African American Women in Hollywood Essay

In early word-painting many African American actresses portrayed shares as mammies, slaves, seductresses, and maids. These roles suppressed them not totallyowing them to show their true talents. Although they had to take on these degrading roles, they still performed with dignity, elegance, gr sentiency and style. They paved the way for many actresses to exist both shadowys and whites. These women showed the select industry that they were more than slaves, mammies, and maids. These beautiful actresses showed the film industry that they are able to hold lead parts and even carry the self-coloured cast if need be.Phenomenal actresses such as Hattie McDaniels, Pearl Bailey, Ethel amniotic fluid, Nina Mae McKinney, and Dorothy Dandridge, to name a few, are Afro-American stars who paved the way for so many African-American actresses today de pique the hardships that they were faced with. These women dis compete beauty, intellect and talent, which allowed the stars that followed that they do not deliver to just settle for sterile roles. In early film there was a great deal propaganda and even today, which lead to these demeaning roles that they had to betray, Professor Carol.Penney of Yale- reinvigorated Haven writes, Film is one of the most influential means of communication and a powerful medium of propaganda. range and representation is central to the study of the black film actor, since the major studios reflected and reinforced the racism of their times. The depiction of blacks in Hollywood movies reinforced many of the prejudices of the white absolute majority rather than objective reality, limiting black actors to stereotypical roles (1). Hattie McDaniels, a trailblazer amongst African-American film, acquired many initials for African-American actors.McDaniels was the first African-American to sing on the radio, first to receive an Oscar for best supporting actress in Gone with the Wind. She was withal the first African-American to star in a s itcom in 1951 that featured an African-American actress in the title role (Pax 1). McDaniels appeared in more than three hundred films during the twenties and thirties. Her career was built on the ? Mammy image, a role she vie with dignity (Smith 7). She received much flack from the blacks because of the roles she played in film and on radio.Blacks felt that she was degrading the race but her reply was to these views were, Hell Id rather play a maid than be one ( encyclopaedia of World Biography 406). After her acclaim role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind, McDaniels was never paid anything less than $31,000 for a performance. This was much for an African-American as well as a white entertainer. Even though she stone-broke that barrier McDaniel was still oppressed by racism not only on film, but also off film. She was faced with racial legal problems when assay to acquire a home in Los Angeles.At that time there was a limited black land and home ownership right. Though she win the suite she still was subjected to racial hostility from her neighbors. McDaniels experience oppressions of many types during her career, but she continued to take the mammy roles but played them with dignity and respect. In spite of her being the mammy, McDaniels do sure that her characters had the upper hand. After McDaniels death the mammy roles died with her. Pearl Bailey, the Ambassador of Love career took off on majuscules U street at the age of fifteen years of age.She started off as a singer and appeared in many nightclubs. In the mid-30s she performed with the Noble Sissles Band in the Village Vanguard and Blue Angel Club. In the 40s she was the lead singer for Count Basie, ride Calloway and Cootie Williams. She debuted on Broadway in St. Louis Blue she won honors for as Broadways best newcomer. After her debut on Broadway films she performed in Variety Girl, Isnt It Romantic, Carmen Jones, and southern scup and Bess. In 1967 she won a Tony Award for heading the all-blac k cast of Hello Dolly A role that allowed her, she said, ?to sing, dance, say intelligent words on stage, be intimate and be loved and deliver what God gave me? and Im dressed up besides(Black History Virginia Profiles 1). Hello Dolly allowed Bailey to be beautiful. Former President Ronald Reagan awarded Bailey was with the ornament of Freedom in 1988. She was also a special delegate to the United Nations under Ford, Reagan and Bush. While in her sixties Bailey went back to college and received her degree in theology from Georgetown University (2). Ethel Waters, Sweet Mama Stringbean, started her career in Vaudeville and nightclubs.In the 1921 Waters performed her first debut album The New York Glide and At the New Jump Steady Bump. In the mid-twenties she was coined as a pop singer (Red Hot Jazz 1). On stage she was in fortunate productions of Africana, Blackbird of the 1930, Rhapsody in Black, and Cabin in the Sky (Penney 8). She also starred in Pinky in 1949 this was a message film on racism. Waters did not receive recognition for her work until she portrayed Berenice Sadie Brown in The Member of The Wedding. The Member of the Wedding was more than simply a movie. It was very of the essence(predicate) repects a motion-picture event.Foremost, it marked the first time a black actress was used to carry a major-studio white production. Secondly, the movie was another comeback for Ethel Waters. Her autobiography, His Eye Is On The Sparrow? she told all the lurid details of her spirit the turbulent events in the autobiography convinced patrons that Ethel Waters, who always portrayed long-suffering women, was indeed the characters she played? at one time patrons rooted for her to succeed? to triumph(8). During Waterss career she was nominated for an Oscar best supporting actress in the film Pinky. She also received the New York play Critics Award for best actress.Ethel Waterss last performance was in the film The Sound and the Fury in 1959. She continued sin ging and touring with evangelist he-goat Graham until her death in 1977 (Red Hot Jazz 1). Nina May McKinney was the screens first black goddess (Penney 3). She was the first black actor in the film to be recognized as a potential mainstream star (7). McKinney was also the most successful African-American actress in the 1920s and 1930s (South Carolina African American History Online 1). McKinneys career started as a New York City nightclub dancer and later received a role in Lew Leslies Blackbird Revue.In 1929, King Vidor, of MGM Studios, casted McKinney as doll, a promiscuous young woman in Hallelujah. In the famous cabaret scene McKinney, as Chick, danced a sensuous dance which has been copied by tether lady Lena Horne in Cabin in the Sky to Lola Falana in The Liberation of L. B. Jones (Penney 7). In Hallelujah, Chick represented the black woman as an exotic sex object, half woman, half child. She was the black woman out of control of her emotions, split in two by her dedicatio n and her own vulnerabilities. Implied throughout the battle with self was the tragic mulatto theme?In this stereotypical concept the white half of her represented the spiritual the black half-animalistic (7). Hallelujah was considered the ace of all-black pictures? The film had a strong plot, but unfortunately the message was? blacks should stay in their place. Though McKinney received much praise for her role as Chick she did not generate leading roles in the American film industry. She was relegated to assuming routine black characters or to partaking in independently produced, low budget all black movies, as was the pattern for most of the outstanding African-American actors and actresses of the era?McKinney acted in a few other films in the 1940s. Her most notable role was in Pinky. McKinney was also a stage actress and performed at the famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Barred from opportunities and stardom in Hollywood, she soon departed the United States and took her great tal ents to atomic number 63? in Greece she was known as the Black Garbo? she also starred with the great actor Paul Robeson in the film Sanders of the River (South Carolina 2). Later in McKinneys life the great star returned to the States and died in New York City in 1967. Dorothy Dandridge is amongst Hollywoods beauties in the 1940s and 1950s.Though she receives much recognition today as the most beautiful and talented actresses of her time, but at that time she was seen as just another Black actress. Followed in the footsteps of the great Nina Ma McKinney, though they have the beauty and the charisma as other female actresses of their time their color was still seen first. Like many actors and actresses of her time Dandridge career went through many highs and lows because of her race. Dandridges career began as a singer with her sister Vivian, they were known as the Wonder Children and later the group became a trio by the name the Dandridge Sisters.She played in many movies in the 1 940s such as Yes Indeed, Sing for My Supper, Jungle Jig, Easy Street, Cow Cow Boogie, and Paper Dolls to name a few. She was not recognized until her performance as Carmen in Carmen Jones. Her co-stars were Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey and Diahann Caroll. She was the first Black to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress (African-American Almanac 248). Dandridges role as Carmen lead to more opportunities for African-Americans in films. Dandridge was the first African-American woman to be held in the arms of a white man in the film, Island in the Sun.She was also the first African-American to have an interracial kiss in The Decks Ran Red (Pioneer Actress 2). Though the film Carmen Jones allowed Dandridge to have a lead role she the character was the stereotypical mulatto woman with a high sex drive and filled with deceit. Penney writes, The irony that everywhereshadowed Dandridges career was that although the image she marketed appeared to be contemporary and daring, at heart it was ground on an old classic type, the tragic mulatto. In her important films Dorothy Dandridge portrayed doomed, unfilled women.Nervous and vulnerable, they always battled with the duality of their personalities. As such, they answered the demands of their times. Dorothy Dandridges characters brought to a dismay nuclear age a razor-sharp sense of desperation that cut through the bleak monotony of the day. Eventually- and here lay the final irony- she may have been forced to live out a screen image that destroyed her (10). Dorothy Dandridge broke many barriers during her career. She opened the doors for black romance in films. She crossed over the racial lines with interracial relationships on and off screen.Later in Dandridges career she found it hard to get work. She filed for bankruptcy and later committed suicide. Dandridge made it possible for African-American women to be seen as beautiful and not exotic and sexual. In conclusion, many African-Americans actresses were blackb alled by the industry. They were not able to achieve the success that they were entitle to because of the era that they were living in. These stars were oppressed because of the color of their skin and not because they did not possess talent.They were limited to roles that did not allow them to be the damsels or have leading roles. And if they were cast as the lead the film stereotyped the Blacks as shiftless, deceitful, or ignorant. These are just a few of the great African-American women in film that made it easier for African-American women to get into the industry. Though today African-American people are still seen shiftless, drug addicts, gang bangers, killers, whores, and criminals, but now they have more access to the industry because now African- Americans are able to write and direct films that depict them in a better light.Film today has changed for the past from mammies. instantly African-American women are teachers, doctors, lawyers, business tycoons and what have you. Yet, they are still oppressed because they are only able to produce what the movie studios say that they can produce. now there are films like Soul Food, Love and Basketball, Rosewood, Bamboozled, and many more that have messages and have African-American women in lead roles and not being in the background. These great stars allowed Black girls to see their own kind on a big screen and feel that they are beautiful too.Work Cited The African-American Almanac, 1997. Detroit Gale Research, 1997. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 10&16. Detroit Gale Research, 1987. Ethel Waters. Online. 10 walk 2005. Available www. http//www. redhot jazz. com/waters. html. Honoring Black History Month. Pax Stars. Online. 10 March 2005. Available www. http//www. pax. tv/bios/one-bio. cfm/hattie-mcdaniel. Nina Mae McKinney. South Carolina African American History Online. Online. 11 March 2005. Available www. http//www.scafam-hist. org/aahc/. Pearl Bailey. Black History Virginia Profiles. Online. 13 March 2005. Availablewww. http//www. gatewayva. com/pages/bhistory/1996/bailey. shtml. Penney, Carol. Black Actors inamerican Cinema. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Online. 12 March 2000. Available www. http//www. yale. edu/ynhti/cirriculm/units. Pioneer black actress Dorothy Dandridge has a famous cast of modern-day admirers. Online. 12 March 2005. Available www. http//ohio. com/bj/fun/tv/0299/002827htm.