I recently watched the movie "Gone With the Wind" in my seminar class: here are my thoughts. I mainly want to focus on one thing: the representation of African Americans in the film. Specifically focusing in on the characters Mammy and Prissy.
The two main black characters in the film are Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel, and Prissy, played by Butterfly McQueen. This movie portrays the complicated dynamics and stereotypical box black women are put in. For one, I loved seeing the relationship between Scarlett and Mammy. We can see throughout the film that Mammy is the one who basically raises Scarlett. She cooks her meals, is always making sure she eats, she helps her get dressed, makes sure she's on time, and so on and so forth. One might think that this makes Mammy look submissive to Scarlett, and literally, she IS. But when we dive deeper into Mammy's attitude and personality, she is exactly the opposite. Through her interactions with Scarlett, we see Mammy being a sassy, assertive, even aggressive figure. But this can also be negative in that it helped to develop a harmful stereotype that still exists today, which we'll further elaborate on a little later.
The other black woman that is featured throughout the film is Prissy. Prissy is probably the most disliked character of the film, not only by black people, but by people of all races and ethnicities. She is portrayed as loud, dramatic, whiny, and over-the-top. Malcom X even said that when he was first introduced to her character, he "felt like crawling under the rug." In a BBC article, she is even described as a "demeaning caricature".
The way that these two black women are depicted in "Gone With the Wind" contribute to several well-known stereotypes for black women today: the angry black woman, and the classic "black best friend". The relationship between Mammy and Scarlett is a perfect example of this. This "black best friend" stereotype is used as a common strategy in the media and entertainment world. They are used solely for the development of the plot and the non-black character. There are hundreds of movies and tv series that portray the black person as the "black best friend". To name a few, "Clueless", "10 things I Hate About You", "Forrest Gump", "High School Musical", "Vampire Diaries"... and many more. This concept tokenizes black bodies and in my opinion, is the equivalent of a non-black person saying "It's okay, I have black friends". Learn more about this concept here and here.
The other harmful stereotype is the "angry black woman". It is not unheard of for a non-black person to have pre-existing ideas of what a black person will act and sound like. These two stereotypes force black people into a box, and can often times be harmful to a black person who doesn't fit into it. By creating and giving into these stereotypes, we are only silencing the voices of black women when we should be amplifying them now more than ever. These stereotypes not only affect the way black women are perceived in society and in the media, but it carries into the real world and even affects job opportunities for black women as well. Learn more about this concept here.
There has been much controversy over HBO's removal of the movie, and I'm not leaning towards either side. I think it's portrayal of black women is harmful and is one of the earliest examples of how black female stereotypes were created in the media, but this is the exact reason that I think it needs to be watched more. More people need to see this. More people need to educate themselves on these matters. An article I found pretty interesting on the topic is this article written by Time Magazine's Mahita Gajanan.
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