Additional+popular+cultural+texts+that+support+the+thesis+of+the+critical+essay

=Negative Stereotypes in Various Media= One the themes present in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is that of stereotypical images of black women are absorbed by the women they seek to objectify. In popular advertisements, films, television shows, radio broadcasts, and cartoons, negative stereotypes of African American women are perpetuated. The damage to the community occurs when people come to associate these stereotypes with actual African American women. Further harm befalls those African American women who begin to assume those negative stereotypes after years of exposure. Examples can be found through history. Well known characters such as Madea, Wanda, and Big Momma from recent movies and television shows, continue the trend of stereotyping African American women in a negative way.

“The Mammy Caricature”

__Real Mammies. __ History shows us that the mammy image served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America. The stereotype during the slavery era was portrayed as though the African American woman was content and even happy to be a slave. Her wide grin, hearty laughter, and loyal servitude were offered as evidence of the supposed humanity of the establishment of slavery. This was the stereotype of the mammy caricature and just like any stereotypes it contains little truth surrounded by a large lie. The misrepresentation of the African American woman was represented as an obese, bad mannered, maternal figure. She was depicted as having a lot of love for the white “family,” but often treated her own family with despise. The negative label did not end there, although the African American woman had her own children, sometime many, she was completely desexualized. She “belonged” to the white family, though it was rarely stated, she had no African American friends; the white family was her entire world. Clearly, the portrayal of the mammy was more myth than reality.

__Fictional Mammies. __ The fictional mammy was depicted in many forms. From the slavery era, she was depicted as someone who did not want to be free because she was always busy playing the role of a surrogate mother/grandmother to white families. She was so loyal to her white family that at times she was willing to risk her own life for the safety of her white family. In the D.W. Griffith movie “The Birth of a Nation” (1915) –based on Thomas Dixon’s racist novel __The Clansman__, the mammy defends her white master’s home against black and white Union soldiers. The message was clear: Mammy would rather die than be free. In the famous movie “Gone With The Wind” (1939), the African American mammy also fights black soldiers whom she believes to be a threat to the white mistress of the house. During the early 1900s while African Americans were fighting for political, social, and economic equality, Mammy was more and more popular in the field of entertainment. The first talking movie was 1927’s “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson in blackface singing, “Mammy.” This situation is a perfect example of the negative stereotype of Mammy. Another example was in 1934, the movie “Imitation of Life” told the story of a African American maid, aunt Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) who inherited a pancake recipe. She offered aunt Delilah a twenty percent interest in the pancake company. "You'll have your own car. Your own house," Miss Bea tells Aunt Delilah. Mammy is frightened. "My own house? You gonna send me away, Miss Bea? I can't live with you? Oh, Honey Chile, please don't send me away." Aunt Delilah, though she had lived her entire life in poverty, does not want her own house. "How I gonna take care of you and Miss Jessie (Miss Bea's daughter) if I ain't here... I'se your cook. And I want to stay your cook." Regarding the pancake recipe, Aunt Delilah said, "I gives it to you, Honey. I makes you a present of it." 7 Aunt Delilah worked to keep the white family stable, but her own family disintegrated -- her self-hating daughter rejected her, then ran away from home to "pass for white." Near the movie's conclusion, Aunt Delilah dies "of a broken heart." Hattie McDaniel was another well known mammy portrayer. In her early films, for example "The Gold West" (1932), and "The Story of Temple Drake" (1933), she played unobtrusive, weak mammies. However, her role in "Judge Priest" (1934) signaled the beginning of the sassy, quick-tempered mammies that she popularized. She played the saucy mammy in many movies, including, "Music is Magic" (1935), "The Little Colonel" (1935), "Alice Adams" (1935), "Saratoga" (1937), and "The Mad Miss Manton" (1938). In 1939, she played Scarlett O'Hara's sassy but loyal servant in "Gone With the Wind." McDaniel won an Oscar for best supporting actress, the first African American to win an Academy Award. Hattie McDaniel was a gifted actress who added depth to the character of mammy; unfortunately, she, like almost all African Americans from the 1920s through 1950s, were typecast as servants. African Americans often criticized her for perpetuating the mammy caricature. She responded this way: "Why should I complain about making seven thousand dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making seven dollars a week actually being one." "Beulah" was a television show, popular from 1950 to 1953, in which a mammy nurtures a white suburban family. Hattie McDaniel originated the role for radio; Louise Beavers performed the role on television. The Beulah image resurfaced in the 1980s when Nell Carter, a talented African American singer, played a mammy-like role on the situation comedy "Gimme a Break." She was dark-skinned, overweight, sassy, white-identified, and like Aunt Delilah in "Imitation of Life," content to live in her white employer's home and nurture the white family.

__Commercial Mammies. __ Mammy was born on the plantation in the imagination of slavery defenders, but she grew up in popularity during the time of Jim Crow. The Mainstreaming of Mammy was primarily, but not exclusively the result of the fledging advertising industry. The mammy image was used to sell almost any household item, especially breakfast foods, detergents, planters, ashtrays, sewing accessories, and beverages. As early as 1875, Aunt Sally, a Mammy image, appeared on cans of baking powder. Later, different Mammy images appeared on Luzianne coffee and cleaners, //Fun to Wash// detergent, Aunt Dinah molasses, and other products. Mammy represented wholesomeness. You can trust the mammy pitchwoman. Mammy's most successful commercial expression was (and is) Aunt Jemima. In 1889, Charles Rutt, a Missouri newspaper editor, and Charles G. Underwood, a mill owner, developed the idea of a self-rising flour that only needed water. He called it Aunt Jemima's recipe. Rutt borrowed the Aunt Jemima name from a popular vaudeville song that he had heard performed by a team of minstrel performers. Today the product can still be purchased in local grocery stores. [1]

[1]  Dr. David Pilgrim, "Ferris State University," 1 October 2000, __The Mammy Caricature__, 7 December 2009 [].


 * Product Packaging **[[image:AuntJemima2.jpg caption="Aunt Jemima Pancake Package" link="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.siegelproductions.ca/foodfiends/images/auntjem.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.siegelproductions.ca/foodfiends/blackhunger.htm&h=261&w=422&sz=59&tbnid=L1wdFKHZ3ClOuM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daunt%2Bjemima&hl=en&usg=__AaLWnq--xaDbPecBpK0ZTD1Dh2U=&ei=q74hS9D8PNKVtgec6NDQBw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=5&ct=image&ved=0CBEQ9QEwBA"]]



====** Advertisements **====



====** Film Characters **====



====**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Television and Radio Characters **====



====**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Cartoons **====

====**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Toys **====