African American Women in Movie Plots

"Because black women still live within the barriers that mainstream American society organizes through decisions made on the basis of skin color, language, financial background, and educational preparation, it is sometimes difficult to construct the social circumstances within which a Black female character is depicted in a movie." - Dowdy

In the article Reel Women: Black Women and Literacy in Feature Films by Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Dowdy analyzed how society depicts African American women in feature films and how they literacy skills are not as sufficient in script. Trying to understand the literacy that the filmakers represents for each main character in the plot, Dowdy and her students find that the Afrcian American women in each movie struggle with literacy skills. We, as the audience expect to know the different types of literacy.

After Dowdy and her students viewed the movies that represented African American woman, they found that most of the characters were poor, they took care of others, and were not literate. African American woman who star in mives are always being portrayed as having low literacy skills. In some ways, they better themselves with common sense but not book sense.

Films portay black women as being illiterate but not all women are that way. We can learn a lot about black women roles and how literacy facilitates the life of a woman of color in the white world painted in these stories of struggles and success. Black woman can get the opportunity to portay drug addicts, school teachers, maids, and nurses but have a deeper meaning behind the character that can draw in the audience. The only question that I have is why do we always find black characters, epsecially African Americna women who play these roles in these plots? We always have to go through some certain situations just to make it to the top instead of living a better lifestyle. Like Dowdy stated, " In these womens lives, is book sense a means to a better lifestyle or a future with socioeconomic priveleges?" I would love to see more positive and inspiring roles of African American women that can set examples of stayin in school and getting an education for generations to come.

-Manisha Gilliam