#the watermelon woman (1996)

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The Watermelon Woman (1996) dir. Cheryl Dunye

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The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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On March 4, 2016, The Watermelon Woman was re-released in the United States.

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[that-butch-archivist]

"June as the champ, West Oak Lane, Philadelphia, 1962" from The Watermelon Woman: The Fae Richards Photo Archive

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

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Outfits from The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)

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Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007) [Skipping for now until I can get access to it], Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), The Watermelon Woman (1996), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985).

Today I will be talking about

The Watermelon Woman (1996) dir. Cheryl Dunye

[Run Time: 1:25, Available on: HBO Max, Hulu, Google, etc; Language: English]

Summary: A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.

Cast:

Cheryl Dunye as Herself

Valarie Walker as Tamara

Guinevere Turner as Diana

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This film was a really interesting watch for me because I did no research about this film beforehand and went in to it really thinking it was a documentary, but as the film progressed I started questioning which pieces of the film were real and which pieces were not, and to learn at the end that the entire biography of Fae Richards aka “The Watermelon Woman” was fake was a really great moment of realization that I both started to question what was real but also that I have approximately zero background knowledge of Black Hollywood and therefore went in to this without any knowledge necessary to know that this biography was fiction. Which, I think, is part of the point of the film, right? How little of history has been regarded as important and recorded, knowing that there are people like you out there that did the things you want to do, that made an impact on the world, but not having the tangible evidence. 

I have a love-hate relationship with the knowledge that Cheryl had to invent a piece of history to resonate with her, but love at the same time that her feature film debut, (which made her the first out Black lesbian director of a feature film) was dedicated to building up that history, and recording her own history as a Black lesbian in the film industry, so she cannot or will not be erased or forgotten. 

That all said, I want to write about a couple of things that I really enjoyed from this film and think are important, even though I know they are scripted. 

First things first, I loved that she went about obtaining information about The Watermelon Woman directly from her own community. That we get clips of her asking people on the street, that she seeks her mother’s knowledge, Tamara’s uncle’s knowledge, the knowledge of her mother’s friend who is herself a Black lesbian and only then starts turning to additional sources: to the library, to the experts. Not only that but I loved that in the interview with Martha’s sister, that Cheryl holds the knowledge of her own community as the truth and is not swayed by Mrs. Page-Fletcher’s adamant statements denying her sister’s queerness.

Secondly, some notable visual touches:

I do not know why but my eye was super drawn to this one guy behind Cheryl and Tamara in the library who was wearing red lipstick, mostly because it brought a lot of minstrel show imagery to mind. It’s totally possible that is not what she was going for, but because so much of the “documentary” was based around mammy archetypes in film, which is itself a caricature, that is the first place I went to.

Mrs. Page-Fletcher, who is established as racist, homophobic, and the sibling of someone who created films with mammy characters, having a Black maid come in and check on her as Cheryl and Diana are getting ready to leave the interview.

The AIDS poster in Cheryl’s apartment

The banana skirt in the Ken Burns style Fae photos in the last scene.

Third, something I do not think I have the time to unpack my feelings about but sure as hit me with the layers of commentary: 

The interview with Dr. Camille Paglia, who is playing herself, talking about how much she loves mammy archetypes and that fat bodies are sexy, and how women in the kitchen is not a sexist thing, and that watermelon is an important symbol and how she ties all of that to her own Italian heritage and experience as an Italian. 

That interview with the Dr. Paglia is especially interesting to me in conjunction with the conversation occurring between multiple characters and Cheryl around the inclusion of white people in the “documentary” and inclusion of white people in her life. Tamara, for example, gets increasingly emotionally distant from Cheryl the more she hangs around/longer she dates Diana and the more she is nice to Annie. Fae Richards’ lover Jane leaves a message criticizing Cheryl for her inclusion of Martha Page (a white woman) in the documentary about a Black lesbian at all. Cheryl appears to disagree with that because Martha Page was queer and in a relationship with Fae and therefore is relevant to the story. The C.L.I.T volunteer talks about donations of information from the Hysteria Project which wanted to focus solely on Black people in history so they have crossed out the white people.

There are pieces of this that are clear but not explicitly stated, especially around why Tamara is getting increasingly frustrated with Cheryl. And we end on the biography of Fae and statements about needing to create history, thereby ending entirely by focusing on the story of two Black lesbians (Fae Richards’ fictional life, and Cheryl Dunye’s actual one), which I think is the appropriate choice. 

Favorite Scene (and Favorite Quote): 

I think my favorite scene is the final scene, because it really feels like the thesis statement of the entire film. In it, Cheryl Dunye sits talking to the camera as if she were talking to Jane (Fae’s lover) before diving fully in to this fictionalized life of this invented Black lesbian. Cheryl says the following: 

“I mean I know she meant the world to you but she also meant the world to me and I know those worlds are different. But the moments she shared with you the life she had with Martha on and off the screen, those are precious moments and nobody can change that. But what she means to me, a 25-year old Black woman means something else. It means hope, inspiration, possibility. It means history. And most importantly what I understand is that I am going to be the one who says I am a Black, lesbian filmmaker who’s just beginning, but I’m gonna say a lot more and have a lot more work to do.”

And she has, she has done a ton more work since her debut here in 1996.

Score 

9/10

This is a very smart film with a lot of things to say, there was a lot of bad acting (which to be fair I did kinda love), and they made me listen to far too much karaoke in that one scene. 

Also, Cheryl Dunye? Hot

Next up, Set it Off (1996)

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A movie worth watching.

And the outfits are cool.

Nineties outfits in The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)

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cheryl dunye and guinevere turner as cheryl and diana in the watermelon woman (1996) dir. cheryl dunye

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The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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The Watermelon Woman 1996, dir. Cheryl Dunye

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The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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The Watermelon Woman (1996) • Cheryl Dunye 

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The Watermelon Woman 1996, dir. Cheryl Dunye