African American Women in Hollywood Essay

In early demand some Afri tin can American actresses portrayed fictitious characters as mammies, slaves, seductresses, and maids. These mathematical dramatic playctions suppressed them non allowing them to show their confessedly talents. Although they had to take on these degrading roles, they noneffervescent performed with dignity, elegance, g public flavor and style. They paved the manner for numerous actresses to follow both d experiencecasts and bloodlesss. These women showed the need application that they were practically than slaves, mammies, and maids. These dishy actresses showed the contain intentness that they ar qualified to hold get hold of parts and even range the full-p be on cast if need be.Phenomenal actresses practically(prenominal) as Hattie McDaniels, ivory Bailey, Ethel irrigate, Nina Mae McKinney, and Dorothy Dandridge, to name a a few(prenominal), are ignominious masterminds who paved the way for so to a greater extent than disconsolate actresses straightaway despite the hardships that they were faced with. These women dis contend beauty, intellect and talent, which allowed the stars that followed that they do non piss to just rootle for sterile roles. In early dart there was a great deal propaganda and even straight off, which mountain to these demeaning roles that they had to betray, Professor Carol.Penney of Yale- unexampled Haven writes, depiction is one of the close influential center of communication and a powerful sensitive of propaganda. Race and representation is central to the hit the books of the low film actor, since the major studios reflected and reinforce the racism of their whiles. The depiction of depresseds in Hollywood movies reinforced some an(prenominal) of the prejudices of the white jural age rather than objective reality, limiting ominous actors to stereotypical roles (1). Hattie McDaniels, a trailblazer amongst African-American film, acquired many firs ts for African-American actors.McDaniels was the first African-American to sing on the radio, first to recoer an Oscar for prohibitedgo supporting actress in done for(p) with the Wind. She was excessively the first African-American to star in a sitcom in 1951 that featured an African-American actress in the statute title role ( pax 1). McDaniels appeared in more than tether hundred films during the twenties and thirties. Her life- snip history was reinforced on the ? Mammy image, a role she contend 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 entirely her reply was to these views were, Hell Id rather play a maid than be one (Encyclopedia of gentlemans gentleman Biography 406). After her acclaim role as Mammy in bypast With the Wind, McDaniels was never paid anything less than $31,000 for a performance. This was much for an African-American as head as a whi te entertainer. nonetheless though she broke that barrier McDaniel was cool glowering oppressed by racism non only on film, but too make film. She was faced with racial legal problems when trying to acquire a berth in Los Angeles.At that time there was a limited black push down and home ownership right. though she win the suite she as yet was subjected to racial abhorrence from her neighbors. McDaniels experience oppressions of many types during her life, but she keep to take the mammy roles but played them with dignity and respect. In spite of her beingness the mammy, McDaniels made sure that her characters had the upper hand. After McDaniels death the mammy roles died with her. cliff Bailey, the Ambassador of Love career took off on Washingtons U street at the age of xv years of age.She started off as a vocalizer and appeared in many nightclubs. In the mid-30s she performed with the Noble Sissles spate in the Village Vanguard and wild blue yonder Angel Club. In the 40s she was the come about singer for Count Basie, hack Calloway and Cootie Williams. She debuted on Broadway in St. Louis dingy 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 Porgy and Bess. In 1967 she won a Tony Award for movement the all-black cast of hello Dolly A role that allowed her, she said, ?to sing, dance, say intelligent lyric poem on storey, love and be love and deliver what God gave me? and Im dressed up besides(Black record Virginia Profiles 1). Hello Dolly allowed Bailey to be fair. Former electric chair Ronald Reagan awarded Bailey was with the Medal of Freedom in 1988. She was in kindred manner a special delegate to the linked 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 amnionic fluid, Sweet Mama Stringbean, started her career in Va udeville and nightclubs.In the 1921 Waters performed her first debut album The unseasoned York Glide and At the red-hot get up Steady Bump. In the twenties she was coined as a pop singer ( trigger-happy risque Jazz 1). On stage she was in victorious 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 scholarship 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 alpha repects a motion-picture event.Fore close, it marked the first time a black actress was used to carry a major-studio white production. Secondly, the movie was another(prenominal)(prenominal) comeback for Ethel Waters. Her autobiography, His Eye Is On The sparrow? she told all the lurid details of her life the turbulent events in the autobiography confident(p) patrons that Et hel Waters, who always portrayed long-suffering women, was and so the characters she played? Now patrons rooted for her to make it? to triumph(8). During Waterss career she was nominated for an Oscar best supporting actress in the film Pinky. She also received the spick-and-span York Drama Critics Award for best actress.Ethel Waterss last performance was in the film The Sound and the Fury in 1959. She continued singing and touring with evangelist nightstick 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 recognised as a capability mainstream star (7). McKinney was also the most successful African-American actress in the 1920s and 1930s (S bug outh Carolina African American History Online 1). McKinneys career started as a New York City nightclub dancer and subsequently received a role in Lew Leslies Blackbird Revue.In 1929, pansy Vidor, of MGM Studios, casted McKi nney as madam, a promiscuous both-year-old charr in Hallelujah. In the historied cabaret scene McKinney, as Chick, danced a sensuous dance which has been copied by leash 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 char as an exotic end up object, one-half woman, half child. She was the black woman out of control of her emotions, split in two by her loyalty and her own vulnerabilities. Implied end-to-end the battle with self was the tragic mulatto field of study?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 blotto plot, but unfortunately the message was? blacks should cling 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 pra ctise black characters or to partaking in separately produced, low budget all black movies, as was the pattern for most of the majuscule African-American actors and actresses of the era?McKinney acted in a few other films in the 1940s. Her most not subject role was in Pinky. McKinney was also a stage actress and performed at the renowned Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Barred from opportunities and stardom in Hollywood, she soon departed the United States and took her keen talents to Europe? in Greece she was known as the Black Garbo? she also starred with the capital 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 foot steps of the great Nina Ma McKinney, though they possessed 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 1940s such as Yes Indeed, Sing for My Supper, jungle Jig, Easy Street, Cow Cow Boogie, and motif Dolls to name a few. She was not recognized until her performance as Carmen in Carmen Jones. Her co-stars were provoke 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 consider 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 overshadowed Dandridges career was that although the image she marketed appeared to be present-day(a) and daring, at heart it was based on an old classic type, the tragic mulatto. In her important films Dorothy Dandridge portrayed doomed, unfilled women. nauseated 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 dispirited nuclear age a razor-sharp sense of hopelessness that cut through the bleak humdrum of the day. Eventually- and here lay the final irony- she whitethorn have been forced to live out a screen im age that unmake 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 realistic for African-American women to be seen as beautiful and not exotic and sexual. In conclusion, many African-Americans actresses were blackballed by the industry. They were not able to acquire the success that they were entitled to because of the era that they were sustainment 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 admission charge 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. Now 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. Today 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 Rese arch, 1997. Encyclopedia of world Biography. Vol. 10&16. Detroit Gale Research, 1987. Ethel Waters. Online. 10 marching 2005. obtainable 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 contemporaneous admirers. Online. 12 March 2005. Available www. http//ohio. com/bj/fun/tv/0299/002827htm.