"The key is in remembering what is chosen for the dream. In the silence of recovery we hold the rituals of dawn..." Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo and Sioux writer (Amott and Matthaie, 1991 p. 61)"The business of films is the business of dreams..."Michael Woods (1975) American in the Movies (p. 16)Mary Pickford was Lillian Gish's successor and she soon became a star playing childlike, plucky virgins (Leish, 1974). Pickford stared in such nauseating family classics as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Poor Little Rich Girl. At the opposite end of the purity spectrum stood Theda Bara, who made her debut on the silver screen as a sexual vampire in A Fool There Was.Native Americans also made their debut on screen shortly before the 1920s: as savages attacking White women and helpless settlers in covered wagons. Of course these weren't real Indians -- they were White actors in red face. And they appeared in films just as the radial Pan Indian movement of the 1920s was taking shape. Draw your own conclusions about this "coincidence." Native Americans had drawn attention to the kidnapping of their children, as well as reservation disease and poverty (Amott & Matthaie, 1991). And by 1928, Senate investigations were being conducted.Yet as films edged into the 1920s, a curious thing happened. The dream weavers got raw: the 1920s has been described as one of the most liberated eras in film history. Let's just take a peek shall we?Enter "Flappers:" wild, young women who liked living on the edge. Flappers drank liquor from silver flasks, rode with young men in fast cars, and had sex -- and plenty of it. OK what's the catch? Did Flappers die in car crashes or wind up in poverty? Or were they cruel monsters like Bara who sucked the life from men? The answer is none of the above.And Hollywood didn't stop there. The dream weavers began to portray unfaithful wives in movies such as Male and Female, Three Weeks and Don't Change Your Husband. In these films sex-starved wives had affairs because they weren't receiving satisfaction at home (Leish, 1974; pp.45-54). Even more amazing they were depicted as perfectly justified (Leigh, 1974)!What on earth was going on? The answer lies in the economy which was booming. World War I was only recently over, and the war had generated jobs for everyone. The Great Migration (1910-1930) had already begun and Black folks were leaving the South in droves to escape poverty and racism. After WWI Black folks -- last hired first fired -- especially Black women began to lose their jobs. White folks however did not (Giddings, 1988).Films were reflecting this zeitgeist in their generous attitude towards White women: a generosity which would end during the Great Depression and infamous 1930 Production Code. American films would witness two more similar transformations during the 1940s and the 1960s.The catch was that Hollywood's portrayal of Peoples of Color hadn't changed a bit -- except for the depiction of Black sexuality on the Silver Screen -- a depiction colored by racism. As history tells us where there is slavery for some, there can only be so much freedom for others. It wouldn't take Hollywood long to begin demonizing White women. But for the time being they were free.And the first Black love goddess made her debut.Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997, 2009 all rights reserved.
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