Abstract

How did films centered on Black women created in the 1990s reimagine the journey of self-discovery and healing? To address these questions, I will focus on the films Waiting to Exhale, Daughters of the Dust, and The Watermelon Woman. I will examine how crossover appeal influences commercial success. Crossover appeal tends to place importance on themes that would reach a wider audience. Independent films are able to maintain a certain degree of authenticity, and work outside of a profit driven film industry. This provides an opportunity for the content of these films to subvert and challenge stereotypes. This subject matter has not focused specifically on films about Black women, instead how Hollywood depicts people of color in general. I am adding independent films to the conversation because it can provide an alternative vision for the possibilities of how Black women are depicted in film. 

Introduction

The 1990s are considered to be a turning point in Black cinema. The first Black filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux, began creating work in 1919 under his own production company. In the early twentieth century, Black filmmakers had to fund their own work. Even in the late twentieth century, Black filmmakers continued to create films outside of Hollywood. Cane River (1982), directed by Horace Jenkins, and Losing Ground (1982), directed by Kathleen Collins, are now critically acclaimed films that were recently rediscovered and restored, but both filmmakers died before they could obtain a theatrical release. Thus, the support and access Black filmmakers received in the 1990s was historic and groundbreaking. 

Spike Lee and John Singleton were known to be the most successful Black filmmakers of the decade. Creating stories with aesthetic realism that centered around Black men living in cities, and explored important themes about Black masculinity, police brutality, and gentrification. In their classic films, Do the Right Thing (1989) and Boyz N The Hood (1991), both Lee and Singleton have received criticism for their female characters’ lack of agency and stereotypes perpetuated about Black women in these narratives. Stereotypes about Black women were and still are prevalent in the film industry. Where are the stories centering the experiences of Black women? Is the film industry capable of depicting the experiences of Black women without further reinforcing stereotypes?

Films about Black women in the 1990s focused on self-discovery and the journey of healing. One of the most well-known and commercially successful films about Black women in the 1990s is Waiting to Exhale (1995). The film, an adaptation of a novel by Terry McMillan and directed by Forest Whitaker, is about four successful Black women, focusing on their relationships with men and friendships with each other. At the time, it was groundbreaking to see Black women openly explore sex and their conflicts with Black men. However, the film has received pushback for the dysfunctional relationships that dominate the narrative of the film instead of the friendships between the women. 

A few years before, Daughters of the Dust (1991) became the first feature film directed by a Black woman, Julie Dash, to obtain theatrical release. The film takes an entirely different approach from Waiting to Exhale in how it explores the lives of Black women. The nonlinear film is set in 1908 and tells the story of three generations of Gullah women in the Peazant family, as they decide whether or not to leave the island and move North. Because this film takes place in a different time period, there is more of an emphasis on culture and lineage. Daughters of the Dust did not have the same crossover appeal, but in 2017, Beyoncé inspired her visual album Lemonade after Daughters of the Dust, and the film was rereleased and restored.

Several years later, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996) became the first feature film directed by an openly lesbian Black woman. The film follows Cheryl in the 1990s, when she decides to make a documentary about a fictitious Black actress named Fae Richards, known for playing stereotypical mammy roles in the 1930s, usually uncredited. Through further research, Cheryl learns that she was also a lesbian. The story of Fae Richards informs Cheryl as she navigates her own relationship, and her desire to be seen in the media. Waiting to Exhale also explores relationships and friendship conflicts, but The Watermelon Woman explores these modern issues of the 1990s and adds the perspective of sexuality. All three of these films center Black women as they reconcile with the hardships of their current realities and preserve their own space within the larger conversation of Black cinema. How did films centered around Black women, created in the 1990s, reimagine the journey of self-discovery and healing?

Literature Review

The existing literature surrounding films and Black womanhood in the 1990s discuss the inner workings of the entertainment business, and what makes some films more commercially successful than others. As well as, the ways Black women filmmakers use art to challenge existing stereotypes about Black women, in order to liberate Black women from these harmful narratives. “Scandalous: Olivia Pope and Black Women in Primetime History in  Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues” by Ralina Joseph (2016) discusses Shonda Rhimes’ impact as a current Black woman showrunner, as well as her crossover appeal with having Black protagonists in white spaces. In the casting process, she discusses how she used colorblind casting, which fails to recognize the impact our identities have on the way we see the world, and it sees us. 

In The Watermelon Woman, Cheryl Dunye says,  “I know it has to be about black women, because our stories have never been told.”¹ This points to a difference in how some Black women creators respond to the industry, and how societal conditions can inform art. With the three films included in this research, Black women find support within their own community. Joseph Wright’s “Scandalous: Olivia Pope and Black Women in Primetime History” (2014) expands on this idea of what truly makes a story about Black people. Black people might be visible actors and directors, but this crossover appeal can distance themselves from blackness. The film industry is a business that often produces and promotes films that can crossover to a white audience. This appeal can help artists break into an industry, and places restrictions on Black artists. In a predominantly white film industry, there is only a certain amount of Blackness that gives the perfect dose of diversity. This makes Hollywood feel inclusive, without actually engaging or exploring the perspectives of Black people.

Filmmaker Julie Dash explained, “When you watch a movie you either role play or disengage. And most white men don’t want to be a black woman for two hours. It’s two hours too long.”² In the article “Playing with Fire: Black Womenʹs Literature/White Box Office” author Monica White Ndounou explores the ways Waiting to Exhale heavily relies on stereotypes and myths that exist within the Black community to achieve crossover success within Hollywood. The connections that the four Black women have with their male family members in the novel are eliminated from the film in order to emphasize sex and dysfunctional romantic relationships between Black women and men. The article explains that the “no-Good Black Man” and the “Angry-Black woman” stereotype are profitable and viable to a modern audience. 

Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins (2000) breaks down the various stereotypes that exist about Black women in films, and how they help justify the oppression of Black women in the U.S. These stereotypes are different from white women, and allow others to define the realities of Black women. The two leading images are the mammy and the jezebel, which have their own variations. The mammy was used to justify the treatment of house slaves and domestic workers. The mammy is often depicted as overweight, and her motherly nature makes her asexual to those around her. The jezebel was created to control Black women’s sexuality, and depicts the behavior of Black women as insatiable and inappropriate. Patricia Hill Collins credits Black women filmmakers for redefining Black women beyond these stereotypes, “The theme of U.S. Black women coming to know themselves and often doing so in the company of Black women, wove throughout a cluster of films whose subject matter differed dramatically. This illustrates the value Black women filmmakers place on Black women’s emerging self-definitions.”³

Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman liberated and redefined this idea of the mammy by changing her body type and sexuality. Clitha Mason, in her article, “Queering The Mammy: New Queer Cinema’s Version of an American Institution in Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman” (2017), explores how in the film, Cheryl struggles in the 1990s to make a documentary about this fictitious actress named Fae Richard that played the mammy role in the 1930s. Fae Richards is not well-documented, which highlights how Black women are usually erased from history. Cheryl learns that Fae was lesbian and gender fluid; she provides this backstory for the actress known for her mammy roles, acknowledging that her story should be told outside of the mammy character. It is important that Cheryl’s character, as a Black lesbian woman, holds the camera and seeks to find her own representation.

In “Black Film Theory, Black Feminisms: Daughters of the Dust, Feminism and Film” (1997), Maggie Humm illustrates that Daughters of the Dust completely rejected the tropes about Black women that were featured in many films of the 1990s. This idea of the jezebel is shown when Yellow Mary is treated like an outsider to her family, because she was a prostitute and her own sexuality. However, Yellow Mary’s perspective and her experiences outside of the Gullah Island are highlighted, instead of the misconceptions her family has about her sexuality. Yellow Mary and Eula are survivors of sexual violence, and find support in their friendship. The culture and spirituality that exists on the Gullah island with Nana Peazant informs their decision to stay on the island, as many on the island leave and reject Nana Peazant’s traditional ways of thinking.

Methods and Data

I conducted a content analysis of how the journey of healing and self-identity are portrayed in scenes from Waiting to Exhale, The Watermelon Woman, and Daughters of the Dust. Friendships, relationships, spirituality, and culture affect the ways Black women view themselves. These films show how Black women explore the journey of finding themselves in different ways. In Waiting to Exhale, the journey of searching for love becomes more about friendship by the end of the film. I will analyze how commercial success influences how stereotypes are used to define Black women. Specifically, with Waiting to Exhale, there were changes made from the book that dramatized the relationships between Black men and women for a mainstream audience. Is Hollywood capable of producing stories that reject stereotypes about Black women? Does visibility make the story truly about Black women?

The Watermelon Woman and Daughters of the Dust are both directed by Black women and were influenced by the backgrounds of Cheryl Dunye and Julie Dash. They are independent filmmakers, and had difficulty securing funding and distribution. Both films use existing stereotypes like the mammy and jezebel to subvert expectations, and to liberate Black women from these controlling ideas. Can independent filmmakers expand the narratives about Black women? How does a rejection of these stereotypes challenge the way Black women are viewed in the media?

Findings

Waiting to Exhale was originally a book written by Terry McMillan in 1992, and it was promoted by Oprah’s Book Club. This helped the story reach a crossover audience. Twentieth Century Fox obtained the rights and held primary ownership, even though McMillan was the co-screenwriter. In the opening scene, we hear the smooth voice of a DJ on New Years Eve, “Just want you to know that if you’re searching . . . somewhere, there’s a love for you.”⁴ 

This journey of searching for love becomes a dominant storyline for Savannah, Robin, Bernadine, and Gloria. Savannah is in a relationship with a married man, which is also encouraged by her mother. When she discovers that he has no plans to divorce, she leaves him. Robin goes through a series of dates that end terribly, even when she abandons her own preferences for physical appearance. She dates a married man who also has no intentions of leaving his wife, she decides to raise their unborn child without his assistance. Bernadine’s husband cheats and leaves her for his white coworker. Then, Bernadine shares a connection with a man, who is also married, to a dying white woman. Gloria is in a relationship with her teenage son’s father. She accepts his absentee behavior, and he breaks up with her after revealing that he is gay. Gloria finds love with her neighbor, after some apprehension about her body type and desirability. The women spend the entire film chasing and searching for this idea of love, until they realize that their friendships with each other are more dependable and uplifting.

Waiting to Exhale made its entire budget during opening weekend. This can be attributed to Oprah’s promotion, but also the crossover appeal of many of the stereotypes depicted in the film. The stereotype of Black men being unfaithful and lacking commitment can be shown by the married men that pursue relationships with the women. On the flip side, Black women are often depicted as having to struggle to find happiness. This trope of “the strong Black woman” perpetuates this idea that Black women are equipped to handle bad behavior from their partners, even when it is at a disservice to their happiness. Women have visibility in Waiting to Exhale, but the narrative explores womanhood from a male gaze. Even in scenes without the presence of men, the conversations between the four women are still about men and their relationships with them.

Another common theme explored is desirability. Bernadine’s husband cheats on her with a white woman, and throughout the film she emphasizes that he chose to cheat with a white woman. Bernadine slaps the woman during her husband’s office meeting. The lawyer that she develops a connection with is hesitant to admit that his wife is white. One of Robin’s boyfriends, yells that her “difficult” behavior is the reason why Black men prefer to be with white women. Gloria also finds her teenage son in a sexual act with a white woman. The film depicts Black women and white women on opposing sides, and Black men are always shown as the reason for this conflict. This dramatizes interracial relationships in a way that would be acceptable to a mainstream audience. It also further centers the men in the film and minimizes the experiences Black women have with white women to comic snapshots.

Within the topic of desirability, it should be noted that Gloria is the only character whose weight hinders her from exploring romantic relationships. Gloria has the darkest skin tone out of the other women. The other women are also thinner and are depicted as confident and unafraid to explore multiple relationships. She believes that her weight would be unattractive to a man. As a result, Gloria decides to focus on raising her son. This promotes a stereotype that is seen in films, where weight determines attractiveness or sexual appeal for women. She eventually decides to move on from her ex when her neighbor Marvin tells her that he prefers her body type. A man is used to improve her confidence with her physical appearance, which is a struggle that the other women are not depicted in sharing.

In The Watermelon Woman, Black women appear to be liberated from these stereotypes. In the opening scene, Cheryl and her friend Tamera are working as videographers for a wedding. Cheryl is in control of the camera and the gaze. The camera is used as a tool in her journey for visibility and representation as a Black lesbian woman. Cheryl develops a crush on the fictional Fae Richards, an actress from the 1930’s that played in mammy roles and was also a Black lesbian woman. The image of Fae becomes affirming for Cheryl as she searches to find representation within the film industry. When we see pictures and videos of Fae, she is thinner than the typical depictions of the mammy. She is also seen in pictures with her film director girlfriend, which frees her from the asexuality of the mammy. As Collins writes in Black Feminist Thought, the mammy’s “sexuality and fertility are severed.”⁵ This came from ideas of purity that were promoted by white Christians, and it also furthered the stereotype of the mammy as a nurturer. However, Fae Richards shows versatility and complexity in her style and sexuality. She is the embodiment of both the mammy and the jezebel. Richards is both desirable and known as the mammy from her roles in films. The mammy stereotype is intentionally used to subvert expectations, which allows her characterization to be freed from the constraints of stereotypes. 

Tamera is Cheryl’s friend, and her weight is not depicted as a hindrance to her relationships. Cheryl is thinner than Tamera, but Tamera is depicted as confident and more experienced than Cheryl. She is outspoken about dating and exploring her sexuality, which reverses “the fat friend” stereotype. Tamera also finds the image of Fae Richards to be degrading and upsetting. She does not understand Cheryl’s interest in the actress and presents another perspective on visibility. Black women and proximity to whiteness affect which images are shown in mainstream media. Fae Richards is able to access mainstream Hollywood through her white girlfriend, Martha Page, who was also a film director. Page would only cast Richards in subservient roles. When Cheryl initially researches Richards at a lesbian archive center, materials about Black lesbian women are kept in disorganized boxes. When Cheryl attempts to capture footage of Fae Richards’s archives, a white woman denies Cheryl access to her own history and calls the photos “confidential.” 

The dynamics between Black women and white women are further explored, when Cheryl begins dating a white woman named Diana. Tamera is apprehensive about Diana, and thinks that Diana’s interest in Cheryl comes from her fetishizing Black people. Cheryl discovers that Diana has a history of dating Black men, and she questions where she fits in with Diana’s past. The film further explores how race complicates the relationship between white and Black women, when Cheryl interviews a white feminist critic for her documentary, Camille Paglia, who claims that the mammy is a positive representation for Black women, because she sees her as nurturing and affectionate. This shows how white feminism erases the experiences of Black women and promotes racist ideas about stereotypes that affect Black women. The dynamic between Black and white women is explored through a historical gaze, when showing how white women like Martha Page often orchestrated and used Black women to promote white-supremacist ideas. White feminists like Camille Pagila and lesbian organizations often exclude the experiences of Black women and center white women. Even while dating, Cheryl must be aware of this history and the tendencies of white women. The realistic depictions of interracial relationships and interactions show audiences the stake and importance of Cheryl being able to  use the camera as a tool of empowerment.

Daughters of the Dust shows generations of Black women in the Peazant family as their culture and traditions inform their journey to stay or leave the mainland. Set in 1902 in the Gullah islands, the Peazant family are descendants of slaves that were brought to the island. Nana Peazant is the family matriarch, she preserves Gullah history with her bottle tree, as each bottle represents an ancestor that used to live on the island and has passed on. She carries the past with her. Nana Peazant’s hands are stained with blue ink, a physical reminder of the trauma of slavery, because she had to work dying fabric with indigo. The graves of slaves are decorated with sea shells, the ancestors still have a presence on the island. And Nana Peazant wants to keep her family close to their history and culture, so she refuses to leave the island and opposes their decision to leave. Haager Peazant, Nana’s daughter in law, views these traditions as backwards, and sees the opportunity in moving to the mainland.

Yellow Mary and Viola are cousins who return to the island to visit their family. They come back with gifts from the mainland, and a photographer to document the family history before everyone leaves the island. Viola has rejected Nana Peazant’s beliefs and she is now a devout Christian. She is contrasted with Yellow Mary, who the family calls “a ruined woman.”⁶ She comes to the island with her girlfriend Trula, which adds to the gossip about her sexuality. Black Feminist Thought describes the jezebel stereotype as a way to “control Black women’s sexuality” and “Lesbian women who are deemed deviant because of their choices of sexual partners.”⁷ The jezebel suggests that there should be a limit and a binary placed on the sexuality of Black women. 

During this time period, there was less of an openness to sexuality, and women like Yellow Mary were judged and labeled for their decisions. She appears to embody the jezebel, but throughout the film, Yellow Mary controls her own narrative. In conversations with Eula, we see that she is a knowledgeable and complex woman, she exists beyond the constraints of the jezebel. She reveals that she worked as a prostitute and then a wet nurse to a white family. She has also traveled to many places, and refuses to compromise her independence and free-spirited nature. Eula tells Yellow Mary that a white man raped her, and that she is unsure if her unborn child is her husband’s child. Eula is treated as an outsider in their family. The family brushes off her isolation as “strange” behavior. Yellow Mary also confides to Eula that someone raped her. The women find comfort and healing in their friendship with each other. Even though the family unintentionally isolates them, Eula and Yellow Mary are examples of how women who experience sexual violence are often silenced and ignored. However, the film shows that there is a possibility for an alternative, where Black women create their own space of healing and dialogue.

By the end of the film, Yellow Mary decides to remain with Nana Peazant, she even leaves her girlfriend Trula in search of her own connection to the ancestors. Eula decides to raise her baby with her husband on the island after their unborn child contacts them from another realm. It appears that the unborn child will restore Nana Peazant’s beliefs. The other family members decide to leave the island, they make sure to take photographs to further preserve their families’ history. 

Discussion and Conclusion          

I argue that studio funded movies often perpetuate stereotypes about Black women, in order to profit and appeal to mainstream audiences. As an industry, Hollywood has no interest in depicting stories that are actually about Black women, even if Black women are visible and represented in the story. We must think about how Black women are being represented, and whether representation is worth repeating the same stereotypes being perpetuated in film. The visibility of Black women onscreen and behind the camera can give audiences an illusion of liberation. Representation matters, but at what expense?

 Independent filmmakers, specifically Black women directors have been actively working to liberate Black women from these stereotypes. The absence of the studio creates the opportunity for stories to be nuanced and reach beyond the confines of a capitalistic industry. Even though independent filmmakers have difficulty with securing funding and distribution, their artistic voices and authenticity in storytelling are able to prevail.

In Waiting to Exhale, their journey centers around love and concludes with finding strength within friendship. The relationships are exclusively heterosexual, while the other films explore sexuality beyond the binary. Gloria’s ex is gay, but he is depicted as absentee and is later called a derogatory term by his son. But there are no Black women in relationships with women. In Black Feminist Thought, there is discussion about homophobia and Black women, “As Black lesbians point out, much homophobia expressed by heterosexual African-American women stems from the fear that their love of Black women might find sexual expression.”⁸This could be a possibility as to why their relationships with men are emphasized as opposed to their friendships with each other, this fear that the closeness of women could be interpreted as sexual. 

The Watermelon Woman does not shy away from showing relationships between women, and shows friendships between Black lesbian women. Cheryl is on the journey of finding visibility and self-representation for Black lesbian women, she realizes this can only be achieved through Black lesbian women creating their own narratives. Daughters of the Dust explores the journey of Black women migrating through space and time, and finding healing in the traditions of their ancestors. Throughout the films, Black women are seeking to define themselves in response to exclusion or rejection. There is ultimately a discovery of self when Black women create their own space for healing. 

We are two people in one body. The last of the old and the first of the new.—Nana Peazant, Daughters of the Dust.

1. The Watermelon Woman. Dir. Cheryl Dunye, 1996.
2. Julie Dash quoted in Joseph Wright, “Scandalous: Olivia Pope and Black Women in Primetime History” in Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues,” (Lexington Books, 2014), 4.
3. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Taylor & Francis, 2000), 96.
4. Waiting To Exhale, Dir. Forest Whitaker, 1995.
5. Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 74.
6. Daughters of the Dust. Dir. Julie Dash, 1991.
7. Daughters of the Dust. Dir. Julie Dash, 1991.
8. Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 163.