February was the month that month that Lyke Mag was supposed to come out (whoops). February is also Black History Month. This article is going to be about history – some of it black, some of it Philly, and some of it lesbian.
“Sometimes we’ve got to create our own history.” That is a quote from the movie The Watermelon Woman (1996), by Cheryl Dunye. Let me tell you a little about Cheryl.
She is a lesbian, and she is black, and she knows Philly. She is originally from Liberia and later spent a good deal of time in the Philadelphia area while getting her BA from Temple, her MFA from Rutgers and at some point back to Temple to teach. Currently, according to her MySpace page, she is living in Pasadena, Ca. Ok, some other important things. She is successful. The film in question, The Watermelon Woman, won the Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival when it came out in ’96. She also made a film that was distributed by Miramax, has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, garnered a Lifetime Achievement Award from Girlfriend’s Magazine, and lots more (her full resume and list of achievements is on her website, CherylDunye.com).
A black, powerful, eminent lesbian who is connected to the 215; yep, that’s LYKEable. Did I mention that she is really hott, too?
Back to The Watermelon Woman, though. The “Dunyementary” as Cheryl refers to it, is essentially a Spike Lee-ish mockumentary. Cheryl, played by herself, Cheryl, is working in a video store. Cheryl is a wedding videographer with her friend, Tamara (Valerie Walker). Cheryl is not really a videographer, though; she is a powerful, driven underground filmmaker, desperate to make the voice of African American women heard. So, she turns to a place where African American women have been somewhat publicly humiliated: playing “mammies” in old southern plantation films. She finds a movie with a beautiful starlet mammy, who’s name in the credits is only listed as The Watermelon Woman. Cheryl spends the entire rest of the movie trying to uncover the secret of this mysterious Watermelon Woman.
Now, this isn’t just some movie that had people laughing and crying for an hour and half then faded somewhere into an obscure video rental rack. Shauna Swarts says it very eloquently in an article published on the website AfterEllen.com: “It’s also notable that a film that addresses racism and homophobia was denounced by one Senator Jesse Helms—preoccupied with the film’s single, graphic but tasteful and brief sex scene—as “flotsam floating down a sewer.” If that isn’t the mark of quality queer cinema, what is?”
The film really feels like Cheryl took racism, lesbians, Philadelphia, and the 90’s and shook them all up in an un-politically correct margarita. The film got a write-up in the New York Times, where Times writer Stephen Holden trivially says, “The Watermelon Woman is a loose-jointed movie that goes on playful little tangents whenever it feels like it.” That is a gross understatement.
As Cheryl researches the Water Melon Woman, she learns that her name is Faye Richards, a local Philadelphia jazz singer and actress. Cheryl learns that Faye was sleeping with a white woman director, Martha Page (who was either transgendered as a male or wore drag, it is unclear), to advance her career.
As the movie progresses, Cheryl finds herself similarly in an evolving relationship with a white woman (played by Guinevere Turner). She receives constant criticism from Tamara, who insinuates that she is a traitor to her own race. Eventually, Cheryl does break up with Diana. She doesn’t do it because she doesn’t want to date a white woman; she does it because she learns that Diana has already dated a large number of other black women (and men). What is so significant about this movie is that Cheryl is questioning who she is. She fears that Diana views her as a fetish object* and feels threatened by that, and I think that is a pretty important, rational fear among many African Americans that Cheryl Dunye has fearlessly brought to the screen, a glowing source of mass communication.
Needless to say, the film is controversial. Some could argue that Cheryl should have continued to be with Diana if she loved her, and that the film could potentially be a model of reverse-racism. Cheryl slyly hints that she doesn’t break up with Diana because she is racist by using another semi-significant white character, a pasty, gothic college student who works at the video store. Tamara not only denounces Diana but also constantly harasses the goth chick at work, who Cheryl tries to defend and save from Tamara’s wrath. Cheryl and Tamara’s relationship even becomes strained, and Tamara is portrayed as sort of mean and self-loathing, again, a hint that this movie isn’t just about hating white people, rather what it means to be a black lesbian woman.
But, all that being said, anyone who watches The Watermelon Woman is going to have his or her own opinion on it. LYKE it or not, Cheryl Dunye serves you that aforementioned margarita on a silver platter when you are done watching this one. All I have to say is check it out yourself and see how you relate. – Raeann Drew
P.S. Keep your eyes out for Philly visuals, one of the steamiest lesbian sex scenes ever filmed, and an AWESOME cameo by local writer Camille Paglia, in which she parodies herself.
Question for reader:
What is your opinion on interracial relationships? Have you ever been in one? I personally think that being in an interracial relationship would be really hard, but it would be worth the struggle and only make you stronger if you deeply loved the person.
Links:
CherylDunye.com
SistersinCinema.com
Shauna Swarts on the subject: http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/Movies/2006/3/watermelon2.html
NY Times Article:
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/reviewres=9C04E2DD1430F936A35750C0A961958260
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.