Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 44: Let's Hear it for the girls
Interestingly up to now all the African American characters in the films I have watched have been portrayed as maids to the lead protagonists, usually the women, and barely get any lines. Films like You Can't Take it With You and Jezebel gave these characters a few lines and almost a mini sub-plot but they weren't viewed as the leads. So I was surprised to see a film which featured a dominant African American character, and a female one at that, in a film that dealt with the issues of both race and gender.
The
film was Imitation of Life and was nominated for Best Picture in 1935,
the winner that year was It Happened One Night however Claudette Colbert
starred in both films and although she won Best Actress for the former I
found her much more impressive in the latter. Colbert plays Bea a widow
with a daughter who takes in African American housekeeper Delilah and
her mixed race daughter, Delilah agrees to work for Bea in exchange for
somewhere to live but Bea struggles to earn a living selling pancake
syrup. Thanks to Delilah's pancakes however, Bea is able to start a
successful pancake restaurant and later becomes a powerful businesswoman
by selling pancake flour. As the year's go on both women's daughters
start to grow up Delilah's daughter Peola starts to be embarrassed by
her African American heritage and eventually rejects her mother as she
wants everyone to believe that she is white. Meanwhile Bea becomes
involved with a man named Steven but when her daughter Jessie returns
home from college she falls in love with Steven as well. The end of the
film sees Delilah dying but having an extravagant funeral paid for with
the money that she put aside from the business, meanwhile Bea and Steven
go their separate ways after she realises that it will complicate her
relationship with her daughter.
I really
enjoyed Imitation of Life and thought it was one of the first pictures
which had a strong female lead and a mostly female cast. Although this
is true of films like Norma Shearer's The Divorcee, those films still
saw the female characters heavily reliant on men, in Imitation of Life
the female characters become successful on their own and the male
characters are perceived as foils to Bea as she is able to trick a lot
of men into giving them her help free of charge in the opening scenes of
the film. The film also deals with the tricky topic of race in the plot
involving Delilah and Peola, Delilah is portrayed as a devoted mother
who starts the film looking for work so she can house her daughter but
Peola starts to become obsessed with blending in and thinks that her
African American heritage will stop her from doing this. The final
scenes in which Peola believes that she has killed her mother are some
of the film's most emotional. Despite this being a well-acted piece none
of the actors received nominations however I believe if the Best
Supporting Actress category had been around then Louise Beavers may have
been nominated for her portrayal of Delilah. Despite the film having an
African-American star, Beavers didn't feature on any of the posters
instead they all feature Colbert and male co-star Warren William so it
seems although the film was fairly open-minded it was still promoted as a
traditional romantic drama, which seems like a real shame.
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