Dugue on Black Spectatorship

Black Male and Female Spectatorship in The Color Purple
By Danielle Dugue

The theory of spectatorship in the discourse of film has managed to gain widespread attention and interest. Many film theorists have discussed the various politics involved with the cinematic experience, mostly in regards to gender. However, very little has been written on race and how this complicates issues of spectatorship in dominant Hollywood Cinema. Theorists like Laura Mulvey and Miriam Hansen have dealt with the issue of spectatorship mostly in relation to gender. Both offer interesting analyses explaining how males and females relate to cinema as spectators, yet their assertions are limited in relation to the experience of the black spectator. Based on more recent studies, film theorists have discovered that the cinematic experience for the black spectator is unique and more problematic than that of the white spectator. Black theorists bell hooks and Manthia Diawara argue that many black viewers actually resist identification and various elements of mainstream cinema. To better understand this notion of opposition on behalf of the black spectator, I will take a close look at scenes primarily from the classic film The Color Purple and discuss the resisting and oppositional black spectator in relation to black male representations, and use my own personal encounter with the film to discuss black female spectatorship.

Laura Mulvey addresses the issue of spectatorship, arguing that the gaze in mainstream films is male and that therefore there is a certain level of visual pleasure and representation the white male spectator receives in his cinematic experience.  Arguing from a Lacanian psychoanalytic point of view, Mulvey states that there is a parallel between the cinematic screen and the mirror phase.  During the mirror phase a child misrecognizes himself in others and thereby acquires an ideal ego.  The same occurs for the film spectator, whose ideal ego is produced and reinforced as he misrecognizes himself in the characters on the cinematic screen (Braudy, 840).  The spectator becomes fascinated and identifies with the main male protagonist, which becomes his “screen surrogate.” Mulvey argues that the “the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence”(Braudy, 842). It is through the cinematic experience that the male spectator feels whole again as his ideal ego is restored.

Mulvey’s argument is accurate in that it explains how the unconscious of our patriarchal society permeates dominant Hollywood cinema and deprives the female spectator of the joy in looking. Although Mulvey captures the politics of gender and spectatorship in her essay, her theory does not discuss how race complicates this issue. Black theorist Manthia Diawara argues that Hollywood typically misrepresents and omits blacks from representation in cinema. This causes the black spectator to avoid identification and to resist the ideologies within the narrative, preventing the occurrence of the ideal ego (Braudy, 892). The black spectator becomes a “resisting spectator” and adopts a very different reading from the text than a white male or female spectator (Braudy, 893).

Diawara offers us a classic example of how a film can be read differently depending on the race of the spectator. In his essay, he argues this point using the film The Birth of a Nation (1915). The film provides a good example because like many films within Hollywood, it is the typical melodrama that seeks to create binary oppositions of good and evil. The historical film, which takes place during the Reconstruction Era, presents black characters in stereotypical negative roles as rapists and buffoons, while the white characters are affiliated with morality and virtue. The film features a significant amount of scenes devoted to this notion of black men who prey on innocent white women. In the famous chase sequence the young white girl “Little Sister” is chased by the black villain, Gus. As the girl runs from her predator, the film's director, D.W Griffith,  creates pathos within the spectator, allowing him to empathize with the young girl while hoping that some valiant hero will come to her rescue. Unfortunately, “Little Sister” finds herself helplessly in the hands of the rapist, and decides to protect her innocence and honor by jumping off the cliff of a mountain.  Her rescuer, Little Colonel, the film’s protagonist and hero, is not able to save her in time. As he looks upon his younger sister who has died tragically as a result of her attacker, we as spectators understand Colonel’s desire and need for vengeance. At this time, the dominant reading of this scene should cause all spectators to identify with Little Colonel and his need for justice, while simultaneously causing the spectator to feel antipathy toward the black character, Gus, and everything he represents. However, as Diawara argues, the black spectator resists identification of the film’s main character, Little Colonel, and the narrative (Braudy, 892). For the black spectator, empathizing with Little Colonel solidifies his alliance with the KKK, who are the true virtuous heroes of the movie. The average black spectator finds it difficult to suspend his disbelief during this scene or identify with the main characters. Accepting the dominant reading of the film can almost be described as a suicidal experience for the black spectator, to join forces with the KKK and kill Gus is, for the black spectator, similar to destroying one’s image of self and identity. Therefore, he is forced to become a resisting spectator, identifying only with the racist inscription placed on the black character (Braudy, 894).

Even today, the problem with black spectatorship still exists within the realm of cinema. Many popular films continue to create problems for the black spectator through stereotypical depictions of blacks in films. One film in particular, The Color Purple (1985), became one of the most controversial and criticized movies released because of its negative portrayal of black men in particular. Popular columnist Tony Brown called the film “the most racist depiction of Black men since The Birth of a Nation and the most anti-black family film of the modern film era” (Bobo, 337). Brown’s response to the film as anti-black family may be a little overblown; however, the film’s negative representation of black men is impossible to deny.

The way in which the black male characters are constructed prohibits the spectator from developing any additional readings in defense of the black male characters. The males within the film are presented as one-dimensional characters, who are rapists, misogynists, and vile men that are somehow depicted less than human. In contrast, the black women, particularly the two sisters (Celie and Nettie), are loving, innocent and good-hearted characters, whose worlds are torn apart, due to the black males within the film.

The young female characters’ innocence is established at the very beginning of the film. We see this childlike purity portrayed throughout the early part of the film when the girls play in the field of flowers, their prayers to God, and it is also represented particularly through Nettie’s white dress, giving her a sort of angelic appearance. However, the male characters are depicted as tall, dominating characters, who are usually dressed in dark apparel, symbolizing the evil or darkness within.

Even before we reach the plot of the film, as viewers we soon discover that the girls’ stepfather has been sexually abusing Celie, who is 14 years old, and is pregnant with her second child.  There is not a place in the house or the yard where the girls are free from his constant surveying eyes, or the sound of his slow and steady footsteps. He is a large, dark-skinned man, whose presence denotes something to be feared; he is depicted as almost animalistic. Through the use of the close-up of the camera, we notice the unusual girth of his hands, which appear to be almost monstrous, particularly in the scene when Celie is giving birth to her second child. camera zooms in showing the stepfather removing the infant out of Celie’s grasp. The girls are never free from his controlling gaze and presence.

The camera angles are always set up within the movie to reinforce the idea of the  black male as authoritative and tyrannical. Most of the shots feature black males gazing down at the young girls, displaying the power relation based on gender between the characters.  In one scene, Mister follows Nettie in an attempt to sexually assault her on her way to school. The scene is cut with images of Mister riding on top of a horse in correspondence with images of the terrified young girl hoping to reach safety. As spectators we begin to fear for Nettie’s safety as the scene begins to remind us of the chase sequence from Birth. It is once again the black male as the rapist preying on another innocent young girl (Braudy, 899).

As the film continues to portray the black male characters negatively, the black male spectator is denied the opportunity of identifying with characters who possess admirable and credible characteristics. Also, the narrative of the film is constructed in a way that appears to be against black men. The black male characters of the movie are constructed as cruel and evil in order to establish the black female characters as the “good” heroines of the story (Braudy, 896). The black male spectator is drawn by the narrative to identify with Nettie and Celie, but must also resist the deep antipathy against black males stemming from the film (Braudy, 899). The failure of identification with the characters and narrative prohibits the black male spectator from sharing in the pleasures of the cinematic experience. The Color Purple, despite the all-black cast of characters, fails to provide the possibility for the establishment of the “ideal ego” for him.

The black male spectator cannot become completely drawn within the characters and narrative of the film without also desiring the punishment of the black male characters. For instance, if he decides to suspend his disbelief during the course of the film, he must also empathize with Celie’s attempt at revenge during the infamous shaving scene.  If he empathizes with Celie as she places the razor to Mister’s throat, which is not difficult since her action seems justified after all the physical and emotional abuse she has endured, he essentially participates in his own “castration” or lost of power. The black male spectator along with Celie punishes the only image and representation of himself in the film (Braudy, 899). His only option is either to join alliance with Celie in the punishment of the black male, or disavow himself from the narrative and characters all together. The average black male spectator will protect his best interest as a subject and become a resisting spectator.

On the other hand, The Color Purple is said to offer a very different experience for the black female spectator. Some argue that it grants black women the opportunity to identify with the characters and narrative allowing them to gain something useful from the film (Bobo, 335). Some researchers claim that black women typically engage positively with the film and generally find themselves quite fond of it (Bobo, 336). However, as a black female spectator, I would argue that the film, although it presents the black woman with some admirable characters typically not seen in Hollywood cinema,  still fails to produce the visual pleasure and satisfaction supposedly derived from the cinematic experience. I say this to argue that if the job of any movie is to gratify desire by offering identifications through looking, allowing us as subjects to reach a sense of wholeness or in Lacanian terms obtain the “ideal ego,” becoming “a unified and visible body,” then The Color Purple fails to do such, even for the black female spectator (Bordwell, 7). Part of a film’s job is to present the spectator with characters and a narrative an individual is willing to recognize and identify with causing her to suspend her disbelief.

Based on theorist Miriam Hansen’s essay, “Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification,” we know there is reason to believe that dominant cinema offers visual pleasure in the female spectator as well. She makes her point through her analysis of several Valentino films, arguing that the female spectator can not only recognize and identify herself with the male character Valentino, but also with the female star as an erotic object (Braudy, 641). Yet, her analysis is only applicable in the discourse of white female spectatorship since mainstream cinema has been traditionally geared toward the pleasure of the white spectator (Braudy, 896).  However, one would think that The Color Purple is a film that denies this tradition since it provides embraceable black female characters, but after a close analysis of the film’s characters and narrative I find this to be an over statement.

It is certainly true that the film establishes the virtue and innocence of black women in its black female characters typically not seen in mainstream cinema, yet I would argue that the female characters and narrative of the film are not exactly those that the black female spectator would desire to recognize or identify with. For instance, Celie, the main protagonist, is not a strong character or one that I found myself desiring to become. From my initial encounter with the character and the narrative, I was shocked to discover that she has been repeatedly raped by her stepfather who impregnates her twice. Later, she marries Mister who forces her to become his own personal domestic servant. In Mister’s house she is constantly the subject of ridicule, emotional, and physical abuse. In one scene, Mister looks at Celie and describes her as “black,” “poor,” and “ugly.” These three unkind words really stood out to me as a spectator, because in actuality they were adjectives that described Celie’s character. The truth is that she is not the most attractive character, nor does she have much going for her in regards to education or a career. Keep in mind, she is introduced as an illiterate character, who does not learn to read until her younger sister teaches her. She is definitely poor as she is forced to work almost as a slave, tending to Mister’s insolent children and working night and day, cooking and cleaning.

Intellectual and critic, bell hooks, argues that historically the black female’s purpose in dominant cinema was to enhance and sustain white femininity as the object of the phallocentric gaze (hooks, 513). The film, unlike many traditional Hollywood movies, does not include white female characters, but the way in which the black female characters are represented reinforces the position of white women as the object of desire in cinema.  This assertion seems true since the film does not present black females who are desirable and those I wanted to recognize and identify with. Celie is presented to as ugly, passive, and domesticated, while most of the other women of the film except for Nettie, are displayed in other unfashionable ways. For example, the character Shug is pleasing to the eye, yet she is depicted as a promiscuous woman, once again reinforcing the notion of black women as hypersexual.

There were times when I desired to put myself in the narrative and become Celie, but her oppressed state was never appealing, nor could it offer me the visual satisfaction I desired. Even one of the film’s most strong and independent female characters, Sophie, is disempowered after spending several years in jail, and is forced to become Ms. Milie’s, a white woman, personal maid. As a spectator, it was a tragic moment to see the once spunky and vibrant Sophie regress into a state of oppression, she is called a nigger, forced to work as a servant in the home of a wealthy white family.

I did not want to become any of these female characters; instead, I pitied them and their unfortunate conditions. I was forced to become what bell hooks calls an oppositional spectator, one who consciously resists identification with films and places themselves outside the pleasure of looking (hooks, 516). It was through becoming an oppositional spectator that I was able to enjoy the film and even the characters for their cinematic worth.

Hooks explains this notion of the oppositional spectator in her discussion of the black female character “Sapphire” from Amos ‘n’ Andy, who she describes as an ugly woman, a “bitch,” who was used to enhance the image of the black male characters within the show. She argues that as a black female spectator, she never desired to become “Sapphire;” she too laughed and mocked this distorted representation of black womanhood along with black male and white spectators (hooks, 514). In response to the character “Sapphire,” she states, “Her black female image was not the body of desire. There was nothing to see. She was not us” (hooks, 514). 

My experience with the black female characters of  The Color Purple had been almost analogous to hook’s and her experience with the character “Sapphire.” I was able to appreciate, the protagonist, Celie’s rise from a passive and unconfident woman to a strong and independent character by the end of the film, because her image was not my own. I rejected most of the black female characters of the film, because all of them seemed to be stereotypical representations of black women. Just as hooks argues, “the extent to which black women feel devalued, objectified, dehumanized in this society determines the scope and texture of their looking relations” (hooks, 520). Her statement is applicable to all black spectators, regardless of gender. The truth is that images or representations of black people within Hollywood cinema are not autonomous depictions, most of them are largely based on previous stereotypical characterizations found within many historical films. This ultimately makes it difficult for many black spectators to receive the joy and pleasure supposedly derived from the cinematic experience. Furthermore, Hollywood’s tradition of melodrama, which has been traditionally embedded in nearly every mainstream film, creates problems for the black spectator since the genre is premised on creating binary oppositions of good and evil. With the continuation of melodrama, blacks will continue to be represented as villains, while whites will assume the role of moral figures, problematizing the experience of the black male and female spectator. Until, Hollywood moves away from such dichotomies the black spectator may never experience the true and pure pleasure found in the cinematic experience. 

Works Cited

Leo Baudy and Marshall Cohen, eds.  Film Theory and Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Jacqueline Bobo. “Sitting Through the Controversy: Reading The Color Purple.” Callaloo 39 (1989: 332-342.

David Bordwell, “Contemporary Film Studies and Vicissitudes of Grand Theory,” Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Eds. David Bordwell and Noel Carroll(Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996):3-36)

bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” Film and Theory: An Anthology, Eds. Robert Stam & Toby Miller (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000)         

Comments

[Nathan Westlake]

I agree completely with Dugue about the relationship between Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure” and black spectatorship. Mulvey’s paper does not address the problems inherent in racial spectatorship, and the black female spectator is even more out in the cold than the white female spectator.
I also agree that The Color Purple is not an example of how films should be in order for black female spectators to identify with them.
However, I do not agree with how she over simplifies a black male’s options for identification and response to The Color Purple and other works. Dugue says that, “Accepting the dominant reading of the film can almost be described as a suicidal experience for the black spectator, to join forces with the KKK and kill Gus is, for the black spectator, similar to destroying one’s image of self and identity. Therefore, he is forced to become a resisting spectator, identifying only with the racist inscription placed on the black character (Braudy, 894).” I don’t believe that identifying with the KKK in that instance would be “destroying one’s image of self and identity,” because identification is not an all-or-nothing type of deal. As Murray Smith says, “Neither recognition nor alignment nor allegiance entails that the spectator replicate the traits, or experience the thoughts or emotions of a character” (162). The black spectator could understand that the people who make up KKK in the movie have every right to hate Gus. So to that extent the black spectator would identify with them, but the spectator would also understand that most blacks (himself included) are not like Gus, and that it is racist of the KKK to stereotype blacks as people like Gus. Also, a black male could identify with Gus, and feel sympathy for him, as a black unfairly stereotyped, without “identifying with the racist inscription.”
Dugue also falls into the same all-or-nothing point of view when talking about The Color Purple. “If he empathizes with Celie as she places the razor to Mister’s throat, which is not difficult since her action seems justified after all the physical and emotional abuse she has endured, he essentially participates in his own ‘castration’ or lost of power.” Just because a spectator is a black male, and there is a black male in a movie, does not mean that spectator must feel castrated because the other guy is. Okay, maybe in Mulvey’s view of the subconscious you do, but not really. The despicability of the black male in that scene severely reduces the extent to which full allegiance can take place with that character.
While I agree that gender and race do affect the creation of identification, it is also important to remember that other factors, like real personality and moral strength, are more affecting after initial impressions are over.

[C. Garnier]

Danielle Dugue is an excellent writer. Her intelligence separates her from everyone else. She is admired by many.