In early movie many African American actresses portrayed functions as mammies. slaves. seductresses. and amahs. These functions suppressed them non leting them to demo their true endowments. Although they had to take on these degrading functions. they still performed with self-respect. elegance. grace and manner. They paved the manner for many actresses to follow both inkinesss and Whites. These adult females showed the movie industry that they were more than slaves. mammies. and amahs. These beautiful actresses showed the movie industry that they are able to keep lead parts and even carry the whole dramatis personae if demand be.
Phenomenal actresses such as Hattie McDaniels. Pearl Bailey. Ethel Waters. Nina Mae McKinney. and Dorothy Dandridge. to call a few. are Afro-american stars who paved the manner for so many Afro-american actresses today despite the adversities that they were faced with. These adult females displayed beauty. mind and endowment. which allowed the stars that followed that they do non hold to merely settle for stereotyped functions. In early movie there was much propaganda and even today. which lead to these take downing functions that they had to bewray. Professor Carol.
Penney of Yale-New Haven writes. “Film is one of the most influential agencies of communicating and a powerful medium of propaganda. Race and representation is cardinal to the survey of the black movie histrion. since the major studios reflected and reinforced the racism of their times. The word picture of inkinesss in Hollywood films reinforced many of the biass of the white bulk instead than nonsubjective world. restricting black histrions to stereotyped roles” ( 1 ) . Hattie McDaniels. a trailblazer amongst Afro-american movie. acquired many number ones for Afro-american histrions.
McDaniels was the first Afro-american to sing on the wireless. first to have an Academy award for best back uping actress in Gone with the Wind. She was besides the first Afro-american to star in a situation comedy in 1951 that featured an Afro-american actress in the rubric function ( Pax 1 ) . “McDaniels appeared in more than three 100 movies during the mid-twentiess and mid-thirtiess. Her calling was built on the? Mammy’ image. a function she played with dignity” ( Smith 7 ) . She received much flak catcher from the inkinesss because of the functions she played in movie and on wireless.
Blacks felt that she was degrading the race but her answer was to these positions were. “Hell I’d instead play a amah than be one” ( Encyclopedia of World Biography 406 ) . After her acclaim function as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. McDaniels was ne’er paid anything less than $ 31. 000 for a public presentation. This was much for an Afro-american every bit good as a white entertainer. Even though she broke that barrier McDaniel was still oppressed by racism non merely on movie. but besides off movie. She was faced with racial legal jobs when seeking to get a place in Los Angeles.
At that clip there was a limited black land and place ownership right. Though she won the suite she still was subjected to racial ill will from her neighbours. McDaniels experience subjugations of many types during her calling. but she continued to take the mammy functions but played them with self-respect and regard. In malice of her being the mammy. McDaniels made certain that her characters had the “upper hand” . After McDaniels decease the mammy functions died with her. Pearl Bailey. the “Ambassador of Love” calling took off on Washington’s U street at the age of 15 old ages of age.
She started off as a vocalist and appeared in many cabarets. In the mid-30’s she performed with the Baronial Sissle’s Band in the Village Vanguard and Blue Angel Club. In the 40’s she was the lead vocalist for Count Basie. Cab Calloway and Cootie Williams. She debuted on Broadway in St. Louis Blue ; she won awards for as Broadway’s best fledgling. After her introduction on Broadway movies she performed in Variety Girl. Isn’t It Romantic. Carmen Jones. and Porgy and Bess. “In 1967 she won a Tony Award for heading the all-black dramatis personae of Hello Dolly! A function that allowed her. she said. ?
to sing. dance. state intelligent words on phase. love and be loved and present what God gave me? and I’m dressed up besides’” ( Black History: Virginia Profiles 1 ) . Hello Dolly! allowed Bailey to be beautiful. Former President Ronald Reagan awarded Bailey was with the Medal of Freedom in 1988. She was besides a particular delegate to the United Nations under Ford. Reagan and Bush. While in her 1960ss Bailey went back to college and received her grade in divinity from Georgetown University ( 2 ) . Ethel Waters. “Sweet Mama Stringbean” . started her calling in Vaudeville and cabarets.
In the 1921 Waters performed her first introduction album “The New York Glide” and “At the New Jump Steady Bump” . In the twentiess she was coined as a dad vocalist ( Red Hot Jazz 1 ) . “On phase she was in successful productions of Africana. Blackbird of the 1930. Rhapsody in Black. and Cabin in the Sky” ( Penney 8 ) . She besides starred in Pinky in 1949 this was a message movie on racism. Waters did non have acknowledgment for her work until she portrayed Berenice Sadie Brown in The Member of The Wedding. “The Member of the Wedding was more than merely a film. It was really of import repects a motion-picture event.
Foremost. it marked the first clip a black actress was used to transport a major-studio white production. Second. the film was another rejoinder for Ethel Waters. Her autobiography. His Eye Is On The Sparrow? she told all the lurid inside informations of her life the disruptive events in the autobiography convinced frequenters that Ethel Waters. who ever portrayed enduring adult females. was so the characters she played? Now frequenters rooted for her to win? to triumph” ( 8 ) . During Waters’s calling she was nominated for an Oscar best back uping actress in the movie Pinky. She besides received the New York Drama Critics Award for best actress.
Ethel Waters’s last public presentation was in the movie The Sound and the Fury in 1959. She continued singing and touring with evangelist Billy Graham until her decease in 1977 ( Red Hot Jazz 1 ) . Nina May McKinney was “the screen’s foremost black goddess” ( Penney 3 ) . “She was the first black histrion in the movie to be recognized as a possible mainstream star” ( 7 ) . McKinney was besides the most successful Afro-american actress in the 1920’s and 1930’s ( South Carolina African American History Online 1 ) . McKinney’s calling started as a New York City nightclub terpsichorean and subsequently received a function in Lew Leslie’s Blackbird Revue.
In 1929. King Vidor. of MGM Studios. casted McKinney as Chick. a promiscuous immature adult female in Hallelujah. “In the celebrated cabaret scene McKinney. as Chick. danced a sensuous dance which has been copied by taking 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 adult female as an alien sex object. half adult female. half kid. She was the black adult female out of control of her emotions. split in two by her trueness and her ain exposures. Implied throughout the conflict with ego was the tragic mulatto subject?
In this stereotyped construct the white half of her represented the religious ; the black half-animalistic” ( 7 ) . Hallelujah was considered the “‘ace of all-black pictures’ ? The movie had a strong secret plan. but unluckily the message was? inkinesss should remain in their topographic point. Though McKinney received much congratulations for her function as Chick she did non bring forth taking functions in the American movie industry. “She was relegated to presuming everyday black characters or to partaking in independently produced. low budget all black films. as was the form for most of the outstanding Afro-american histrions and actresses of the epoch?
McKinney acted in a few other movies in the 1940’s. Her most noteworthy function was in Pinky. McKinney was besides a phase actress and performed at the celebrated Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Barred from chances and stardom in Hollywood. she shortly departed the United States and took her great endowments to Europe? in Greece she was known as the Black Garbo? she besides starred with the great histrion Paul Robeson in the movie Sanders of the River” ( South Carolina 2 ) . Later in McKinney’s life the great star returned to the States and died in New York City in 1967. Dorothy Dandridge is amongst Hollywood’s beauties in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Though she receives much acknowledgment today as the most beautiful and gifted actresses of her clip. but at that clip she was seen as merely another Black actress. Followed in the footfalls of the great Nina Ma McKinney. though they possessed the beauty and the personal appeal as other female actresses of their clip their colour was still seen foremost. Like many histrions and actresses of her clip Dandridge calling went through many highs and depressions because of her race. Dandridge’s calling began as a vocalist with her sister Vivian. they were known as the Wonder Children and subsequently the group became a three by the name the Dandridge Sisters.
She played in many films in the 1940’s such as: Yes Indeed. Singing for My Supper. Jungle Jig. Easy Street. Cow Cow Boogie. and Paper Dolls to call a few. She was non recognized until her public presentation 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 ( Afro-american Almanac 248 ) . Dandridge’s function as Carmen lead to more chances for African-Americans in movies. Dandridge was the first Afro-american adult female to be held in the weaponries of a white adult male in the movie. Island in the Sun.
She was besides the first Afro-american to hold an interracial buss in The Decks Ran Red ( Pioneer Actress 2 ) . Though the movie Carmen Jones allowed Dandridge to hold a lead function she the character was the stereotyped mulatto adult female with a high sex thrust and filled with fraudulence. Penney writes. “The sarcasm that overshadowed Dandridge’s calling was that although the image she marketed appeared to be modern-day and make bolding. at bosom it was based on an old authoritative type. the tragic mulatto. In her of import movies Dorothy Dandridge portrayed doomed. unfilled adult females.
Nervous and vulnerable. they ever battled with the dichotomy of their personalities. As such. they answered the demands of their times. Dorothy Dandridge’s characters brought to a dispirited atomic age a razor-sharp sense of despair that cut through the black humdrum of the twenty-four hours. Eventually- and here lay the concluding irony- she may hold been forced to populate out a screen image that destroyed her” ( 10 ) . Dorothy Dandridge broke many barriers during her calling. She opened the doors for black love affair in movies. She crossed over the racial lines with interracial relationships on and off screen.
Subsequently in Dandridge’s calling she found it difficult to acquire work. She filed for bankruptcy and subsequently committed self-destruction. Dandridge made it possible for Afro-american adult females to be seen as beautiful and non alien and sexual. In decision. many African-Americans actresses were blackballed by the industry. They were non able to accomplish the success that they were entitled to because of the epoch that they were populating in. These stars were oppressed because of the colour of their tegument and non because they did non possess endowment.
They were limited to functions that did non let them to be the demoiselles or have taking functions. And if they were cast as the lead the movie stereotyped the Blacks as shiftless. fallacious. or nescient. These are merely a few of the great Afro-american adult females in movie that made it easier for Afro-american adult females to acquire into the industry. Though today Afro-american people are still seen shiftless. drug nuts. pack bangers. slayers. prostitutes. and felons. but now they have more entree to the industry because now African- Americans are able to compose and direct movies that depict them in a better visible radiation.
Film today has changed for the yesteryear from mammies. Now Afro-american adult females are instructors. physicians. attorneies. concern barons and what have you. Yet. they are still oppressed because they are merely able to bring forth what the film studios say that they can bring forth. Today there are movies like Soul Food. Love and Basketball. Rosewood. Bamboozled. and many more that have messages and have Afro-american adult females in lead functions and non being in the background. These great stars allowed Black misss to see their ain sort on a large screen and experience that they are beautiful excessively.
Work Cited The Afro-american Almanac. 1997. Detroit: Gale Research. 1997. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 10 & A ; 16. Detroit: Gale Research. 1987. “Ethel Waters. ” Online. 10 March 2005. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. redhot wind. com/waters. hypertext markup language. “Honoring Black History Month. ” Pax Stars. Online. 10 March 2005. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. kiss of peace. tv/bios/one-bio. cfm/hattie-mcdaniel. “Nina Mae McKinney. “
South Carolina African American History Online. Online. 11 March 2005. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. scafam-hist. org/aahc/ . “Pearl Bailey. ” Black History: Virginia Profiles. Online. 13 March 2005. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. gatewayva. com/pages/bhistory/1996/bailey. shtml. Penney. Carol. “Black Actors inamerican Cinema. ” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Online. 12 March 2000. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Yale University. edu/ynhti/cirriculm/units. “Pioneer black actress Dorothy Dandridge has a celebrated dramatis personae of contemporary supporters. ” Online. 12 March 2005. Available: World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //ohio. com/bj/fun/tv/0299/002827htm.
