MovieChat Forums > Imitation of Life (1934) Discussion > AM I THE ONLY ONE....?

AM I THE ONLY ONE....?

posted 17 years ago by dadbowen-1
7 replies | jump to latest

AM I the only one who understands this movie?

IT IS NOT A STEROTYPE, RACIST MOVE!!

It is to show how whites see minorities. It is to make people aware of their generally racist, bigotist views. It shows the imbalance in society of whites and, in this case, blacks.
I think it is trying to stop racism by showing how inappropriate racism is. And not flat-out hateful racism but the subtle racism inside most of us. We may not outright hit or kill or commit other violence towards another races, but many of us will take advatage of them, i.e. higher latinos and paying them well under the other employees doing the same work, or as in the movie the white lady was acting the heroine by giving her maid 20% of what rightfully belonged to the maid in the first place.
It is to me obviouse this is not promoting such actions, but condeming them with subtltey.
As I posted other places, I was made more aware of my own indifference in racist matters by watching this film.
I think this movie helps minorities rather than hurts them.
The problem is our society likes things spelled out for them. We dont generally tend to look for meaning in things, especially old movies. If one takes the entire movie, including the title, one would see my points to be fairly accurate, despite my weakness in writting them.

Look at the seen when they have already made it big time and they are going to bed, the white lady walks the stairs towards a lighted area and the black lady walks DOWN towards the dark basement. It is not the point of this scene to say this is right, but that it is the way it is. NOW, knowing this what does one do with this knowledge? Does one allow this sort of thing to continue or do we attempt to change within ourselves and really attempt to treat ALL people with equality.

[–] reikun86 17 years ago

You make very good points. Imitation of Life doesn't try to whitewash racism. It depicts it as it was. It would sound too good to be true if Delilah was the sole profiteer. Or if Peola was allowed to stay in her school. I believed that Bea and Delilah had a deep friendship, within their limits of course. Both were realistic of their place in the world and to think otherwise at the time would've been foolish.

However, I wasn't focusing on color when I was watching this movie. I was thinking it was the ultimate mother-daughter movie. If anyone makes their mother cry, they damned well better make amends before it's too late. I know I would feel like crap if I ever saw Imitation of Life with my mom.

[–] seagoing1969 17 years ago

You hit the nail on the head there.
One of the driving forces of racisim is misinterpretation, much like most people have misinterpreted this movie with their simplistic views.

[–] szsakall 16 years ago

I would tend to agree with this assessment as well--one of the most powerful statements that the movie makes is that white society had so dehumanized black people that aspiration to middle-class (or, in this case, much better than middle-class) success is rendered absolutely incompatible with black identity...

without this, it would be very hard to understand why a person in Peola's position would want to "pass"--but the movie gives us a very compelling reason (i.e. that acceptance of black identity, at least until very recently, meant tacit consent to second-class citizen status

Louise Beavers' performance seems to me quite courageous in this regard--no one knew better than she did how thick the glass ceiling was on African-American public visibility during this period... and she channels every ounce of the pain and frustration that must have caused her into this role (which only SEEMS similar to many of the other characters she played--in narrative, CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING, and the context here is all designed to show that, under the horrific American apartheid system of the 20th century, a good funeral was all that a person in Delilah's position could hope for--oppression doesn't really achieve its aims until it subjugates our DREAMS, and Stahl's Imitation of Life--what else does the title mean? "life" was coded "white" during this period, nothing else even has a chance to really "live"--drives that point home better than almost any other film I know!)

I like Sirk's film a lot too--but for very different reasons...

[–] dabukaba 13 years ago

I absolutely agree with the OP (despite that that post is a few years old -- I would like to reply). People keep on bashing this movie as racist by holding it from a late-2000's viewpoint while it is from the early-1930s. And when one remembers that, it is VERY striking that this movie was released so early on -- it is a very powerful stand against racism, and the film's message seems to be going over many modern viewers' heads, as if racism doesn't exist today, which, OF COURSE it does. Look at what racism did to Delilah -- that is the main message of the film. Furthermore, before that Delilah becomes much more than a servant to Miss Bea, but rather a close, highly regarded friend to her and business partner (far transcending racial roles of the 1930s). I haven't seen the remake from the 1950s, but this one is a very powerful film, and actually seems VERY ahead of its time.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] YouKnowMyName68 13 years ago

This is one of my favorited movies of the early 20th century.

Bump for the OP and the following commentators.

"You know, my name..."

[–] mjr1114 11 years ago

Great points made in this thread. Glad there's more than just a handful that are getting it. Hopefully, this film and the discussions on it will help people to learn about the history of film and how difficult of a time many film makers had when trying to bring a story, they so dearly wanted to present, to the silver screen.

Credo ergo sum