MovieChat Forums > Imitation of Life (1934) Discussion > Boy !! Racist 1930's Hollywood(major spo...

Boy !! Racist 1930's Hollywood(major spoilers)

posted 20 years ago by Son_Of_Malcolm
36 replies | jump to latest

This movie is so full of racist stereotypical,self hate bullshyt,that I dont even know where to start
lets see................

first of course this Mammy look , was this the only look that Hollywood wanted for Black Women then?

Then the light skinned daughter (played by a white actres until the Adult version) by the time she reaches grade school! she has developed self hate ,there is a scene in which her Mom comes to her school to pick her up and she is ashamed of her mom because she is black and of course the mamma type and all the kids find out she is black,she leaves the school with her head down,in another scene she comes home crying because her friend called her black, so she goes into this im not black! ,im not black! routine,what made this scene worst is that the white mother(Bea) told her daughter why did you say such a bad thing to her,(WHAT???) it was a bad thing to call her black ?,thats who she was,the subplot of self hate continued for the remainder of the film,it even got to the point in which the light skinned daughter left school was working at some drug store or something, the mammy mother comes in and she claims she has never seen her before in life, I must give credit with this scene though! at least the white mother was like How can you treat your mother like that? (something to that affect),so later the daughter comes home apologizes for treating her that way, so at this point I thought maybe she was going to accept that she was black,but no!! she goes on to tell her mother she wants to be accepted as white and for her mother to never talk to her again,this of course breaks her mothers heart and eventually dies of one,only then the daughter is sorry for what she said .........great

now lets get to the main character 'Bea', she allows a black women(Delilah Johnson) and her daughter to stay in her home, as this black women is pretty much her servant,she basically begged to be that and not really get paid,she even rubs Bea's feet! so Bea decides after eating Delilahs pancakes one morning ,she comments on how good they are, so after that she wants to open a business selling pancakes,so since she sells syrup she goes out and buys a storefront,comes home and just tells Delilah that they are moving and starting a business using her(Delilah) recipe for pancakes,plus of course Delilah is the main cook,,they even ask Delilah to smile a certain way for a picture and of course its the Aunt Jamima smile,so this art work is diplayed on the Restaurants Store front,a few years pass and some freaky sounding white guy who appears to be a homelss guy , gets free food then tells Bea that she should sell the pancake mix in stores,Bea agrees ,next thing you know you see this guy, Bea and Delilah all in a room with the deal going like this , Bea and this guy gets most of the profit while Delilah gets 20% of the profit, so im like ,it was her family recipe, so Bea says you can have your own home now , but in old stereotypical fashion Delilah tells her No!I need to stay and help you and Jessie , just put my money a side,we now see them all in a big home ,for some reason Delilah part of the home is downstairs like a basement part,yeah I know some of you will say,well she didnt want to have her own home but this was a subliminal thing here,she was the reason Bea became rich,they even have a party and its nothing but white folks and Bea and Peola dont even join the party,you even have a scene in which Bea tells Delilah! it's alright to come up now after Delilah ask are all the guest gone ?then Delilah rubs Beas feet, but im like dont you have servants for that now? , but again this is more racist propaganda of that time , you know! no matter how much money you make you are still not on the level of a white person, Bea even tells people she is the Queen of pancakes, now true! she did use her business savey to get her own business , but it would have been nothing without Delilah secret recipe

the other subplot of Bea and her daughter loving the same man was a moot point, I can go on and on about this movie and its stereotypes and racism and Im going to kill my friend who told me this was a good movie

I Stand Accused!

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] gribfritz2 12 years ago

I could barely read the clutter of words you cobbled together, but I gave it a try.

The mammy look was ALL you saw? I suppose you didn't look at a single other black person in the entire film, especially the funeral at the end. Delilah was the only Mammy of the bunch.

I'm not sure there were many or any light-skinned yet black child actresses at the time. Although, the only child actress I see listed for Peola is someone named Sebie Hendricks who has no other imdb credits. Do we know this girl actually wasn't a light-skinned black girl or just grasping at straws?

From the source novel, Peola is actually only half-black. This could make a lot of the "I'm not black" rhetoric make even more sense. As it is, you don't think there were light-skinned blacks in the 1920's or 1930's who were NOT proud to be black? Who just wished they were actually white to make their lives much easier? If not, you're living in a bubble with blinders on.

Being called "black" in 1920's/30's was a slur. They preferred to be called colored or negro then. Again, you're taking the film completely out of context and applying 2005 (wow, your post is that old?) ideology to a film over 70 years old. So if it were made today, she would have called her the dreaded n-word (zomg, I better not even type it or incur wrath).

Also, 20% of a multi-million dollar company is not bad for someone who only had the recipe. She did not have the idea, drive, ambition, capital, etc... Without Delilah, Bea may have actually made a go of a restaurant anyway. Without Bea, Delilah had nothing but Mammy's recipe for flapjacks.

I could see you complaining that Delilah was used if she got nothing, but Bea not only offers her 20%, but after Delilah refuses it, she puts it in some kind of trust fund for her. I think the film went out of its way to show that Delilah was not being taken advantage of and that Bea was truly her friend.

Now for more perspective, there were many Uncle Tom's of the era who liked the status quo and did not try to "better themselves." They were used to being subservient and didn't know what else to do. Call it conditioning. Delilah is one of these. She has 20% of a gigantic company and she wants none of the money, continues to dress the same and act the same, and is heartbroken when she realizes she will no longer be able to be Bea's servant. This is not stereotypical. This is how it was for some people. If all of the black people in the film acted like this, it is a stereotype. We basically have two major black characters in the film. One acts like this. The other doesn't. Well, that's only 50%. Not to mention the many relatively affluent looking blacks at the funeral.

[–] openalignment 12 years ago

Being called "black" in 1920's/30's was a slur.

This. Too many times I've been told by my grandparents that, back in their day, if you called someone "black", you'd better be ready to throw down.

I know this thread is like 7 years old, but wow.

I'll still be here tomorrow to high-five you yesterday, my friend. Peace.

[–] bradford-1 9 years ago

I have returned 10 years later!
I was talking to my 89-year-mother about this film last week and I'm quite sure she's the only person I know who actually viewed it close to its release date. She's pretty sure it reissued maybe in '39 or '40 and she saw it with a mostly black audience in Brooklyn. The projectionist had to stop the film because so many people were throwing things at the screen! Whst sent them into a frenzy was Delilah being so humble that she didn't even want her own crib! That's not human!
"You KNOW white people wrote this *&$#@@" is what my mother remembers most people screaming.

May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?