"I feel that for White American to understand the significance of the [Negro Problem] . ..will take a bigger and tougher America that we have ever known... Our too-young America lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil...the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history...Therefore if within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself..." Richard Wright (1993) from Black Boy (American Hunger) (pp. 320-323).Our journey will take us into the midst of this war. The 1940s is the era of the New Negro. It is the era of the Black and White woman. But repression of Native Americans is in full force. Repression of Peoples of Latino descent has been renewed. There is war raging upon American soil -- one which has never really ended. The dynamics of sex, race and class are in furious dialogue upon the Silver Screen. Let us go into the midst of this conflict.Before American entered WWII in 1941 it was taboo for married women to work. This doesn't mean that they weren't working (by 1940 six out out of seven married women were employed) it was just taboo for them to do so. The cult of domesticity had endured: the mantra that a woman's proper place was in the kitchen, the nursery and the bedroom.But In 1941, American attitudes changed, seemingly overnight. Suddenly it became women's -- married or not-- patriotic duty to work. Men were being drafted by the thousands. Factories needed warm bodies to make bombs, guns, uniforms -- and they weren't picky about whose. As White women filled "men's professions" the so-called "women's jobs" opened up and Black women stepped up to the plate.It was during the WWII era that the so called "Problem Films" emerged: movies which made an effort to critique racism. How did Black women fare in these movies? Generally Black men were much more visible than women. Hollywood thrived upon sexism. And so it is no surprise that when the dream weavers began to depict racism they would ignore African American women. Yet two actresses did manage to break from the usual: Lena Horne and Hazel Scott.A proud and demanding performer, Hazel Scott was one of the first Black artists who refused to appear before a segregated audience (Bogle, 1973). She also refused to play a role in a film, well aware, as she informed Ebony in 1944 that Black women were often cast as maids or whores (Bogle, 1973). Instead she always appeared in movies seated at the piano just as she would be in a nightclub (Bogel, 1973). The dream weavers soon realized they'd bitten off than they could chew with Sister Hazel and her film career ended almost as quickly as it had begun (mid-forties).Lena became a star during the WWII era playing in classics like Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. But Hollywood just couldn't seem to create a decent image for her -- what a surprise! Cabin the Sky, for instance, a popular Black musical is at its bare essence just more trouble in Black Eden jive, with Lena as the sexy mistress, Ethel Waters: the long suffering wife, and Eddie Anderson: the weak willed Black man.For the most part, women were thrust back into the twisted heart of film mythology. Film women of the 1940s were diabolical, double-crossing, murderous and very, very powerful. The curtain was pulled back to reveal Woman in all her splendor and wickedness.Even wives became "bitches" during the 1940s. Women and marriage were depicted in films as symbolic of everything the hero was on the run from: society, children, community (Woods, 1975). It was Woman who trapped the hero and made him give up his freedom. Thus during the 1940s, Hollywood really had a damned if you do, damned if you don't motif firmly in place. Men and women had two choices: be miserable together or be miserable apart.Mary was gone now. And Eve was large and in charge.Valjeanne Jeffers-ThompsonValjeanne Jeffers Copyright 1997, 2009 all rights reserved
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