Queering The Mammy
New Queer Cinema's Version of an American Institution in Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15415414 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clitha Mason (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 50-50 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Black Camera (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1536-3155 • E-ISSN: 1947-4237 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/blackcamera.8.2.03 |
| OpenAlex | W2611976315 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
Cheryl Dunye queers the mammy in her film The Watermelon Woman (1996) through the character Fae Richards. Fae is the screen's first Black lesbian mammy, and like the other lesbians of color in Dunye's films (who are filmmakers, actresses, mothers, workers, and lovers in interracial relationships), Fae is both a visible and complex character. Dunye presents lesbians at intersections of race, class, age, and size in the film, and Dunye's queering of the mammy stereotype problematizes the classic and enduring mammy imagery. American filmmakers often uphold the mammy's cultural boundaries of asexuality and fat embodiment; however, Dunye's reading liberates her. Queering by a Black lesbian filmmaker provides representation and interpretation of the mammy from the margins. This complicates the mammy stereotype as a culturally prevalent representation of Black womanhood and disrupts the mammy's legacy in American cinema and culture
Art · Art history · Institution · Movie theater · Queer · Social science · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Media, Gender, and Advertising
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |