The mixed female figure was (unofficially) accepted as a body onto which white men could project and enact their sexual fantasies. |
“It is largely through the on-screen body of the mixed-race female that racial laws have been written and mixed-race issues have been explored. The mixed female figure was (unofficially) accepted as a body onto which white men could project and enact their sexual fantasies. Hence the popularity of mixed girls in chorus lines at all-white American clubs, known as ‘café-au-lait cuties’ in the 1930s (5), and as performers in otherwise white films (see the careers of Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Nina Mae McKinney, Dorothy Dandridge and Fredi Washington). As Suzanne Bost observes ‘throughout popular culture and literature, debates about the nature of mixed-race identity are mapped out on the body of a woman because thinking about racial mixing inevitably leads to questions of sex and reproduction’ (6). J. E. Smyth (7) confirms that in this way, women embody the past, present and future of race relations; mixed women are thus symbolic of the histories of racial mixing and possibilities of integration and equality.” —Zélie Asava
Beti Ellerson, “Zélie Asava: mixed-race identities and representation in Irish, U.S. and French cinemas,” African Women in Cinema Blog, (February 28, 2015). http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/02/zelie-asava-mixed-raced-identities-and.html.
Tags: African Women in Cinema Blog, Beti Ellerson, Zélie Asava