This character can be seen in black female characters who are the mistress of white men or the seductress. The Jezebel is a rival to the white woman sexuality and desirability. The Jezebel is a stark contrast to the Mammy but also stands in contrast to the view of white feminism marked by terms like purity and virtuous living. She has “insatiable sexual appetites and is willing to engage in any deviant behaviour to please.” She was used as the justification for the sexual exploitation of black women during slavery and the sexual exploitation of black women on screen. The Jezebel is the hypersexual and dehumanized black female character. The Jezebel character is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Mammy. The film The Help is a more modern example where black women are portrayed in the Mammy role. She is a comfortable character to both white males and especially white females, as the Mammy is not sexually threatening. The Mammy is often a chubby black woman who never “forgets her role as the obedient servant and has accepted her subordination to White male elite power.” The Mammy also has no sexuality, so she is undesirable to men. The Mammy character is one that is the “…faithful, obedient, domestic servant.” The best example is the character of Mammy played by Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind. In this part, we will be looking at some common stereotypes and tropes of black characters which will inform the upon coming critiques of some black female characters. In part 1, I gave a brief history of femininity and blackness, and how that has affected black women’s conception of self and society’s conception of black women.
#BLACK MESA TV TROPES SERIES#
Welcome to part 2 of our series on Black Female Characters in Media.
0 kommentar(er)
