Introduction
Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman presents the dominant reworking of stereotypes labeled on the lesbian identity. The application of conventional cinematography enhances the unfolding developments of the film. The technique involves the literization of history as a way of establishing both intimate as well as filial family connection. The Watermelon Woman , for example, searches for possible means to attain family relation, specifically within the prison system ( The Watermelon Woman, 1996) . To this end, getting the foremother is perceived as getting the biological mother. Basing its assessment on physique and racial boundaries, Cheryl Dunye establishes an African-American subjectivity in the confines of a lesbian descent matrix.
Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman applies various cinematographic elements of language to understand fully the extent to which the very language has enhanced the communication of issues affecting women . The rationale for the inclusion of the choice of cinematography approach in the analysis rests on the premise it attempts to highlight the untold stories or the concerns of the African-Americans (Richardson, 2011). Hence, Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman uses cinematographic elements of language to explore the issues of the history of African-American, looking for mother figures, the diversity evidenced among the lesbian communities, and the type of representation.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Critical Analysis of the Watermelon Woman
The continuity of The Watermelon justifies the application of the technique of cinematographic language elements since the success of the film forms the basis for the development of the black women stories. The achievement alludes to the protagonist character Dunye “Cheryl” who creatively uses video equipment to advance her project aimed at liberating the black woman (Richardson, 2011). The pertinent concerns envisioned in the film are linked to the history of African-American, looking for mother figures, the diversity evidenced among the lesbian communities, and the type of representation.
Dunye’s Watermelon Woman demonstrates the account of the hunt for a black woman, perceived as the mother figure. The film presents a generational interaction with a white woman. The cinematographic elements of language depict this scene of the encounter as rather sexual. The scene attempts to resolve the narrative puzzle by searching the mother, discovering and internalizing the woman (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). The film demonstrates potentially unwarranted closures, dealing with the decentered location females’ emotions as well as their erotic bonds with one another, and maintaining that the interlinkage as sites of an agency.
The cinematography has been employed in the film to demonstrate the nature of the association between biological and selected family in various ways specifically common among queers and African Americans. The two groups are distinctively categorized to hold vexed associations to biological kin (Sullivan, 2000). The same viewpoint extends to their perception of legal definitions accorded the to family unit in the society. Notably, slavery denied most African Americans and Africans in the United States the legal right to exercise and enjoy self-ownership, to a lesser extent custody of their kids or marriage (Mason, 2017). Cases of involuntary marriage breakups became paramount during such periods of limited legal constraints. The cinematographic element of the film portrays a negatively skewed economy that benefits mostly the whites at the expense of the blacks (Dunye, 2001). The situation piles up economic pressures on the black families and inversely high incarceration rates. At the prisons, the blacks form networks and establish alternative families. The quest is in line with the desire to bond with other black men and women inmates as brothers and sisters.
Gay people often succumb to the challenge of rejection as evident in the film. On the same line of thought, Dunye, being an African-American lesbian, uses cinematography in The Watermelon Woman to explore the complex problem of sexuality and race in the community. The film acknowledges the significance of both biological and selected family (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). The content of family as a fundamental unit in the society as well as community facilitates the enhancement of individual subjectivity as well as agency. The film features biological mothers and elective families as the protagonists. In The Watermelon Woman , the biological mother protagonist is a constituent of the network of associations as well as information sources employed in the search for the cinematic ancestor (Richardson, 2011). The fictional character evidently demonstrates the dramatic accord to the director’s narrative of creative agency, which evolves, consequently, through the establishment of antecedents, the upturn as well as the recreation of the historical accounts.
Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman engages cinematography to demonstrate the desire to find a black lesbian mother. Nonetheless, the search for the lack of the mother figure enhances the structuring of the film’s black matrilineage. As mentioned before, The Watermelon Woman searches and eventually constructs the mother figure the leveraging the multiracial networks of kin as well as society (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). It can be deduced from the cinematographic elements of language employed in this film that it mainly focuses on the black lesbian as the primary subject of analysis. The intention to pay much attention to the black lesbian rests on the assumption that the film engages the conventional cinematography in challenging the conventional links of perceiving, revisiting the subject of family romance that encompasses the psychoanalytic explanation of the gaze extended directed towards the black lesbians.
The subject of the male gaze is exhibited by the conventional cinematography that places the female characters as the object of gaze. The male characters assume the position of spectators in the film and become the protagonists (Sullivan, 2000). Nonetheless, critics argue that the subject of gaze is not only linked to the attributes of gender but also other aspects such as ethnicity, race, a person’s sexual orientation, and his or her class in the society. The factors are important in examining the subject of gaze, but they may fail to provide tangible evidence to support a newly coherent development of spectatorial associations (Richardson, 2011). Instead, they complement the dominant list of exceptions that have remained unchallenged over the years. Hence, the suggestion for further exploration of specific determinants of gaze in films.
The application of cinematography in the Watermelon Woman drives the need to factor in the effects of some other family structures as well as the wider communal determinants that shape the identified families. The approach is imperative in the sense that it may provide a more comprehensive and cohesive development of spectatorial interactions. In foregrounding the assigned role to the black gay of a filmmaker, an onlooker, as well as an admirable subject, Watermelon Woman self-consciously articulates the gaze pattern portrayed by the white heterosexual male (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). It places its protagonist in family relation as it takes the position of a mother. In Watermelon Woman , Irene Dunye assumes the role of the mother of the filmmaker (Mason, 2017). Besides, it puts the protagonist in the position to encounter a multiracial queer society. The economic system, as well as a lesbian structure, dominates the film to potentially cross the ethnicized boundaries.
The conventional cinematography employed in the film provides a faux documentary regarding the filmmaker’s intention to look for a fictional black woman actor, identified as “Watermelon Woman,” as put in the title of the film. The film operates at different diegetic phases and incorporates the faux documentary outcome obtained from the search. It also engages the types of conventional in any fictional film that does not permit the presence of cameras.
The Watermelon Woman depicts an integration of genres as well as forms to assert the material and historical accounts of Hollywood cinema to explore the narratives of sexuality, gender diversity, class structures, and racial discrimination. The approach is crucial because it enables the re-examination of stories that ought to have been narrated and the ones that require some redefinition (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). The center of the cinematography is evident on both the production scene and the filmmaker’s body. The focus goes alongside the acknowledgement of the fictional status of the film, with Dunye “Cheryl” taking the role of the protagonist. Dunye assumes work at a video store and holds a video venture with her crony Tamara. At the video business, the protagonist utilizes the equipment from the store to create her project. Dunye insists that it must be on black women since no one has bothered to document their plight or tell their stories.
Dunye makes some income from the videos that prejudice, discriminate or misrepresent her in the society. She feels excluded and marginalized but happy of exploiting the same resources she earns a living from to counter those prejudices. She is determined to pursue the agenda of voicing the concerns of the oppressed black women. Evidence from the video store, presents the protagonist as a more focused character, as she rises early to place orders for late Hollywood films that involve black actresses (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). She screens a percentage of the films with the available commentary that analyzes as well as contextualizes the film images. Cheryl films the commentaries with the equipment obtained from the partnership business, jointly owned by Tamara and her. Consequently, the venture opens The Watermelon Woman with a focal shot from the camera while Dunye assumes the task of videotaping a black Jewish wedding. The flashback of this event provides a thought of the marriage institution that segregates or discriminates lesbian members of the community. Furthermore, it demonstrates the interracial dimensions that are within the confine of the American family (Bryan-Wilson & Cheryl Dunye, 2013). At the wedding event, the white male photographer attempts to apportion the established arrangement of the party wedding that Dunye has completed. The audience of the film is reminded of the historical account of the white male trying to control the gaze. The demonstrating confirms the conventional behavior of males assuming protagonist roles as the females become objects to direct the gaze.
The conventional cinematography used in Dunye’s Watermelon Woman is evident in the entire film. It attempts to challenge the control of the male gaze directed to female characters. Further, it reminds the viewers to understand the status of the films as the artifact orchestrated in the old-fashioned scene transitions such as inter-titles, iris shots, and wipes (Sullivan, 2000). It also indexes film narratives in clips obtained from fabricated but faithful films. Dunye mocks the lip-syncs viewed in the fictional film Plantation Memories that presents a black mother reassuring a white belle that the mum is returning from Civil War ( The Watermelon Woman 1996 ). The analysis confirms that cinematography is evident in this film to enhance the discovery of something serious and interesting. The protagonist’s discovery, a creative intervention developed a story that is the creativity of a black woman inspired other inventions and the quest to liberate women.
Conclusion
Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman creatively apply conventional cinematography, also evidenced in the elements of language, to explore the history of African-American, look for mother figures, appreciate the diversity evidenced among the lesbian, and advocate for a just representation, especially the women. Cheryl is committed to seeing that the untold stories about black women are told. She attempts to end the misrepresentation of the black women by using the same videos that encourage the prejudice to change the perception. Her discovery, a creative intervention develops the film and motivates others to highlight issues affecting women. Hence, the use of cinematography has been successful in
References
Bryan-Wilson, J. & Cheryl Dunye, C. (2013). Imaginary Archives: A Dialogue. Art Journal , vol. 72, no. 2, pp. 82–89.
Dunye, Cheryl, dir (2001). Stranger Inside . Wr. Cheryl Dunye and Catherine Crouch, prod. Effie Brown et al. C-Hundred Film Corp. /HBO Films/ Stranger Baby Productions, DVD.
Mason, C. (2017). Queering The Mammy: New Queer Cinema's Version of an American Institution in Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman. Black Camera Vol. 8, No. 2: pp. 50-74
Richardson, M. (2011). Our Stories Have Never Been Told: Preliminary Thoughts on Black Lesbian Cultural Production as Historiography in The Watermelon Woman. Black Camera , Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.100-113
Sullivan, L. (2000). Chasing Fae: "The Watermelon Woman" and Black Lesbian Possibility. Journal of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender: Literature and Culture , Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 448-460.
The Watermelon Woman (1996) . Wr. Cheryl Dunye, prod. Alexandra Juhasz, Barry Swindon, Cate Wilson. Dancing Girl/First Run Features. Videocassette.
