African American Mothers in Movies

“Oh my gosh! you’re so pretty for a black girl.” “You’re black so I know you can twerk.” In society these phrases may be considered as compliments for black women even though they are not. However, people only know what the media portrays black women to be. It emphasizes them as ghetto, loud, angry, and ignorant. Black women are more than the negative stigma that the media portrays. In our society, the media reinforces the plague of African American women by stereotypes and falsities originating from slavery. For young African American women, the majority of media portrayal, especially in music and film, is of a bulumpcious, sexually hyperactive golddigger. This negative image of a black women is damaging to the black community by implying

The stereotypical misrepresentations of African-American women and men in popular culture have influenced societal views of Blacks for centuries. The typical stereotypes about Black women range from the smiling, a sexual and often obese Mammy to the promiscuous Jezebel who lures men with her sexual charms. However, the loud, smart mouthed, neck-rolling Black welfare mother is the popular image on reality television. These images portrayed in media and popular culture create powerful ideology about race and gender, which affects daily experiences of Black women in America. With few healthy relationships portrayed in the media, Black women are left to make decisions based on the options

Additionally, mothers teach their daughters how to be nurturing and independent. Belgrave (2009) asserts that historically, African American mothers were the breadwinners and assumed the responsibility of caring for their families given the restrained prospects for African American males. As a result, girls observed the dual identity of their mothers and other prominent women in the society and internalized these identities (Lee & Ashcraft, 2005). Despite so many challenges and stressors during parenting, African American mothers play a significant role in development of perceived self-identity and goal oriented behaviors among their adolescent daughters.

All African-Americans have been portrayed in stereotypical roles since their arrival into American society for the entertainment and amusement of others. Many people find it difficult to appreciate the diversity of the African American women. So instead of trying to do this, they create identities based on negative stereotypes. There are several negative stereotypes associated with the African American woman. The Mammy archetype is the one chosen to be analyzed in this essay. Collins described the mammy as “-the faithful, obedient domestic servant. Created to justify the economic exploitation of house slaves and sustained to explain Black women’s long-standing restriction to domestic service…” (72) She is commonly seen trying to soothe

When a black woman lowers her life standard, she invites outsiders to pose judgement on the entire group. These unethical behaviors of black women is capitalized off of by mainstream media. Shows such as VH1’s Love and Hip Hop keeps the negative stereotypes of a black woman alive. The black woman who rises above all adversity gains value and respect amongst the

Samuels (2011) analyzes different television shows in an attempt to draw the conclusion of the portrayal and demeanor of African American women on television. Using current African American dominated shows that attract viewers such as “Love and Hip Hop”, “Real House Wives” and “The Bad Girls Club”, Samuels came to the conclusion that these shows use black women to justify the stereotype of the “angry black woman”. Although Donald Trump’s show “Celebrity Apprentice” is not an African American dominated show, Samuels uses it as an introductory and perfect example that black women are used on television as a whole to exemplify this stereotype when Star Jones and NeNe Leakes are shown arguing. Samuels analyzes simple things such as facial expression, movement and gestures on a variety of television shows that feature African American women using it as proof that it defines them as the angry black woman because Caucasian women do the complete opposite when being analyzed through the shows. When taking a look at VH1’s “Basketball Wives” and “Love and Hip Hop”, Samuels noticed that each show had a pattern and contained a confrontation between the women or the threat to do bodily harm to another person.

A Baby Mama is looked at as someone who has had a child with a man that she has not married, and that man may or may not be able to support the child. A Baby Mama is usually not classified as a good thing, but back in history when our black queens were married and became mothers she was looked at with the upmost respect. Dwanie states, “why must single Black mothers be portrayed in such an insulting way?" One regular offender noted was The Maury Povich Show: "It sends the false message that black women are all single mothers” (“reflection”). Society has created this stereotype for black women and as said before sometimes they will not always have the right decisions. This is one of the decisions they have concluded to settle with because conformity seems like the easiest decision.

Stereotypes and generalizations about African Americans and their culture have evolved within American society dating back to the colonial years of settlement, particularly after slavery became a racial institution that was heritable. However in the clips we watched and from my own viewing of the movie Carmen Jones the movie explains two media stereotyped roles present in films with black characters, the black jezebel and the integrationist hero. Their representations of these roles have many implications on how their characters interact with each other and other characters throughout the film and the outcome of the film’s plot. For a number of years in American film, one could find two black stereotypical presences, the integrationist hero, who dominated the screen for a time, and the black jezebel, also present in many films. Hollywood made movies that featured the well liked,

In the context of the many worries that Black American mothers must relentlessly carry for their daughters’ safety, you [Emily Bernard] claim that “hope” is what drives you to release your daughters into the world and cease the rage you experience each time you hear about a young African-American being murdered. However, in response to your article “Between the World and Me: Black American Motherhood”, I would say that not only should you continue to carry “hope”, but it is also crucial that you have a desire to incite change. Given that you are a professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont, you could also initiate serious discussion about race among your students that could then hopefully carry over to the rest

   Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the

because to understand the African American mother one must first understand their plight, second race, third gender, and finally class characterization influences. African American mother have duties, they manage jobs, live in poverty and have parental duties. According to Collins (2009) single mothers with self-respect, lead with empowering their daughters to also exemplify independence. According to Karraker (1991) single mothers have a strong desire for their daughter to achieve higher education, even if it means her daughter has to postpone her marriage, to pursue higher education. As cited by Johnson (2016) over females living in a two parent household academic is stressed more.

The message this film gives me about motherhood in the 1960s is that skin tone socially influenced women’s roles as mothers. Despite the end of slavery, racism was highly attributed to discrimination and field of work among the African American community. Although African American women had other aspirations growing up, they knew they’d grow up to be maids, because their mothers were maids and their grandmothers were slaves. Thus, women of color spent their lives raising white children, instead of their own. You could see the pain through their expressionless face. They were taught to show no emotion—which serves as a representation that during that era people of color were viewed as inhuman. They did all the housework (e.g., cooking, cleaning,

‘New Negro’ was a social and cultural movement within the black community that spanned from the nineteen-tens into the nineteen-thirties. This movement marked a significant shift in the black identity, as it was a collective effort for self-redefinition. Scholar Erin D. Chapman in her work Prove It on Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s asserts that New Negroes sought to redefine themselves and their social positions through active participation in producing, consuming, and commodifying in the “interracial arena of social communication and negotiation.” (7) This newfound power over image and boundaries did not necessarily mean that power over the black public discourse and re-edification belonged to the community as a whole; in fact, black women were saddled with a new role that was rather constricting. Cherene Sherrard-Johnson claims that, “The New Negro woman, styled as the ideal template for measuring black femininity, [was] a constrained throwback to Victorian womanhood” (840). Chapman’s assessment of New Negro womanhood coincides with Sherrard-Johnson’s perception; the former extensively discusses the constricting expectation of the ideal ‘race motherhood’—which required black women to wholly devote all of their time, energy, and ability into creating and maintaining a stable, exceptional, and modern, black household to do her part in collective racial uplift (Chapman

In mid-1900s, elderly black women were highly respected in a family. According to Faustine C. Jones, “they are the

While basketball had an extremely big influence on my gender identity, growing up in a house of predominantly women; myself, my mother, and my two sisters, had an extreme impact on me, and how I viewed femininity. My Mother, extremely proud of us all, held no reservations, no expectations of gender, and was open to anything we wanted to try as children to establish an identity for ourselves; a true gift in which not everyone is exempt to. Growing up in a household that was flexible and fluid about personal identity and gender, I found this to be an extremely influential gendering institution.