unkind but a killer she is not.”281 When Lazare returns as a spirit in Act

Two to ensure that the girls become placées because “It’s what they were raised for,” Beartrice remarks that she “will not, in this life or the next, sell [her] daughters into the world!”282 She resists giving “them to more men like him… having to be some man’s thing. A mule in a dress,” and admits killing Lazare with a black magic song after seeing their inequitable relationship and violent encounter(s) as representative of her daughters’ future.283 Instead of taking her own life, this reimagined mulatta’s desperation manifests through murdering her abusive white lover.

Beartrice & Her Daughters Channel Colorism in Their Family and Relationships

Traditionally, mulatta characters were rejected by family and lovers as their mixed-race caused social scandal. Beartrice directs harsh and colorist comments toward her family and friends seemingly as a defense mechanism to embrace her identity and assert independence. She self-

278 Gardley, 28-29. 279 Gardley, 4. 280 Gardley, 6. 281 Gardley, 9. 282 Gardley, 43, 38. 283 Gardley, 43-44. 110 describes her demeanor as one of “a cold beauty and indestructible grace.”284 Most of Beartrice’s nastiness is aimed at her former friend La Veuve, with whom she is competitive about relationships and means. La Veuve resents Beartrice’s colorist remarks that challenge the mixed-race background which grants her placée privilege. She states, “Her: sticking her nose up at me, telling folks I don’t have Creole blood, taking my lovers, spreading gossip and weaving lies.”285 Despite their mutual animosity, La Veuve supports Beartrice’s “beautiful” daughters being courted at the masked ball by young men like Ràmon, “one of the wealthiest bachelors in all of New Orleans.” 286 Beartrice takes this as an opportunity to call La Veuve a whore who does not have children and is unable to “keep a man.”287 This prompts La Veuve to plot revenge as she predicts that although Beartrice “may be the wealthiest colored woman in New Orleans,” her “house built on sand, lies, and dead bodies will soon fall.”288 Since defeating her would be both a personal and financial victory, it is La Veuve’s

“greatest wish to snatch Beartrice Albans down from her high horse, take this home from her tight embrace and watch her die penniless and pathetic in some prison like the rat she is.” 289 La Veuve’s grudge against Beartrice illustrates the cut-throat social competition mixed-race women endured by necessarily relying on the preferences of selective White suitors for financial security, a rift that is later duplicated between Beartrice’s mixed-race daughters.

Each of Beartrice’s daughters represent various characteristics and personalities of the mulatta trope including sad, strategic, and romantic. After Lazare’s death, Maude Lynn (maudlin) is excessively inconsolable and “overwhelmed with grief,” common characteristics of “the tragic mulatta,” sans suicide.290 Odette describes Maude Lynn as “so full of sorrow, her legs can’t carry her

284 Gardley, 20-21. 285 Gardley, 9. 286 Gardley, 16. 287 Gardley, 13-15, 18-19. 288 Gardley, 20. 289 Gardley, 9. 290 Gardley, 10; See previous definition of “tragic mulatta” on pgs. 4-5. 111 and her heavy heart,” and Beartrice scolds her for self-indulgent and “incessant weeping,” in front of company.291 While Odette believes that their father “was sinful but did good deeds,” Agnès contends that he “barely knew” them, and treated them “like porcelain dolls with empty heads… he knew the value of bodies and blood and good breeding; he was our patron and in some ways we were his greatest possession.”292 Since Odette is “yearning to fall in love,” she also resents her mother forbidding them to attend the ball, stating that they “might as well be prisoners.”293 While

Maude Lynn uses religion to dismiss lustful indulgencies, both Agnès and Odette show mulatta tendencies in desiring a relationship that is respectively prohibited and doomed to fail. Collectively, the sisters simultaneously exemplify and complicate traditional traits of the mulatta figure with

Maude Lynn as depressed but religious, Agnès as seductive but ambitious, and Odette as scorned but optimistic.

However, the sisters’ personalities clash and they argue about whether the quadroon ball is beneficial. Unfortunately, while the sisters fight over who will and will not attend the ball in order to gain access to the men (and the financial means or potential for love they represent), they end up chasing the same man and destroying one another’s hopes. Maude Lynn is chaste and obedient to her mother by not attending. Odette hopes attending will help her find the love she desires. As the eldest, Agnès feels responsible for her sisters’ future and her plan to attend the ball and find a suitor is financially focused. Agnès sees her opportunity to secure her role as placée after receiving a love letter in church from wealthy White suitor Ràmon Le Pip, asking her to meet him at the ball.294

While Odette finds the letter romantic, Maude Lynn judges Ràmon for ripping pages out of a holy hymnal to write “Agnès a letter like she was a harlot.”295 Beartrice is also dismayed at Ràmon’s late

291 Gardley, 10, 14. 292 Gardley, 11. 293 Gardley, 17. 294 Gardley, 15. 295 Gardley, 23. 112 church entrance and lack of racial decorum by having the “nerve to sit in the colored section like he forgot he was white.”296 Though she disregards Beartrice’s warnings, Agnès is like her mother as the most headstrong and vocal of the sisters and is forthright about their need to “find a white man with good blood and good fortune, bed him and take all his money.”297 Agnès expresses concern that the

United States will change the fortune and privileged status of mixed-race women in New Orleans.

She states, “We must show the world why men come from France to sell their hearts to free colored women… before Yankees come with their savage slave laws and rule New Orleans like cattlemen.

We’re Creoles: we must be vigilant yet gentile.”298 Though Odette agrees to impersonate their mother and sign Agnès’ papers to be Ràmon’s placée, she recalls that “Maman say being a placée ain’t much different from being a slave” while Agnès, who ironically shares her mother’s flair for criticism, calls Beartrice “a hypocrite [who] would be nothing if she wasn’t a placée.”299 Though their different opinions illustrate complexity in mulatta representation, they also set the tone for sibling rivalry.

As the sisters of close age but different skin tone prepare for the ball, complexion becomes a contentious comparison that reveals how colorism can destroy family relationships. Agnès “is the color of butter,” and the eldest daughter at nineteen, Maude Lynn, “is white as milk” and the middle child at eighteen, and Odette “is brown as oatmeal” and the youngest at sixteen.300 Their disagreement about whether the ball advantages mulatta women erupts into a harsh colorist exchange as the pursuit of money and affection respectively pit Agnès and Odette against each other. Agnès uses blunt insults to educate Odette on the realities of “the grown-up world,” determining that her brown skin tone is “the family stain” that is too dark to attract a White man’s

296 Gardley, 15-16. 297 Gardley, 12. 298 Gardley, 12. 299 Gardley, 31-32. 300 Gardley, 2, 10. 113 attention.301 She states: You’re dark, Odette. You’ve got more brown than the paper bag. This means you wear the stain in our blood that we so desperately try to hide […] you are beautiful […] but you are black. And that means you have no choice in life.302 Agnès articulates the basic tenants of colorist idealism that distinguish her from her sister and divide their family.303 Upon returning from the ball, the sisters argue because Odette flirted with Ràmon who “seemed to think [she] was beautiful,” though Agnès contends it was only because her mask covered her dark skin tone.304

Beartrice punishes Odette for betraying Agnès and risking their livelihood by cutting her hair. This triggers her physical insecurities about her Black features as she states, “My hair was the best part of me… I’m not myself without my hair. I’m black and ugly.”305 Odette’s statement mirrors previous iterations of the mulatta stereotype such as Negro Sarah of Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) who expresses self-hatred about her kinky hair and other typically Black features.306 However, Makeda convinces her that “Black ain’t never been ugly.”307 Though all three sisters are mulattas, Odette’s darker skin compared with her lighter siblings makes her an outsider amongst outsiders.

Accomplishments or A Series of Unfortunate Events?

The aftermath of the ball irreparably divides the sisters and proves counterproductive to their economic and romantic goals. Nonetheless, it demonstrates how Beartrice, Agnès, and Odette each channel qualities of the desperate mulatta stereotype in their pursuit of means and favorable relationships. Beartrice is furious when she discovers that Agnès and Odette have tied Maude Lynn

301 Marcus Gardley, The House That Will Not Stand (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), 32. 302 Ibid. 303 Kerr, 282; Some venues in New Orleans and elsewhere allowed entry only to those that were lighter than a physical paper bag while others implied using a similar entry system for measuring skin tone without a physical paper bag visible. 304 Gardley, 48. 305 Gardley, 55. 306 Adrienne Kennedy, Funnyhouse of a Negro: A Play in One Act (Samuel French, Inc., 1969). 307 Gardley, 55. 114 up and snuck out to secure Agnès’s status as Ràmon’s placée. However, Beartrice’s soon learns that regardless of Lazare leaving her everything in writing,

the laws have already changed. And, according to US law, a colored mistress can’t be

given assets over a white widow. Even if it’s writ in the deceased’s will. Even if he

has children with the colored mistress and none with his wife. The widow still gets

everything ‘cause her skin is the real currency and mine seems to be losing value as

the days go by… Which means I have nothing.308

Since her plans to protect and provide for her daughters are destroyed, Beartrice is hopeful that

Agnès’ placée status has earned them six hundred dollars, enough to maintain their home, but it is rendered void the next morning when Odette and Ràmon run off together after Maude Lynn and

Beartrice find them having sex. Therefore, Odette’s claim “If we can’t lean on each other then we’re all doomed to fail,” proves hypocritical since she prioritizes her own romantic interests over her sisters’ needs.309 Though Beartrice and Agnès were relentless and cruel in their pursuit of financial stability, they walk into an uncertain future as spiritual axis Maude Lynn leaves the house “to seek

[her] own soul’s salvation.”310 Even when their families and financial means are devastated, these women refuse to follow the path of the nineteenth-century tragic mulatta; they do not commit suicide. Instead, Beartrice and her daughters resign themselves to be “tough” and seek opportunity despite their uncertain fates.311

Yet Beartrice’s mulatta privilege required dependency on a wealthy White partner and ultimately proved detrimental to her family as it was ineffectively emulated by Agnès, damaged

Odette, and caused Maude Lynn to abandon them. The conflicts between Beartrice and her three

308 Gardley, 35. 309 Gardley, 10. 310 Gardley, 66. 311 Ibid. 115 daughters illustrate how “plaçage pits women against one another [and] creates a false sense of privilege and self-worth related to their value for white men; they literally enslave one another.”312 These circumstances reiterate that despite the form and characteristics mulatta figures take, they rarely achieve success or lasting happiness.

The tragic conclusion of The House That Will Not Stand illustrates both economic disadvantage for people of color and how a mulatta woman during slavery— even in New

Orleans— was worth no more than her skin tone and sponsor. Beatrice’s pursuit of superficial means rendered her cruel and though she attributes her demeanor to the desire to save her children from the same fate, her uncompromising attitude alienated her from her family. Agnès abuses her sisters as she attempts to imitate her mother’s success by establishing a financially beneficial relationship with Ràmon. Maude Lynn is the most depressed about her father’s passing and distances herself after being betrayed by her sisters. And though Odette finds romance with

Ràmon, her skin tone will prohibit their marriage. Since colorist behaviors were not confined to the nineteenth-century, Gardley utilizes the identity struggles of mixed-race female characters to reveal lingering hegemonic attitudes that continue to self-inflict the Black community and demonstrate the pertinence of mulatta representation in the present day. Thus, Agnès’ horrible statement that

Odette’s “dark skin is a stain” unfortunately represents the toxic mindset of colorism and self- hatred within the Black community. As Gardley illustrates, racism and consequently colorism have a real-life impact on women of color which holds true today.

The House That Will Not Stand Brings Colorism into the Contemporary

The female characters in The House That Will Not Stand demonstrate colorism in ways that persist in the contemporary United States and affect the way mixed-race people view

312 Chirico, 620. 116 themselves against societal perceptions. Harmful discrimination within the Black community did not end with paper-bag tests in the nineteenth-century ballrooms of New Orleans. Partiality for light skin and “good” hair illustrates how the history of slavery and plaçage continues to haunt perceptions of beauty and privilege that disproportionately affect Black women of darker hues. Despite Beartrice’s greatest efforts to separate her daughters from a lifestyle of male dependence, they allow colorism, lust, and monetary gain to fracture their bond.

Nevertheless, they characterize a unique era of women who began to challenge the sullen and suicidal mulatta stereotype in subtle ways as they strategize to formulate relationships and exercise agency and voice within their environment.

In film Dear White People, contemporary mulatta Sam White embraces the philosophical approach that her mixed-race makes her Black. Though she grapples some with self-identity, her radio show directs most of her racial frustration at White people and she socially aligns herself with Black people. Through film, she exposes racism on campus and beyond, progressively considering various methods of activism to encourage diversity efforts on campus. While her interracial relationships complicate her Black persona, she navigates how to convey an authentic appreciation for her complete and multifaceted identity as a mixed-race woman. Sam learns to simultaneously critique and embrace her Black and White heritage in constructive and creative ways.

The Mixed-Race Millennial: Sam Self-Defines, Explores Love, and Starts a Race Riot

in Justin Simien’s Dear White People

Contemporary Mixed-Race Representation Addressed to a White Audience

Like its predecessor School Daze (1988), Dear White People portrays racism within a university, though it certainly transcends this setting to reveal how issues like enduring stereotypes and racially

117 motivated violence are often mishandled or silenced in American society. As evidenced by the students’ racial divisive eruption at blackface party of the film’s conclusion. Dear White People is narrated by Sam, a mixed-race film student and radio host for whom race is always a present factor since living arrangements and many aspects of her university experience are segregated.

Though Sam’s inner conflict about her bi-racial identity is not traditionally tragic, she demonstrates undeniable characteristics of a mixed-race outsider by struggling to choose a side, but mostly deprivileges her Whiteness to relate with the Black community at her university. Her radio show is known for beginning its provocative statements of unapologetic

Blackness about race and stereotypes with the phrase “Dear White People…” Similarly, her films, which are often self-indulgent and unpopular amongst her classmates, attempt to challenge representation and disrupt the status quo. Typical of a mulatta character, Sam struggles with whom to date and how to consistently present herself. She has a very private physical relationship with Gabe, a White graduate student from her film class and a public one with Reggie, a Black radical and leader of the Black Student Union. Sam intermittently has sensitive phone conversations with and about her White father, whose health is suffering, and purposefully keeps her interracial family origin as lowkey as her interracial relationship since both would disrupt her public persona as a Black revolutionary. As a mixed-race millennial in the present day, Sam adheres to the mulatta stereotype in struggling to cope with her racial identity and romantic partnerships, but uses radio, film, and activism as well as her work to own and define her Blackness.

An independent film developed by screenwriter and director Justin Simien, Dear White

People (2014) was among the top three highest-grossing films that premiered at the 2014

Sundance Film Festival and won other collective and individual awards.313 The film received

313 “Sundance 2014,” Box Office Mojo, 2014. 118 “generally favorable reviews” from critics and is noted for its introspective tale of about racial identity.314 Variety reporter Justin Chang claims that Dear White People “provokes admiration for having been bothered to ask some of the hard questions without pretending to know any of the answers,” while IndieWire’s Zeba Blay says that “the movie doesn’t presume to encompass the entirety of what it means to be black, but it does give one of the most entertaining and honest depictions of black life in a so-called ‘white’ world in years.”315

Through Sam, the atypical mulatta protagonist, the film shares a perspective about mixed-race identity that is often missing in dominant racial discourse. Dear White People depicts a contemporary mixed-race woman’s path to self-identity through relationships and activism as she challenges many of the characteristics typically associated with the mulatta stereotype. As Sam confronts racial issues at her university, she exerts autonomy over her representation, discovers her ideal romantic relationship, and exposes the need for change in the racial politics of popular culture.

In Defense of Her Race: Sam Self-Defines Her Racial Identity

One of the most obvious mulatta characteristics is Sam’s complexion and physical appearance in which she emphasizes her Black features. Though the country still grapples with race issues, embracing mixed-race and/or non-White attributes without legal discrimination is a privilege that was unavailable to mulatta slaves and White passing figures of previous eras.

The film script itself describes Sam as follows, “Despite her light skin, the Afro pic in her fro pompadour leaves little doubt she identifies as Black.” 316 While her skin tone and hair texture

314 “Dear White People (2014), “Rotten Tomatoes; “Dear White People (2014),” Metacritic. 315 Justin Chang, “Sundance Film Review: ‘Dear White People’” Variety, 19 January 2014; Zeba Blay, “Sundance Film Review: ‘Dear White People’ (A Cinematic Answer To The Year of The ‘Race-Themed’ Film),” IndieWire, 18 January, 2014. 316 Justin Simien, Dear White People, np. 119 suggest that she may be mixed-race, she manipulates her hair into natural updos and uses strategic clothes and accessories like a camo jacket, pyramid eye t-shirt, Egyptian ankh necklace, and various hats and head scarfs to present herself as a Black radical. In terms of overall style, Sam “wears clothes from the fifties and hairstyles from the sixties”— prevalent eras of civil rights activism featuring revolutionary figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm

X, and Huey P. Newton— and presents as a woman of color who feels comfortable among both her artistic community among other film students and her socially conscious friend group from the Black student union.317 Since her skin tone, hair, and other visible markers could potentially lead people to question her identity, Sam’s physical presentation honors

Black history and culture, hoping to mask the fact that she is also internally struggling to define herself. When she accuses her White boyfriend Gabe of wanting to be “down” and prove his knowledge of Black culture, he even asks her, “How long does it take you to get your hair like that,” calling her own motives of representation into question. 318 Though she is more mentally stable and assertive than Negro Sarah of Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964), Sam characterizes the identity conflict light skinned mixed-race women endure in the present day amidst persistent colorism and racism.

Sam opposes the historical tradition that critiques light skinned women about their racial identity and representation by aligning herself with other Black students through her film and radio work. Her radio broadcast titled “Dear White People” challenges dominant

White culture and White privilege. She opens the show with provocative political assertions, stating, “Dear White People, apparently Morgan Freeman in ‘Deep Impact’ wasn’t enough.

Despite two terms, Obama could cure cancer and somewhere White folks will be embroiled in

317 Simien, np. 318 Ibid. 120 protest. And he’s only half Black.”319 This statement also engages with Sam’s mixed-race identity and suggests that people of Black and White heritage will never please or completely fit into either race. When Sam’s White boyfriend Gabe calls in and poses the question, “What would you say if someone started a ‘Dear Black People,’” to which she responds, “No need.

Mass media from Fox News to reality tv on VH1 makes it clear what White people think of us.”320 Her use of the term “us” is important in signifying her Black identity and loyalty. She goes on to note two prominent issues in this exchange: first, that some White people do not recognize their privilege and attempt to compare their social status to that of Blacks by demanding things like White history month and grant, scholarship, and job opportunities specifically for Whites; and second, that mass media represents Black people as stereotypical caricatures. Though Gabe likely asked his question to spark debate rather than offense, it disregards three centuries of free labor and horrific abuse Blacks suffered when entering this country as slaves, the consequences of which many Black people continue to struggle with in the present day. Sam’s response clearly articulates the ways Black stereotypes and harmful assumptions manifest in popular culture, like my overall intention for this study on how character portrayals inform Black female representation. With her radio show, Sam effectively voices her opinion about misguided media images and formulates her own identity, offering a new and empowered interpretation of mixed-race womanhood.

Sam’s broadcast allows her to simultaneously claim culturally Black behavior and assess cultural appropriation, demonstrating her own supposed confidence in her racial identity. Sam’s critique of White privilege extends beyond mass media into deconstructing the once popular notion that the United States is/was a “post racial” society. She states, “Dear White People, I am here to

319 Ibid. 320 Ibid. 121 burst your post-racial little bubble… Yes, Oprah may have her own network, but Ann Coulter is still writing best sellers, Black kids are still getting shot for wearing hoodies, and even here the few vestiges of Black culture are under attack by conservative groups, trustees, and our very own

President Fletcher.”321 Though she has previously had tense conversations with university administration about her racially charged rhetoric and critique of systematic policies on the radio,

Sam continues her relentless pursuit to expose injustice. She confronts cultural appropriation, such as White people’s use of Black phrases like “Bye Felisha,” dances like twerking and the nae nae, and otherwise culturally specific material like greeting handshakes. She states, “When encountering a

Black person, try and stay calm. Don’t say things like ‘what’s up’ and ‘my brotha.’ That’s not how you normally talk.”322 Though her words may seem like harsh cultural policing, she reveals the common practice of Whites claiming Black culture as their own and/or making assumptions about how to interact with Blacks when they are not usually part of their friend group. While the mulatta is usually made to feel uncomfortable in her own skin, Sam’s dialogue flips the critique to examine dominant White culture instead.

Though Sam’s radio show makes her seem comfortable in her own skin, the volatility of her personal relationships suggests that this is not true for much of the film. In traditional stories like

The Octoroon (1859), a White suitor had a White wife or girlfriend and the mulatta was the second (or third) woman in his life, even if she was portrayed as his true love. In Dear White People, it is Sam— the mixed-race woman—who has multiple partners. Sam’s physical presentation, personality, and behavior prove complex facets of her mixed-race identity which make maintaining romantic

321 Ibid. 322 Ibid; Malcolm D. Lee, Erica Rivinoja, Kenya Barris, and Tracy Oliver, Girls Trip, np, In summer 2017’s hit Black female comedy film Girl’s Trip, TV personality Ryan Pierce similarly approaches her assistant about cultural appropriation, stating: “I say this out of love. Please refrain from saying things like ‘Preach’ and ‘Go girl,’ ‘Bye Felisha,’ ‘Ratchet,’ and any other colloquialisms that you may have heard or looked up on Urban Dictionary.”322 Though Ryan’s assistant pretends to understand, she then says, “have fun on your hashtag black girl magic weekend… girl bye!” Her comical disregard for Ryan’s words reiterates Sam’s point about White people using culturally Black phrases that they would not otherwise say, and likely ones Sam feels the need to claim as a Black woman. 122 relationships difficult. Sam seemingly epitomizes the mulatta’s dilemma of being caught between two sides as she is simultaneously dating a Black boyfriend publicly and a White boyfriend privately. Though she appears to be in a monogamous relationship with the Black radical

Reggie, “the only single eligible brother on campus,” who fits her public persona and radio show’s militant approach, she also sleeps with White filmmaker Gabe, who seems to be her true match based on artistic interests and personality.323 With Reggie, Sam pretends to School Daze and is annoyed that he smokes weed, calling him a stereotype. Though he adores her, Sam’s demeanor is often cold or hesitant around him and their only real connection seems to be tackling racial activism on campus. As the teaching assistant for Sam’s film class, Gabe piques her interest by giving her work constructive criticism and being able to discuss their favorite films. However, Gabe grows tired of being Sam’s secret and while Reggie is waiting outside her door to attend a housing rally,

Gabe confronts her about feeling like she has to “pick a side.”324 He states “I’m tired of your tragic mulatto bullshit, Sam… I’m sorry if I can’t be your Nubian prince on my black horse ready to take you back to fucking Zamunda…”325 Though they briefly laugh at the Coming to America reference, their largely tense conversation leads Gabe to walk out to Reggie’s surprise. Once Gabe opens the door, he exposes Sam’s double life and compromises her Black identity and relationship with

Reggie. Sam then has to decide how to move forward and present herself authentically, no longer the Black revolutionary she has portrayed herself.

Spokeswoman or Revolutionary? Sam Takes on University Racism

Sam is fueled by the acceptance and power she receives within the Black campus community when proving her dedication to racial issues. Unlike previous mulatta iterations that are trying to

323 Simien, np. 324 Ibid. 325 Ibid. 123 prove their worth or belonging amongst Whites, Sam uses activism to critique White people and establish her allegiance to Blacks. She successfully runs for Head of House (dorm) elections against the politically inclined Troy, her former boyfriend and son of the university dean. As the newly appointed president of Armstrong/Parker, the predominately Black dorm, Sam gets into a heated argument with entitled White fraternity president, Kurt, son of the university president. Annoyed at his misunderstanding of White privilege, Sam ultimately demands that he and his fraternity are no longer able to eat in the Black dorm’s dining hall. Feeling empowered by the thunderous applause of her entourage, she also throws out Black nerd Lionel for good measure since he is a resident at the predominately White frat dorm with Kurt. Though excluding a Black student simply for his loose association with her opposers was misguided, Sam is again reversing the typical judgment a mulatta receives from both Blacks and Whites by setting and enforcing her own rules.

Uncharacteristic of the traditional mulatta, Sam seems fortunate and confident due to her creative endeavors through film and radio but not everyone is a fan. Her films are constantly controversial and unpopular amongst her classmates and disappointing to her cinema class professor; the room is usually silent with disapproval when they end. Similarly, President Fletcher grows tired of Sam’s criticism of him and the university’s mismanagement of race issues and is likely unhappy with her dining hall altercation with his son Kurt. He threatens her with probation and suspension, ends her house representative duties, cancels her radio show, warns her not to hold any more protests or demonstrations, and claims that the school does not have an intolerance problem except for her.326 Sam is furious that she is being singled out for expressing what she deems her fair opinion. She decides to hack Kurt’s fraternity site and sends out an invite for a Black themed

Halloween party. With the impression that it was leaked from his vault of offensive party ideas, Kurt reads the invite as a voiceover:

326 Simien, np. 124 Dear White People. Are you tired of your hum drum, Wonderbread existence of

accidental racism and wishing you could sip on Henny out yo crunk cup without a

Bitch giving you the side-eye? Course you are.

For all those looking to unleash their inner Negro from years of bondage and

oppression Pastiche proudly presents “Dear White People” our 89th annual Hallow’s

Eve Costume Party - tonight at 10 Pacific Time or 5 Colored People Time. Sorry for

the short notice, but let’s keep it one hun-ed. You’ve had us on your calendar for

weeks.

Dudes must rock FUBU, Ecko, Rocawear, or Sean John. XXXL is the smallest size

T-Shirt you can wear, preferably with a collage of Barack Obama and Tupac on it.

Stunner Shades, chains, and Blue-Tooth devices sticking out yo ears are also

encouraged.

Ladies, we need to see huge hoop earrings, long nails, and cheap tight clothes. A

proper hood rat starts fights, speaks loudly, and when she can't think of the word

she's trying to say just makes one up, such as “edumicated.” Feel free to fry up some

chicken, bring Kool-Aid, Watermelon, 40s, Henny, and of course Dat Purple Drank.

No bougie bitches allowed.

Naturally there will be a freestyle rap competition so bring it, get yo shine on and

join us for the party of the year! Oh and Nigga Nigga Nigga Nigga. Boy that felt

good.

The result is several White students showing up in blackface dressed as famous Black rappers, celebrities, and icons from Barack Obama to 2 Chainz with gaudy jewelry, urban clothing, watermelons, and other stereotypical paraphernalia, essentially following the incredibly detailed and obnoxious instructions laid out for them. This enrages Lionel who alerts other Black students and

125 they start a fight. When Dean Fairbanks suggests that Sam is behind the madness, she argues that the party and the offensive behavior it encouraged would not have happened if race was being handled and understood effectively. She states, “That invite, whoever sent it should’ve been met with derision and outrage. Instead, a hundred people showed up and they pulled out posters and decorations and costumes they’d made just for such an occasion.”327 Though a couple students are detained by campus police, the school mostly decides on campus reform versus punishment, including the Black housing dorm for which Sam was advocating. Ultimately, Sam’s manufactured party created a real-life racially charged environment to film evidence of her arguments about the injustice taking place at her university as well as many others. Her resultant documentary earned her a standing ovation in her film class and signified her finding both her artistic groove and contentment in her racial identity by exploring social issues.

By the film’s conclusion, Sam transcends her identity insecurities by embracing her mixed- race, White father, White boyfriend, and creating a well-received film about university racism. Her decreased defensiveness and vulnerability allow her to wit and creativity to shine. On her way to the student rally, Sam holds her ground against Dean Fairbanks who challenges her for

“overcompensating,” with her outspokenness on race issues.328 Though he triggered her insecurities, she leaves the rally without explanation when receiving an urgent call from her mother about her father’s health. Other than briefly telling her film professor that attending to her father’s illness is a reason her work is suffering in her class, Gabe is the only person with whom Sam shares personal details about her father’s condition. Though she initially claims that she is “tired of being everybody’s angry Black chick,” when Lionel approaches her to help intervene with the campus

Blackface party, Sam seizes the opportunity to film every bit of the debauchery (she staged) to the

327 Simien, np. 328 Ibid. 126 administration’s embarrassment and prove that prejudice exists. Her footage becomes fodder for an honest representation of race issues on campus which is uncharacteristically appreciated by her professor and her film class. After her successful film debut that Sam is able to be vulnerable and proudly walk around campus with Gabe, confident in her identity and no longer concerned about what people think of her. In this way, Sam utilizes her own skills and activism to shed light on university race issues and self-defines herself as a mixed-race woman in the contemporary era, representing a strong shift in representations of the mulatta trope.

Sam’s character illustrates a significant shift in the mulatta stereotype as she articulates agency over her voice and self-identity, defines the terms of her romantic relationships, and contests racism with art and activism. Even as she grapples with insecurities about her mixed- race background, Sam challenges the sadness and desperation typically associated with mulattas by working to replace these sentiments with ambition, strength, and activism in both her life and her creative endeavors. And just as important, her radio show and film project challenge the trope of the tragic mulatta by encouraging real-life conversations about race and identity in America.

Dear White People: How Was the Statement Received?

Dear White People’s success as an independent film spurred a Netflix-produced series (2017— present) of the same name with episodes directed by prominent Black directors including Moonlight’s

Barry Jenkins. While the lesser-known film received some criticism, its transition to a more accessible streaming series garnered backlash amongst many White people who subsequently boycotted, cancelled, or criticized Netflix for hosting a “racist,” “anti-White show that promotes white genocide.”329 The outpouring of criticism led other social media users to question if these

329 @Baked Alaska™, “Netflix announced a new anti-White show…” Twitter, 8 February 2017; @DofWinning 127 people were aware of the 2014 film version, stating, “The people boycotting Dear White People are sure going to be livid when they find out the movie version came out three whole years ago.”330

Another Twitter user comments that many people are missing the show’s point and taking offense unnecessarily: “Naturally, those who are backing #BoycottNetflix over ‘Dear White People’ are those who could learn the most from it. Always the way.”331 Disgruntled White millennials created a reactionary thread called “Dear Black People,” as if like Sam suggests, it does not already exist in our largely stereotypical and racially biased culture. Black Twitter users responded with sarcasm: “Dear

Black People… I’m sorry for our history of oppression and genocide,” and “…undermining your experiences with my racial privilege,” as well as listing issues of systemic oppression like unequal education, segregated housing, and imprisonment.332 These visceral reactions unveil how race relations still fester in the present, especially in the rise of White nationalist intimidation and hate crimes that followed the 2016 election and continue under the Trump administration, which promotes an agenda of racism and exclusion. Dear White People criticism also reveals the country’s persistent prejudices and the necessity for deeper conversations about race between races.

Has Time Ended the Mulatta’s Suffering?

Despite how social status has progressed for Blacks since the nineteenth century with resourceful mulattas like Beartrice, contemporary mixed-race women like Sam continue to define themselves against their traditional characteristics like indefinite identity and complicated family and romantic relationships. Gardley and Simien respectively explore these issues in The House that Will

330 @XLNB, “The people boycotting…” Twitter, 10 February 2017. 331 @notwaving, “Naturally, those who are backing…” Twitter, 8 February 2017. 332 @1942bs, “Dear Black People… I’m sorry for our history of oppression and genocide.” Twitter, 30 April 2017; @renatajun, “dear black people… i’m sorry for undermining your experiences with my racial privilege,” Twitter, 30 April 2017; @sheilae_, “Dear Black People, sorry for the systematic oppression we caused barring you from systematic oppression, housing, led you into the prison system,” Twitter, 30 April 2017; Tanya Finley, “‘Dear Black People’ Is The Perfect Show for ‘Dear White People’ Critics. Spoiler Alert: ‘Dear Black People’ Already Exists,” The Huffington Post, Black Voices, 3 May 2017. 128 Not Stand and Dear White People. As Black men, the creators effectively illustrate past and present struggles light-skinned and mixed-race women endure in their social, professional, and familial spaces. Their productions contend with previous illustrations that stereotypically portrayed a mulatta character as a solely selfish and embittered woman who has strained relationships with her partner and family. As principal characters in each case, these mulattas articulate their own opinions about their identity, family, and romantic relationships, and achievements.

Beartrice and Sam represent a contemporary approach to mulatta characters who respectively dwell in past and present time periods. Though Beartrice’s harsh colorist remarks and competitive demeanor are traits of a traditional mulatta, she reasons that because of the limited options for mixed-race women in the era, she had to make tough choices for the financial benefit and livelihood of her family. While slavery era iterations of the mulatta figure are usually rejected by or isolated from their family, Beartrice does everything in her power to keep hers together.

Unfortunately, her choices tragically affect her three daughters in the form of insecurity, selfishness, and depression, ruinous qualities of the mulatta stereotype. Even so, Beartrice subverts the helpless and suicidal tendencies of the mulatta trope, and through her cunning and maternal instincts, tries to prevent her daughters from relying on plaçage’s patriarchal support system. Sam of Dear White People fiercely promotes her Blackness through her radio and film projects while struggling to accept her

White identity through her ailing father and concealed boyfriend. As a college student, she defends her self-identity, particularly when dating someone racially different from her. With her opinions and activism about race issues, Sam reverses many aspects of established mulatta characterization by turning the mirror on society rather than herself. Comparatively, these characters’ experiences elucidate how the self-identity, family, love, and overall misfortune or accomplishments of the mulatta stereotype endure or have shifted according to period and circumstances. Considering the current landscape of society in which race and skin tone still largely define perception of individuals,

129 it is debatable whether the mulatta has completely escaped the tragic fate of defending her self- identity. However, there is a palatable difference in how legal racial equality has enabled Sam to achieve a level of independence Beartrice can only imagine. A noteworthy overlap in stereotypical characterization of the mulatta and mistress is utilizing a romantic or sexual relationship for financial freedom and autonomy, a concept I explore in the following chapter.

130 CHAPTER FIVE

THE EVOLUTION OF PROMISCUITY: FROM TRADITIONAL JEZEBEL TO NEW-AGE MISTRESS

1980s and 90s rap from Black male artists like NWA, Juvenile, Too Short, and Uncle Luke demoralized Black women in a trend that continues today. Respectively, their hip-hop songs and music videos for “Findum, Fuckum, and Flee,” “Back That Ass Up,” and “Blowjob Betty” influenced the vulgarity of modern hip-hop music. Specifically, Uncle Luke and 2 Live Crew’s 1995 track “Hoochie Mama,” includes close-ups of women in revealing swimwear shaking their butts

(twerking) while rappers’ lyrics diminish them to “hood rats” and criticize their status as single mothers.333 Music from the early 2000s, including R&B group Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” lyrics, similarly encourage men to “Never trust a big butt and a smile.”334 Rappers Ying Yang Twins,

Lil Jon, and Ludacris revert to vulgar lyrics and music videos for “Whistle While You Twurk,”

“Bend Ova,” and “Get Low” that degrade Black women’s character and reduce their bodies to sexual objects. Likewise, Nelly’s overtly lewd music video for “Tip Drill” focuses on nearly naked women and includes a credit card swipe between a dancer’s buttocks. Contemporary songs like Juicy

J’s “Bands a Make Her Dance,” French Montana’s “Pop That,” and Big Sean’s “Dance (Ass)” diminish Black women’s worth to the money or attention thrown at their backsides. Meanwhile, twerking has been appropriated and attempted by White female pop artists like Miley Cyrus at the

2013 MTV Awards and Taylor Swift in her 2014 “Shake It Off” music video while Black female dancers shake their behinds in the background. By exploiting these women’s bodies in similar fashion as rappers have for decades, these singers contribute to and reinforce the stereotype that oversexualizes Black women.

333 2 Live Crew: Uncle Luke, Fresh Kid Ice, Brother Marquis, and Mr. Mixx. Hoochie Mama (Los Angeles: Priority Records, 1995). 334 Bell Biv Devoe, Poison (Chicago: MCA Records, 2001). 131 In recent years, Black women have articulated conscious reclamation of their bodies and image. In her “Partition” music video, for example, singer Beyoncé performs a risqué routine for a male onlooker while rapper Nicki Minaj illustrates several sexual innuendos in her

“Anaconda” music video. Though these mediums promote sexualized images of Black women, the artists are part of the writing and visual conceptualization that determines how they are presented in the videos. In this way, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj articulate their own attitudes about their sexual behavior enabling outside forces to determine it for them. Former porn star and video vixen Karrine Steffans has capitalized on her image as “Superhead” to provide sexual advice in books and organized talks. Adult models and former strippers Amber Rose and Blac

Chyna emphasize their butts in photoshoots and social media posts for admiration from millions of followers. Yet despite utilizing their bodies to promote or revive their careers, these female celebrities and socialites control their sexual representation themselves instead of allowing others to force it upon them. Specifically, by emphasizing physical features that once made them oddities, Black female entertainers are embracing and normalizing public appreciation for bodies that were once degraded rather than appreciated. And although these women have maintained relationships with men in the entertainment industry, their accomplishments as influencers and role models for women’s sexual liberation largely enable their socioeconomic independence.

Though contemporary entertainers from Beyoncé to Blac Chyna have helped positively shift perspectives about female sexuality, Black women remain connected with their historical humiliation. How did Black women become the objects of such degradation in the first place?

Upon arriving in the United States as slaves, many Black women were forced into sexual partnerships with slave masters in which their bodies were exhibited and abused. White slave owning men constructed the myth that African slave women were hypersexual beings to

132 disregard their lack of consent and justify raping them.335 Over time, some slave women utilized this otherwise abusive relationship for potential social and financial benefit as well as to offset their exploitation. As one historical example of this phenomenon, though her motivations and perspective on the relationship are not recorded, Sally Hemings lived an atypically comfortable life as Thomas Jefferson’s mistress and mother to six of his children. 336

However, slavery-era history renders it difficult, if not impossible, for Black women to escape traditional subjectivity because of figures like Saartjie Baartman, a South African woman who was exploited by European entertainers and exhibitionists. 337 Saartjie’s supposedly large posterior was emphasized in a freak show act and made her a scientific curiosity which has influenced how popular culture represents Black women in disparaging and hypersexualized ways in the present day. Even the highly educated and respected, former-First Lady Michelle

Obama was diminished to a “fat butt” “baby mama,” by broadcast journalists from FOX News, though her accolades far outweigh the size of her rear or rearing abilities.338 Unfortunately, a history of falsehood and disgrace informs even well-intentioned images of Black female sexuality, and these representations trickle down to haunt Black women as they go about their lives.

Plays and films similarly represent Black women as sexual mistresses despite their occupation or economic status. Here, I briefly recall dramatic works from chapter two that characterize stereotypical qualities of the mistress trope. During slavery, the mistress stereotype was associated with exotic, primitive, and bestial tendencies which made Black women erotic

335 Thelma Jennings, “Us Colored Women Had to Go Though A Plenty:” Sexual Exploitation of African-American Slave Women Journal of Women's History 1 no. 3 (1990): 45. 336 Joshua D. Rothman, Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787–1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 18,19. 337 Nina Cartier, “Black Women On-Screen as Future Texts: A New Look at Black Pop Culture Representations,” Cinema Journal 53, no. 4 (2014): 155; Clifton C. Crais and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton University Press, 2009). 338 Krissah Thompson, “Michelle Obama’s Posterior Again the Subject of Public Rant,” The Washington Post, February 4, 2013; David Bauder, “Fox News Refers to Michelle Obama as ‘Baby Mama,’” The Associated Press, June 12, 2008.

133 oddities. Though Black women of all skin tones were privy to the stereotype, this phenomenon was especially exaggerated when characterized by hypersexual mulatta characters in early drama like mulatta slaves Cassie and Emmeline of play Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) who are harassed by their master Simon Legree. They resist his advances by running away to seek freedom and control over their bodies. In subsequent eras, mistresses were “immoral” beings whose behavior treaded the fine line between “sexually liberated and sexual object.” 339 In

Porgy and Bess (1935), “loose” woman Bess balances relationships with three men including

Porgy for economic security.340 Similarly, Carmen Jones (1943) escapes a trip to prison by charming a engaged army officer Joe who falls in love with her while she entertains other relationships.341 These characters also demonstrate how Black women with overt or unrestrained sexuality appear desperate and money-hungry. In modern representation, the mistress stereotype retains traits like sexual deviancy, dark-skin, attractive features, and a physically fit figure. For instance, Nola of She’s Gotta Have It (1986), who has three male suitors and a lesbian lover, neither conforms to a monogamous or heterosexual relationship.342

Because Black female characters on stage and screen frequently have unusual sexual preferences and endless availability, my research chiefly addresses how the preservation or progression of the mistress stereotype influences contemporary Black female representation. I explore how characters Sara and Saartjie in Voyeurs de Venus and Patsey in 12 Years A Slave reveal enduring and evolving qualities of the mistress stereotype.

339 Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen; West, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire,” 294-295; Anderson, Mammies No More, 86-87. 340 Ray Allen, “An American Folk Opera? Triangulating Folkness, Blackness, and Americaness in Gershwin and Heyward's Porgy and Bess,” Journal of American folklore 117, no. 465 (2004): 246. 341 Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 87; Ironically, Dorothy Dandridge, played the leading role in the film adaptations for both Porgy and Bess (1959) and Carmen Jones (1954), and “was promoted as Hollywood’s first African American leading lady” but because she was “trapped within the old Hollywood formulas and stereotypes,” her career further demonstrates how Black women are typecast in theatre and in real life. The film version of Carmen Jones (1954) was remade in 2001 as Carmen: A Hip-Hopera with pop singer Beyoncé Knowles as the lead. 342 Ibid. 134 Considering the trajectory of the mistress stereotype from jezebel slave to non- committing and conniving vixen, I assess how the principal characters in Lydia Diamond’s

Voyeurs de Venus play (2006) and John Ridley’s 12 Years a Slave film (2013) take ownership of their relationships and identities and attempt to balance their sexual availability. These characters’ independence, or lack thereof, plays a major role in their attempt to contest their sexual exploitation. Sarah of Voyeurs de Venus appears conflicted about her marriage and pursues a sexual relationship with her editor while authoring a text about exploited slave Saartjie. While

Sara has choices about her affairs and sexual partners, Saartjie is forced into one-sided relationships with cruel handlers who objectify and control her body. In 12 Years a Slave,

Patsey endures ongoing, nonconsensual abuse at the hands of Master Epps, but eventually learns to navigate his affections for her to find some relief from the other traumas of the plantation.

As they traverse representation past and present, these dramatic works reveal how

Black women characters are harassed and socially ostracized due to the perception of their sexual behavior, regardless of income, education, and occupation. While Patsey and Saartjie struggle with powerlessness in the slavery era, they push the limitation of their time to explore what options they have beyond exploitation. Though Sarah has much more agency in her life and relationships as an author in the present day, her sexual behavior likens her to slave predecessors whose coital encounters were forced upon them. Although all of these characters are demoralized by and for their sexual encounters, they find ways to utilize their relationships to either make their victimized existence less painful or employ their bodies for greater personal benefit.

135 History Repeats Itself: Sara and Saartjie Amalgamate Time in their Representation,

Relationships, and Resistance to Stereotypes

Mistress Characters Sara and Saartjie Conflate Past and Present

Voyeurs de Venus debuted with Chicago Dramatists in 2006 and has since been produced regionally in cities like Boston, Miami, and Washington, DC. Jenna Scherer of The Boston Herald regards it an, “ambitious play that covers the historical and the contemporary, the academic and the obscene, the metaphysical and the mundane, the sweetly funny and the deadly serious.”343 The play blends realism and surrealism as it follows anthropologist Sara’s literary study of African captive

Saartjie Baartman, which surprisingly uncovers resemblances to her own life and makes it challenging to finish the story. Sara is a rising author and academic at odds with her personal identity, which causes her outbursts and infidelity, typical of a mistress and angry, Black female. Her subject, Saartjie, is exploited for her supposedly unique body and physical features, thus made into a sexual object for onlookers and mistress to her employers. Through Sara and Saartjie, Voyeurs de

Venus bridges disparate eras to suggest that representation issues persist for Black women in the present day.344

During the early nineteenth century, real-life figure Saartjie Baartman was misled into leaving

South Africa for performance opportunities in Europe, but instead became a spectacle called the

“Hottentot Venus” in freak shows and risqué exhibitions. Attracted by her large behind and genitalia, the Hottentot Venus, White men were her primary audience. In 1810, naturalist William

Bullock entertained including Saartjie in his Museum of Natural Curiosities in Liverpool, England, before she was acquired by military men, Hendrik Cesars and Alexander Dunlop, and exhibited at

343 Jenna Scherer, “‘Voyeurs’ Makes It Hard to Turn Away,” Boston Herald, November 4, 2008.

344 James T. Wooten, “Compact Set Up for ‘Post‐Racial’ South,” The New York Times. October 5, 1971; “Dobbs Calls on Listeners to Rise Above ‘Partisan and Racial Element That Dominates Politics,’” Media Matters for America, November 12, 2009. 136 the Piccadilly circus in London and throughout Europe.345 By 1814, she was sold to a French animal trainer and became an artistic muse and scientific curiosity as she posed nearly nude in exhibitions at the Palais Royal and across France.346 By 1815, in her mid-twenties, the constant abuse and sexualization of Saartjie’s body led to her poor health and untimely death. After her death, she was dissected by French doctor Georges Cuvier. Saartjie’s remains and replicas of her body were subsequently displayed in a French museum until the late 20th century when South African president

Nelson Mandela was successfully granted their return to her homeland. Saartjie’s story is one of many tales in which African women were enslaved and exploited into their graves.

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus (1996) is the predecessor to Voyeurs de Venus. In Parks’s version,

Sarah exposes herself to a large audience and has an affair with a married doctor who sexually and scientifically abuses her body. The play dramatizes the historical colonization of Saartjie

Baartman’s body as a sexual object controlled by white desire, though the play attempts to reveal her intricate personality that contrasts with the one-dimensionality she was afforded in her lifetime.347 Though Parks presents a “reconstructed representation” of Saartjie Baartman and provides insight on the trajectory of her life, her version of the story focuses on illustrating

Baartman’s degradation.348 Contrastingly, Lydia Diamond’s Voyeurs de Venus utilizes characters from the past and present to reconcile how to tell Saartjie’s story in a different way.

In Diamond’s Voyeurs de Venus, anthropologist and author Sara is consumed by the parallels between the life of her subject, Saartjie Baartman, the involuntary African female exhibitionist, and her own. By blending time and temperament, the play reveals how Sara and Saartjie both grapple

345 Clifton C. Crais; Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography. (Princeton University Press, 2009), 131-134; Sadiah Qureshi, “Displaying Sara Baartman, the ‘Venus Hottentot,’” History of Science. 42, no. 136 (June 2004): 233– 257. 346 Ibid. 347 Sanya Osha, “Venus and White Desire,” Transition 99, no. 1 (2008): 80. 348 Jean Young, “The Re-Objectification and Re-Commodification of Saartjie Baartman in Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus,” African American Review 31, no. 4 (1997): 702. 137 with their representation in their respective eras.349 Diamond describes Saartjie as “a brown-skinned, voluptuously proportioned African woman… who wisely hides her extremely overlooked intelligence behind a mask of apparent contentment.”350 Channeling Diamond’s own dilemma, Sara struggles with how to properly dramatize Saartjie’s life. In the play, Saartjie’s ghost haunts her and causes her to examine her own life. Bored with her husband, James Bradford, Sarah entertains an affair with her editor, James Booker; she explores her romantic options in different partners while multiple partners were forced on Saartjie. Saartjie recalls being abused by three male characters including English doctor Alexander Dunlop, museum director William Bullock, and French doctor

Georges Cuvier. As both women seek personal fulfillment in their respective eras, they contemplate how these relationships might benefit them. Though Sara has much more social freedom than

Saartjie and wants to positively shift conversations about Black female sexuality, she finds herself having to further damage Saartjie’s reputation to advance her career. In this way, the relationship between Saartjie and Sara reveals enduring qualities of Black mistress characters, demonstrating the hard choices that these women had to make in the midst of abuse and extraordinary pressure from the men in their lives, and what it might mean to advance at the expense of other Black women.

Despite Inhabiting Disparate Eras, Saartjie and Sara Lack Agency over Representation

Though Saartjie ultimately embraces a jezebel image in hopes that it will please Cuvier, her

“nonconfrontational demeanor” resolves her to primitive representation and oversexualization.351

Her first White “guardian,” English doctor Alexander Dunlop, reiterates the expectation that she

349 Jenna Scherer, “‘Voyeurs’ Makes It Hard to Turn Away,” Boston Herald, November 4, 2008; James T. Wooten, “Compact Set Up for ‘Post‐Racial’ South,” The New York Times. October 5, 1971; “Dobbs Calls on Listeners to Rise Above ‘Partisan and Racial Element That Dominates Politics,’” Media Matters for America, November 12, 2009. 350 Diamond, “Voyeurs de Venus,” (2006) in Contemporary Plays by African American Women, Ten Complete Works edited by Sandra Adell: 309-360 (University of Illinois Press, 2015), 311. 351 Ibid, 311. 138 suppress her intellect, stating it’s “Not important that you understand. Only that you do.”352 After calling Saartjie sorry and savage, Dunlop coaches her to verbally and physically entice onlookers as she “struggles into a very tight-fitting knee-length dress.”353 Soon afterwards, he interests museum director William Bullock in buying Saartjie, specifying that she is under his legal contract as a performer, rather than a slave, though she is caged and repeatedly called “property.”354 Her supposed ignorance is later parodied when she is dissected by zoologist Cuvier and his assistant

Millicent who is surprised to discover, “She had a brain” and thoughts.”355 Regarded a “well- behaved species” with an “impressive posterior,” who “can stand erect for long hours and lay on her back as sufficiently as anyone,” Dunlop, Cuvier, and Bullock’s statements reduce Saartjie to a sexual creature to be observed and abused.356

Because of her awareness of Saartjie’s representation, Sara constantly compares herself and contemplates how to represent her heart-wrenching history in a way that will honor her legacy rather than further exploit her. Sara’s African American present is influenced by Saartjie’s

African past. Throughout the play, Saartjie’s lingering spirit “won’t let [her] sleep” and haunts

Sara’s dreams with images of her dismembered body.357 The dream sequence features a chorus of

Black women “in white ball gowns, all stained with a circle of blood at crotch level… wearing afro wigs and carrying Venti Starbucks cups,” which bridges past and present symbols of female degradation.358 Having initially pitched her book about Saartjie’s life as “interesting, entertaining, disturbing, and fascinating,” the “grotesque” details including her abuse, objectification, and dissection make Sara question, “How do I write that?”359 Sara’s struggle to represent Saartjie, not

352 Ibid, 311, 313. 353 Ibid, 313-314. 354 Ibid, 320-321. 355 Ibid, 326. 356 Ibid, 320. 357 Ibid, 328. 358 Ibid, 327. 359 Ibid, 322-324. 139 just in a flattering way, but in any way at all, shows the difficulty Black women face when attempting to redefine the sexuality that was violently and fictitiously placed upon them.

Casual Dating or Arranged Partnerships: Saartjie and Sara Question the Status of their Relationships

Saartjie voices her dissatisfaction with her life and abusive sexual relationships.

Saartjie’s life as an exhibitionist implies that she only had physical relationships with the White men who abused her and that Black men were either in similarly degrading circumstances or not present.360 Saartjie describes being raped by the brothers of the Cezar family until the oldest got married because it would be easier to be rid of her. Afterwards, “they made arrangements with

Monsieur Dunlop,” to have her exhibited throughout Europe.361 Though Saartjie deems it affection and attention, “a condition of [her] existence that was sometimes tolerable,” her first sexual encounters typify the mistress stereotype that originated from the powerless position slave women endured under their masters. When Sara asks Saartjie about Cuvier, she defines their interaction as one of relations rather than a relationship in which she found him attractive to the extent that he was powerful.362 Though colonized Black women were the involuntary mistresses of their

White slave masters, some had the prowess to utilize that favoritism and sexual relationship to achieve autonomy within the confines of their environment. Unfortunately, Saartjie’s attempts at love were unrequited as the married Cuvier led her on, required her to have multiple abortions, and pursued her solely for exhibition and research purposes.

Sara is “more confident in her professional life than she is in her personal life,” and seems more interested in intellectual validation than affection from her White academic husband, James

360 bell hooks, “Reconstructing Black Masculinity,” Black Looks: Race and Representation (South End Press, 1992): 115-131; Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, Representation and Black Womanhood: The Legacy of Sarah Baartman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Deborah Willis, Black Venus 2010: They Called Her ‘Hottentot’ (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010). 361 Diamond, 323.

362 Ibid, 333. 140 Bradsford. Assuming the relationship would remain consensual, Sara has married someone she could have only seen in secret during Saartjie’s time, but seems unemotionally attached. Sara claims that she does not have “racial identity issues but lives in a culture that struggles with contradiction.”363 As if in symbolic resistance to the legacy of mistreatment Saartjie and other Black women encountered historically from White men, Sara is unfaithful to her White husband by engaging in a physical relationship with Black book editor James Booker, which she initially deems

“safe,” likely because of their racial sameness compared with her interracial marriage.364 Sara tries to rationalize the tryst as retribution, Saartjie’s chance to experience a sense of mutual love that she never received from a type of man to which she never had access. Her sexual encounter with

Booker is portrayed with the inclusion of Saartjie’s ghost and as a likely reckoning for her demeaned body and character. She explains:

There was no helpless about it. What sickens me is that I had my wits about me. I was not

seduced […] I made a choice. And the choice had been made when I said yes, I will give you

your book, and my soul, and my husband’s loyalty. I will hand it to you on a platter with my

soul, [Saartjie joins in,] “If you will make love to us.”365

However, that safety is threatened when the president of the board at her press party makes the tasteless remark “I would have paid to see that ass,” seemingly about Saartjie and the material in

Sara’s book. Sara is disgusted that as a bystander to the situation, Booker claims he “only fights the battles [he] thinks [he] can win,” and asks if he will “think less” of her for not being in the mood for sex.366 His casual attitude about their relationship is illustrated in his lines like, “I’ll think a little more of you if you bring that ass over here and give me some,” and like a willing mistress, Sara

363 Diamond, 319. 364 Ibid, 340. 365 Lydia R. Diamond, “Voyeurs de Venus,” 340. 366 Ibid, 341-342. 141 succumbs to his advances even after he proves himself unworthy.367 Her seemingly irrational promiscuity in this moment suggests that her desire for sex is more important than feeling respected in their relationship. In illustrating the parallels between Saartjie and Sara, Diamond’s play reveals the stark similarities history bears for Black women in the present whose sexual relationships still inform their socioeconomic reliance or independence. By linking Saartje and Sara, Diamond’s play demonstrates how Black women past and present either accept or assert their sexuality in relationships with men for financial benefit or societal freedom.

Perception Persists: Can Sara Change Saartjie’s History and Improve Her Own Future?

Though Saartjie was forced into her mistress role by White captors, she progressively asserts some independence over her representation as cultured and perceptive. During the early nineteenth century, Saartjie was exhibited in freak shows and museums in Europe as the “Hottentot

Venus,” and was continually abused and ogled by White men solely interested in her physically and scientifically. When her “driven, anti-social, and [slightly] sadistic” French owner Georges Cuvier calls her “an oddity,” she retorts that “at home [she] is only a little better than average,” challenging the narrative that she was destined to be displayed.368 Because Saartjie is a physical part of Sara’s life, she continually considers her likeness to Saartjie and how portraying her will affect her legacy. While Sara was initially secure in a relationship with her White husband, writing Saartjie’s story made her question her independence and how she may or may not be vastly different from

Saartjie. Sara’s extreme guilt is personified when she helps dissect Saartjie and later receives an award at the play’s conclusion for her book titled The Search for Venus (57-67).369 Sara’s struggle to

367 Ibid, 342.

368 Ibid, 311, 346. 369 Connie Rapoo, “Venus: The Iconic Black Female Figure of Sacrifice” in Figures of Sacrifice: Africa in the Transnational Imaginary: 57-67 (ProQuest, 2008). 142 portray Saartjie’s life mirrors how Lydia Diamond likely grappled with how to challenge stereotypes with these characters and reconcile her tale of Black female sexuality past and present.

How Has Saartjie’s Image Affected Contemporary Representation?

Diamond’s dance sequences to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “I Like Big Butts,” “Aint Gonna Bump No

More (With No Big Fat Woman),” “Brick House,” and “Shake Your Booty” throughout Voyeurs de

Venus acknowledge representation’s real-life impact on backside obsession and oversexualization of

Black women in hip-hop and other popular music.370 Simple moments like Sara asking Bradsford if her outfit “makes [her] ass look big,” simultaneously channel Saartjie’s degradation by White male owners and revisionist appreciation of Black women’s backsides in hip-hop music by Black male rappers from Juvenile to Big Sean.371 Though big butts have been reclaimed in popular culture by female entertainers like Blac Chyna and Nicki Minaj, some social media users voice their irritation with Black women’s persistent oversexualization with memes such as “Sarah Baartman be like: Stop letting these devils do you like they did me.” 372 Another utilizes rapper 2 Chainz’s “All I want for my birthday…” lyrics, substituting “is a big booty ho,” with “is for history to stop repeating itself,” to express their disgust that disparaging Black female bodies remains socially acceptable.373 Feminist scholar Mireille Miller-Young contends that instead of further degrading the “Hottentot Venus,” which historically symbolized “deviant, repulsive, and grotesque black sexuality and black womanhood, black women’s rear ends became newly fetishized through hip-hop music in ways that sought to recognize, reclaim, and reify their bodies as desirable, natural, and attractive.”374 She

370 Ibid, 340, 352. 371 Ibid, 322; Juvenile, “Back That Ass Up;” Big Sean, “Dance (Ass).”

372 “Sarah Baartman Be Like: Stop Letting These Devils Do You Like They Did Me,” Facebook via Sizzle, Accessed April 2017. 373 “All I Want for my Birthday… is for History to Stop Repeating Itself,” Instagram via Faan mail, Accessed April 2017; 2 Chainz and Kanye West. Birthday Song. Sonny Digital, West, BWheezy, Anthony Kilhoffer, Lifted and Mike Dean. Def Jam, 2012. 374 Mireille Miller-Young, “Hip-Hop Honeys and Da Hustlaz: Black Sexualities in the New Hip-Hop Pornography,” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 8, no. 1 (2007): 261-292. 143 implies that these lyrics and images from amorous rappers and gyrating video vixens intend to affirm rather than degrade Black women or ignore Saartjie’s painful past. Contrastingly, Evan Tobias’s

“Flipping the Misogynist Script,” challenges popular culture’s supposed reappropriation, arguing that it might negatively influence youth to mimic representations that are eerily like Saartjie.375 Through

Saartjie, Diamond uncovers the history of Black women’s oversexualization that informs Sara’s misgivings about her identity and sexual freedom in the future. Therefore, Voyeurs de Venus generates critical questions about how enduring images of the past inform Black female representation for better or worse.

The Comfort Girl: Patsey Navigates Sexual and Physical Abuse through Friendships and

Resourcefulness in 12 Years a Slave

Solomon’s Tale of Bondage Provides Perspectives about Black Women’s Sexual Abuse

12 Years a Slave (2013) is a film adapted from Solomon Northrup’s novel of the same name which primarily focuses on the nineteenth century capture and enslavement of Solomon

Northrup. In 1841, Solomon is living as a free man in New York with his family. While they are away, two swindlers trick him into slavery by offering him temporary work as a musician in

Washington, D.C. After a lavish dinner, he awakens in chains, is renamed “Platt,” and sent to a plantation with Eliza, a woman who has been separated from her children. After some time with sympathetic owner William Ford, who buys Solomon a violin, he has a confrontation with an overseer and is sold to the cruel Master and Mistress Epps. There he meets Patsey, a young woman who is the fastest cotton-picker on the plantation. Portrayed by Lupita Nyong’o, who won an

Academy award for the role, Patsey is a central figure in the film and mistress to Master Epps.

375 Evan S. Tobias, “Flipping the Misogynist Script: Gender, Agency, Hip Hop and Music Education,” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 13, no. 2 (2014): 54. 144 Though their approaches to navigating slavery differ because of their upbringings and experiences,

Patsey and Solomon develop a bond that proves essential to enduring their lives on the plantation.

Because of her role as Master Epps’s mistress, and her representation of the mistress trope in 12

Days a Slave, Patsey will be the focus of my analysis here.

Director Steve McQueen acknowledges the significance of Black women in the slave narrative by placing emphasis on Black female characters like Patsey having little to no control over their own bodies.376 Patsey embodies early iterations of the mulatta stereotype who is sexually abused by her master and powerless to change her circumstances. She is obedient to Master Epps but maintains her dignity by being sexually unresponsive to his advances. Her friendships allow her to find brief moments of relief and adjust her reactions to the Epps’s abuse. Elder slave woman

Mistress Shaw offers Patsey advice on how to please Master Epps so that she might benefit from it, while Solomon intercepts Master Epps’s overt attempts to rape Patsey when possible. Though her freedom is minimal and largely contingent upon her interactions with Master Epps, Patsey finds subtle ways to resist the oversexualization of her body. Regardless of being an unwilling victim,

Patsey never allows Epps to break her spirit and maintains a hopeful attitude that she might one day experience true freedom. As a contemporary iteration of a slave woman, Patsey noticeably recoils at her White master, and therefore, challenges the submission and powerlessness often attributed with the mistress stereotype.

Patsey Acknowledges Her Subjugated Status as Master Epps’s Mistress

Although Master Epps is often cruel to Patsey through repeated physical and sexual abuse, his constant attention to her enrages his wife, Mistress Mary Epps.377 Driven by humiliation and

376 Stephanie Li, “12 Years a Slave as a Neo-Slave Narrative,” American Literary History 26, no. 2 (2014): 326-331. 377 Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (WW Norton & Company, 2009); Patsey’s relationship with Master Epps is much like that of Thomas Jefferson with his biracial mistress Sally Hemings. Heming’s lineage traces back to a 145 jealousy, Mistress Epps strikes Patsey on several separate occasions because she is Master Epps’ preferred partner. Late one night, Master Epps awakens the slaves for the sole purpose of his entertainment. While Solomon plays the violin, the slaves dance and Master Epps obviously admires

Patsey. Angered by Master Epps’s blatant lust for Patsey, Mistress Epps throws a carafe at her face and emphatically demands that she be sold. While a sobbing, bloody Patsey is carried away from the party, Master Epps makes his fondness for her clear to Mistress Epps by stating, “Do not set yourself up against Patsey, my dear. ‘Cause I will rid myself of yah well before I do away with her.”378 Though Mistress Epps is granted the socially acceptable title of wife, Master Epps’s biting words articulate his favoritism and desire for Patsey, despite her not reciprocating those feelings. As

Patsey learns to appease Master Epps to lessen the suffering of his persistent sexual abuse, Mistress

Epps’s jealousy becomes progressively intense. While Patsey has little control over her circumstances, every time she obeys Master Epps and accepts his advances, she jeopardies the small semblance of livelihood she has grown accustomed to on the plantation. Caught between the master and the mistress, Patsey’s situation illustrates the powerlessness of slave women who were desired by their masters and reveals that may have suffered further abuse from their masters’ bitter wives. In

Patsey’s case, the term mistress is fitting for her status as the other woman who shares Master Epps with Mistress Epps.

In spite of the impossible situation, Patsey refuses to break. She picks twice as much as the male slaves and Master Epps takes notice. He calls her a “Queen of the Fields,” and says that “God give her to me.”379 She refuses to show interest in Epps during their awkward sexual encounters, a choice that infuriates Epps, who beats and whips her, hoping that will somehow encourage her to

plantation owner, coincidentally named Francis Eppes, that refused to sell Sally’s mother, only allowing her to be inherited amongst family. 378 John Ridley, “12 Years a Slave,” (Film script, 2013), 66. 379 Ridley, 12 Years a Slave, 63. 146 enjoy being raped. Despite his multiple abuses, Patsey simply turns her head and remains still and responsive. While Master Epps eventually stop raping Patsey and walks away, he is undeterred by her “vicious passive aggressiveness” in the long run and continues pursuing her on other occasions.380 Meanwhile, Mistress Epps finds Patsey’s ability to rise above her cruelty highly offensive and she never lets up on finding ways to punish her. After Patsey is nonchalant about

Mistress Epps offering pastries to all the slaves but her, she “drives her nails into Patsey’s face leaving five deep and bloody gashes.”381 Though Patsey’s impassive attitude is met with violence, it demonstrates her strength and ability to resist in some way, and shows her ability to assert some power by getting under both Mistress and Master Epps’s skin.

Patsey’s Friendships with Solomon and Mistress Shaw Help Her Manage Master Epps’s Abuse

Solomon and Patsey maintain a platonic relationship, undermining the mistress trope that suggests Black mistresses cannot restrain their unbridled sexual desire, and they support one another in making their plantation experience less painful when possible. Solomon especially tries to interfere with instances when Master Epps is planning to rape Patsey. They tend to each other’s backs after being whipped on separate occasions, Solomon for not picking enough cotton and

Patsey for visiting Mistress Shaw. When escorting Patsey back from the Shaw estate, Solomon attempts to help Patsey thwart Epps’s advances by strategically placing himself in front of her and whispering, “Do not look in his direction. Continue on.”382 A drunken Master Epps catches on to

Solomon’s intervention, chases after him, and attempts to stab him. When Mistress Epps emerges to investigate the chaos, Solomon cleverly tells her that they had a misunderstanding about Patsey, knowing that it will anger her and increase the chances of Patsey being left alone. In these ways,

380 Ibid, 108. 381 Ibid, 77. 382 Ibid, 105. 147 Solomon and Patsey’s friendship helps to sustain them both through their enslavement on the Epps plantation.

And yet, the friendship with Solomon is also Patsey’s downfall, because it places a Black man—a slave—between her and the slave masters who are her tormentors. After continual abuse from both Master and Mistress Epps, Patsey offers a ring she stole from the mistresses to convince

Solomon to kill her and relieve her from a life of degradation and helplessness. “All I ask: End my life. Take my body to the margin of the swamp— Take me by the throat. Hold me low in the water until I’s still ‘n without life. Bury me in a lonely place of dying… I thought on it long and hard.”383

Though Patsey begs him to do the “merciful act” that she states, “I ain’t got the strength to do myself,” Solomon refuses, finding suicide unimaginable even in their circumstances. Solomon’s dilemma of not wanting to hurt Patsey is played out again when he refuses to whip Patsey for visiting Mistress Shaw at Master Epps request. Solomon is hesitant to whip her at full force, even when he is threatened by Master Epps and coerced by Patsey’s cries to “Do it. Don’t stop until I’m dead,” though he eventually reaches a breaking point and Master Epps takes over.384 Because both her attempts to enjoy her life and end her life have failed, she hopes this unrelenting whipping will be her demise. Unfortunately, her beating only destroys her back and prolongs her suffering.

Despite Solomon’s good intentions to thwart Patsey’s sexual victimization, he is powerless to protect her from Master Epp’s abuse and the cruelty of the plantation. Though they have a long embrace when Solomon is rescued, he ultimately leaves Patsey to her degraded state as a mistress slave for which there is no escape.

Patsey develops a companionship with an elder slave woman Mistress Shaw, who suggests she leverage Master Epps’ sexual advances to lessen the toils of her life on the plantation.

383 Ridley, 114. 384 Ridley, 109. 148 Since there is no distinct term for a White slave owner’s partners, Master Epps’ wife and Master

Shaw’s slave woman are both given the title mistress. However, race is an obvious distinction that typically prevents Black women from being mistaken for a White man’s wife during times of enslavement. The relationship between Patsey and Mistress Shaw illustrates Black feminine perspectives during slavery and “emphasizes an important if tenuous bond between the two women, suggesting a female community that exists apart from Northup’s male subjectivity.” 385

Screenwriter John Ridley describes the importance of Patsey’s scene with Mistress Shaw because of:

folks likely unfamiliarity with a woman of color in that era being able to elevate

herself to a degree, or the notion that a white master may have felt secure

enough to have a black mistress that he could have a relationship with openly

on that level.386

Though her screen time is limited, Mistress Shaw proves a complex character who simultaneously demeans and educates other slaves to authenticate her status as her master’s wife and sexual partner. Shaw separates herself from other slaves like Solomon when referring to him as “Nigger Platt” while assuring Patsey that she “know[s] what it like to be the object of Massa’s predilections and peculiarities [that] can get expressed with kindness or wit violence.”387 She encourages Patsey to indulge the master with “a lusty visit in the night” to avoid “a visitation from the whip.”388 Shaw uses the term “comfort” to address how Patsey can concurrently please her master and preserve herself. 389 She suggests that while she gives comfort to Epps to enjoy some comfort of her own on the plantation, she can also take

385 Stephanie Li, “12 Years,” 329. 386 Kyle Buchanan, “The Toughest Scene I Wrote: John Ridley on 12 Years a Slave’s ‘WTF Moment,” Vulture, December 20, 2013. 387 Ridley, “12 Years,” 69-70. 388 Ibid, 70. 389 Ibid. 149 comfort in the fact that the Lord will eventually take care of Epps. As Shaw notes, “the curse of the Pharos is a poor example of all that wait ‘fo the plantation class.” 390 Thus, Mistress

Shaw proves an important role model for teaching Patsey how to survive her circumstances as sexual object to a volatile Master Epps. Their friendship is one of few joys for Patsey on the plantation, and it empowers her to take some control over her situation and her sexuality. 391

Patsey Practices Assertiveness and Resourcefulness at Her Own Risk

Upon her return from visiting Mistress Shaw with soap to clean herself, Patsey appeals to Master Epps’s affections and discusses her need for personal hygiene to avoid punishment for wandering off. Since slave women are expected to be submissive mistresses who are readily available to their masters, advocating for one’s own needs is atypical and risky behavior. Though Patsey initially lies about having gone to Shaw’s, she later pleads Master Epps’s forgiveness while asserting that she will keep the soap since Mistress Epps purposefully withholds it. She cries, “Stink so much

I make myself gag. Five hundred pounds ‘a cotton! Day in, day out. More than any man here. And

‘fo that I will be clean; that all I ax. Dis here what I went to Shaw’s ‘fo.”392 This scene illustrates that despite Patsey conceding to her roles as a hard-working field hand and Master Epps’s mistress, the soap symbolizes her dignity in the form of literal and figurative cleanliness.

Despite Patsey’s compelling argument, Epps is unconvinced of her story and determined to punish her with encouragement from a jealous Mistress Epps who watches approvingly, stating

“Strike the life from her.”393 However, he is unable to harm Patsey himself and instead forces a reluctant Solomon to whip her back until it is raw. Though Patsey says she would “rather it be” him,

390 Ibid. 391 Ibid, 69. 392 Ridley, “12 Years,” 107. 393 Ibid, 108. 150 this moment is intensified because of Solomon’s necessarily passive obedience, especially after refusing Patsey’s request to end her life. Solomon then tends to Patsey’s wounds, ashamed of the pain that he inflicted, but was powerless to prevent. Though Mistress Epps is pleased to see Patsey suffer, Patsey acquires the soap she was previously denied and finds brief independence in voicing her opinions. By actively prioritizing her health and her desires, she restores some ownership of her body and, unlike most slave mistresses, refuses to be a docile victim of sexual abuse. In this act of resistance—that of refusing to give up the soap and all that it symbolizes—this representation of the mistress trope resists the tradition of the deviant, immoral, sexually promiscuous mistress, replacing it instead with a Black woman struggling to survive an impossible situation.

Patsey’s Characterization Proves Impactful to Popular Culture in the Present Day

Patsey is an example of a sexualized Black female character who strives to survive her circumstances and forge her own terms for her role as a mistress. Though portraying Black women as sexual objects can damagingly affect the perception of real-life Black women, Patsey’s resilience is inspiring and serves as a reminder for how much Black women have socially progressed, despite persistent sexualization. Though Patsey has limited agency, she utilizes her relationships with

Solomon and Mistress Shaw to find ways to resist her sexual victimization by Master Epps.

Social media has weighed in on 12 Years A Slave as a contemporary film that portrays nuanced characterization for stereotypical figures like Patsey as a slavery-era mistress. Instagram posts have been fairly kind to Patsey’s character, mainly including impactful quotes from and about her, including Master Epps telling Mistress Epps that he prefers Patsey over her. However, one meme demonstrates investment in the film and concern for Patsey’s well-being by commenting on her previously described beating and advising her to be more passive in her demand for cleanliness.

In jest, it states, “What if I told you leave the fucking soap Patsey[?],” which insinuates that she

151 might not have been punished so severely had she been more obedient.394 Other images appropriate the movie’s title to liken the timeline of current cultural phenomena with Solomon’s and Patsey’s lengthy enslavement. Some of the most popular of these include disgust with the

Trump administration, deeming it “12 Years A Slave: The Sequel,” as well as exaggerating the length of Chris Paul’s career with his former basketball team by calling him: “12 Years A Clipper.”395 A distasteful meme attempts the cheeky comparison of Patsey’s enduring sexual abuse with that of Bill

Cosby having violated victims for decades, stating: “12 Years A Slave? Try 40 Years of Rape.”396

Though these posts vary widely as daft and inappropriate responses to film, they are evidence of its impact on popular culture and acknowledge the significance of Patsey’s character and circumstances.

Must the Show Go On: What Qualities of the Mistress Stereotype Linger?

Voyeurs de Venus and 12 Years A Slave challenge Black women’s continual degradation and sexual harassment, illustrate Black women resisting these circumstances, and urge audiences to consider their role in enabling or proliferating stereotypes. Together, these dramatic works trace how Black women in the present remain beholden to sexualized characterization of previous eras. As a working professional in the present-day, Sara is making a conscious choice to take control of her body and explore her sexuality in a way that Saartjie and Patsey were unable to do due to their subservient positions during colonial captivity. By having an affair, Sara imbues modern representation of women who resist monogamous relationships. Meanwhile,

Saartjie and Patsey are largely stuck in their subjugated circumstances. While Saartjie and Sara

394 “What If I Told You Leave the Fucking Soap Patsey,” Instagram via Quickmeme, Accessed April 2017. 395 “12 Years A Slave: The Sequel,” Instagram via Me.me, Accessed April 2017; “Chris Paul: 12 Years A Clipper,” Instagram via Ghetto Red Hot, Accessed April 2017. 396 “12 Years A Slave? Try 40 Years of Rape,” Instagram via Meme Generator, Accessed April 2017. 152 form a bond to negotiate the former’s representation, Patsey enlists the help of fellow slaves with similar experiences to cope with her regular molestation and abuse from Master and

Mistress Epps. Though Saartjie, Sara, and Patsey grapple with mistress characterization in unique ways, their representations depart from traditional figures of desperation and powerlessness to strong, self-defined women who reject expectations about their sexuality.

153 CHAPTER SIX

THE END CREDITS: AN OVERVIEW & EXPECTATIONS FOR RESEARCH ON BLACK FEMALE REPRESENTATION

I’ve played a lot of characters that could’ve been borderline stereotypical women, but my job as an actress is to make the audience understand and empathize with the people. Cookie is a lot. She wears me out but I know this woman. I’ve done my research inside and out. I took Cookie and made her my own… You can say whatever you want about her, about Luscious, about what they did to get where they are. But at the end of the day, their sons are not statistics. Their sons are not in jail. They broke a cycle of poverty. That’s why I think they’re kind of heroes, in a very American way.

~Taraji P. Henson, Empire

Tracing Stereotypes Past and Present

My dissertation has focused on the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes as they manifest in contemporary films and plays. Together with the frameworks of critical race and Black feminist theories, I implement scholarship, news, and social media to assess these works’ impact on popular culture. Even as mediums that reach disparate demographics, I argue that plays and films affect perspectives about Black female representation. Because of my positionality as a heterosexual, light-skinned Black woman, I constantly work to define myself against stereotypes. Therefore, despite my analysis being framed in an academic context, having applied theatre scholar Lisa M.

Anderson’s Mammies No More: The Changing Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen (1997), a study of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress trope in works through the end of the twentieth century as a model for my research in the present, much of this process was very personal to me.

The U.S. stereotypes that I wrestle with in this research were formed through harmful assumptions and hierarchical racial bias embedded in minstrelsy and other forms of early dramatic representation. Because stereotypes align with a political landscape built on discrimination, they 154 continue to reveal themselves as cultural norms in theatre and mainstream society. Together with the frameworks of critical race and Black feminist theories, I implement scholarship, news media, and social media to assess how the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotypes manifest in contemporary films and plays and impact popular culture. Even as mediums that reach disparate demographics, films and plays affect perspectives about Black female representation in both affirming and destructive ways. As we acknowledge that derogatory iconic Black female representations exist in contemporary U.S. society, we must also acknowledge that they persist on stage, film as well as television productions. This analysis of how dramatic representation constructs and propagates the

Black female stereotypes of mammy, mulatta, and mistress (jezebel) in U.S. society deconstructs one aspect of the multifaceted influences that shape Black female representation. Further analysis on how the cultural nuances of authors, directors, producers and other artistic contributors shape the dramatic representations of Black women in media productions is needed. As noted by Taraji

Henson, creative license taken by actors significantly contributes to the performativity of characters and the influences their embodiment on stage and screen may have on viewers and society in general. Through these alternative explorations, academic scholarship might further interrogate how mass media and social media cooperatively influence the perpetuation of negative Black female stereotypes through dramatic works, including plays, films, and television series.

Some of my case studies show an overt understanding of how stereotypes inform Black female representation. Through their characters’ recognition of historical figures or media images,

Diamond, Nottage, and Simien articulate a conscious reclamation of significant tropes. Further study would benefit from exploring how the mammy, mulatta, and mistress overlap with and have produced other distinguishable Black female stereotypes. In early dramatic works like The Birth of a

Nation, the mulatta and mistress trope overlap in terms of having unrestrained sexuality. Mulatta character Lydia is portrayed as being a sex-crazed and manipulative influence on her master, Austin

155 Stoneman. Additional overlap of types using sexuality and/or skin tone appear in other tropes including the sapphire (angry Black woman) and the welfare queen. Cinematic examples include characters Bernadine of Waiting to Exhale (1995), Felicia of Friday (1995), and Paula, Chiron’s mom of Moonlight (2016).

Future Considerations

As hinted by actress Taraji P. Henson, who plays Cookie of television series Empire (2015 –), there are stereotypical qualities within every character. Henson’s character Cookie is a former convict turned record producer with three sons by her estranged record producer husband, Lucius.

Ingrained cultural assumptions make the image a stereotype and inform how Black women are represented accordingly. My extended study includes television series with example characters of the mammy, mulatta, and mistress. Though television shows are certainly ripe with these representations, their episodic nature distinguished them from the focused and finite nature of films and plays which I explore. Further study might utilize specific episodes from series that demonstrate the types including the television portrayals of Aunt Vi in Queen Sugar, Bow in Blackish, and Olivia in

Scandal whose characters embody some of the traditional traits associated with these stereotypes.

Considering their status as professionals in the contemporary era, they are afforded the agency to defy damaging characterization. Aunt Vi functions as a maternal figure to her deceased brother’s three grown children; however, she also works as a restaurant manager who is finally embracing her independence and entrepreneurial goals at the age of 60.

While my study focused on dramatic works that primarily categorized the mammy, mulatta, and mistress stereotype as distinct figures, other contemporary characters merge all three stereotypes. Set during slavery, series Underground (2016 – ) illustrates the journey of a small group of runaway slaves. Likewise, Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon is inspired by Dion Boucicault’s The

156 Octoroon (1852) and focuses on subverting stereotypes by staging and complicating them. A brief honorable mention, Black couple Randall and Beth of television show This Is Us (2016 – ) have a healthy relationship that is uncommon in contemporary Black representation. The show reveals them having realistic disagreements about careers and family dynamics, including adoption and fostering. Despite not always agreeing with Randall’s decisions, we see Beth carry the family after

Randall quits his job and step up to care for their foster daughter Deja and encourage Randall to be an engaged Black dad. Though Beth proves multidimensional as a wife, mother, and working professional, she is simply a supporting figure since the series focuses primarily on the relationship between Randall and his White twin siblings.

Another possible avenue to explore is dramatic genre and how it influences the possibilities of Black female representation. How does the portrayal of Black women in realism compare to that of post-apocalyptic, fantasy, and comic inspired works? Though Black-led shows on major networks and box-office movies have become customary in recent years, fictional storylines have proven kinder to Black female representation than realism since characterized figures are allowed agency and positions of power. In the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead (2010 –), Michonne is simultaneously a sword-yielding leader and maternal figure to Carl, her boyfriend Rick’s son.

Notably, Michonne’s relationship with Rick is not only interracial, but healthy, two factors that rarely present themselves on television. Meanwhile Tara Thornton of series True Blood (2008-2014) is surrounded by supernatural beings and stumbles through life in Bon Temps, Louisiana until she becomes a vampire. Though she initially resists being bitten, her newfound strength expands her power over her body which was previously controlled by others. African Shuri of film Black Panther

(2018) works and controls the lab which holds vibranium, the country’s lifeforce. As T’Challa’s sister and a female pilot in the Nigeria community, Shuri provides him strategies and technology to

157 navigate his mission and functions as an emerging leader to her people. Thus, Michonne, Tara, and

Shuri provide positive media representations that their fictional worlds enable.

Ultimately, the goal of this work is to suggest that a wider array of Black female characterizations exist in fictional worlds to influence the perceptions and beliefs that exist in our actual world. Building on the work of Anderson, Collins and Williams, the theoretical implications of this research suggest that challenges remain in the realm of constructing positive notions of Black femininity and the task of deconstructing the cultural patterns that sustain these negative stereotypes exists among the analyses emerging from critical race theory. It is my hope that the consumable images portrayed in multimedia productions significantly contribute toward the amelioration of the derogatory perceptions associated with the mammy, mulatta and mistress and that more empowering images will emerge from future productions highlighting the Black female experience.

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179 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Devair O. Jeffries earned a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude in Theatre Performance with a minor in Studio Art from Winthrop University. She initiated her core research interest through her senior thesis titled, “Deconstructing Stereotypes and Iconic Representations of the African-

American Experience in Three Contemporary Plays.” She received her Master of Arts in Theatre

History and Criticism from the University of South Carolina where she continued to refine her research interests on African American theatre, specifically representation and racial violence in which she utilizes critical race and Black feminist theories. Her research has been featured in

TRAUE, Spectrum, Western Journal of Black Studies, Multicultural Perspectives and Multicultural Learning and

Teaching. She has presented at national conferences including the Association for Theatre in Higher

Education, Comparative Drama, Mid-America Theatre Conference, and National Association for

Multicultural Education, as well as international conferences including the Conference of the

International Association for Media and History and Song, Stage, and Screen. She staged and co- authored the original production, One Hundred Years of Hope, a docudrama addressing racial tension and police brutality in the United States at the Florida State University Conradi Theatre.

Devair is the recipient of the Wilson-Auzenne Graduate Fellowship, the Full Frame

Documentary Film Fellowship and she is a Philanthropic Educational Organization Award

Nominee. She was awarded the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion Mini-Grant as a member of the Program for Instructional Excellence (PIE) and Fellows Society Diversity &

Inclusion Committee at Florida State University.

180