CUTTING AGAINST CONTROLLING IMAGERY:

AN ANALYSIS OF FILMS DIRECTED BY GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD AND AVA

DUVERNAY

by

Danyelle M. Greene

B.A., Adrian College, 2014

A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Master of Arts in Media Theory and Research

Department of Mass Communication and Media Arts

in the Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
August 2016
 ProQuest Number: 10163415

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 THESIS APPROVAL

CUTTING AGAINST CONTROLLING IMAGERY:

AN ANALYSIS OF FILMS DIRECTED BY GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD AND AVA
DUVERNAY

By
Danyelle M. Greene

A Thesis Submitted in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in the field of Mass Communication and Media Arts

Approved by:
Dr. Novotny Lawrence, Chair
Dr. Lisa Brooten
Dr. Joseph Brown

Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
June 8, 2016
 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

Danyelle Greene, for the Master of Arts degree in Mass Communication and Media Arts,
presented on June 8, 2016, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

TITLE: CUTTING AGAINST CONTROLLING IMAGERY: AN ANALYSIS OF FILMS

DIRECTED BY GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD AND AVA DUVERNAY

MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Novotny Lawrence

Historically, images of Black women in media have been confined to one-dimensional,

caricatured representations such as the mammy, jezebel, and ‘angry Black woman’. However, a

small segment of Black female filmmakers have committed to the re-presentation of Black

women. This study focuses on two Black female directors, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Ava

DuVernay, who have re-presented multi-dimensional images of Black women at the center of

their stories. In this thesis, Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball (2000) and Beyond the Lights

(2014) and DuVernay’s The Door (2013) and Selma (2014) are the subjects of the chapters as I

examine themes such as community, motherhood, and girlhood from the films.

i
 DEDICATION

Dedicated to my Rock of Ages from whom living waters flow and to my precious nieces

Honesty, Grace, and Faith.

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the completion of this thesis, I would like to first thank God for blessing me

throughout this process and enabling me to finish the course. Next, I would like to thank my

committee chair Dr. Novotny Lawrence, whose guidance and continued support were essential in

the completion of this process. Likewise, I am grateful to my committee members, Dr. Lisa

Brooten and Dr. Joseph Brown, for their support and commitment to this project.

I would also like to acknowledge my wonderful family and thank my parents: my mother,

who spent long hours with me brainstorming and answering questions and my father, whose

constant support throughout my life has been an unimaginable blessing from God. Also, thank

you to my big brother who always has my back through basketball games, theses, and everything

else.

Finally, thank you to my friends in Carbondale and abroad who supported me through

this process. Especially, I would like to thank Abimbola Iyun for her wonderful friendship and

tireless commitment to this thesis even through long hours of brainstorming.

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................i
DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTERS
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 2 – GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD ........................................................... 18
CHAPTER 3 – AVA DUVERNAY ............................................................................... 36
CHAPTER 4 – CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 61
ENDNOTES ............................................................................................................................ 64
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 67
VITA ...................................................................................................................................... 79

iv
 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Traditionally, mainstream media in the United States have depicted Black women

through stereotypical representations, largely ignoring the full complexities of their existences.

However, a small segment of Black female filmmakers has attempted to create multi-

dimensional characters that contribute to diversity in African American women’s cinematic

images. For example, filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Amma Asante, Cheryl Dunye, Dee Rees,

and Kasi Lemmons have directed films that center Black females at the intersections of race,

gender, age, class, sexuality, and nationality. Their films add more depth and range to the

assortment of images that represent Black women, and as a result, they cut against the dominant

portrayals historically featured in U.S. cinema.

This thesis focuses on the re-presentations1 of Black femininity in U.S. mainstream and

independent films directed by African American women. In a cinema system historically

dominated by “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (hooks, 2004, p. xi), Black

female directors working in the industry are a rarity. According to a 2015 study conducted at the

University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, there

was a total of 45 Black directors who directed the 700 top-grossing films in the United States

between 2007 and 2014 (Smith, Choueiti, Pieper, Gillig, Lee & DeLuca, 2015). Of those 45,

only three were Black women (Smith et al., 2015). African American directors, Gina Prince-

Bythewood and Ava DuVernay were among that small number of filmmakers bringing The

Secret Life of Bees (2008) and Selma (2014) to silver screens, respectively. Because Hollywood

is an historically imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal system, mainstream films

 2

portraying African American women and girls as multi-dimensional characters are limited. Thus,

the appearances of The Secret Life of Bees (2008) and Selma in the list of top-grossing films is

significant. Although the lack of Black female filmmakers necessitates critical examination of

the industry at large, it is important to note and examine the significance of Prince-Bythewood

and DuVernay’s films in a domain that remains largely inaccessible to people of color.

As filmmakers whose works have most often been financed outside of the Hollywood

system, Prince-Bythewood and DuVernay engage with the principle characteristics of Black

independent cinema as defined by Gladstone L. Yearwood (1982). In particular, he defines Black

indie cinema as “any film whose signifying practices or whose making of symbolic images

emanates from an essential cultural matrix deriving from a collective Black socio-cultural and

historical experience and uses Black expressive traditions as a means through which artistic

languages are mediated” (p. 70-71). Yearwood (1982) argues for an aesthetic separate from

mainstream cinema, explaining that an underlying foundation of the resistant potential of Black

cinema is its commitment to narratives that center the experiences and voices of Black people

rather than simply continuing to display the Black body as a spectacle. This commitment,

although exhibited differently through each of Prince-Bythewood and DuVernay’s works, is

apparent in their films as they position Black subjects as central to each of the narratives.

Problem

As the USC Annenberg study illustrates, there is a significant lack of African American

female filmmakers who work consistently in the mainstream film industry. Additionally, there is

also a void in academic discourse on the significance of the works of African American female

directors. With that in mind, this study will help fill the gap in academic discourse by examining

mainstream and independent films directed by Black women. Two primary questions guide my
 3

thesis—1.) How do Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball (2000) and Beyond the Lights

(2014) and Ava DuVernay’s The Door (2013) and Selma (2014) re-present images of Black

femininity?; 2.) How do the re-presentations of Black women in these films cut against the

traditional dominant controlling images of Black womanhood? In this research, I will

demonstrate how these films contribute to the variety of representations in which we see Black

women in cinema and how the works of Prince-Bythewood and DuVernay have countered

negative, stereotypical images often used to marginalize Black women in film.

In this thesis, I analyze Prince-Bythewood’s first feature, Love & Basketball, and her

most recent film, Beyond the Lights. I selected these films because Prince-Bythewood centers the

lives of Black women as primary points of investigation. Significantly, she presents Black

female characters in multidimensional roles, examining the life of a Black female athlete in Love

& Basketball and a Black female pop singer in Beyond the Lights. These films also bookend her

work as a feature film director demonstrating her evolution as a writer and director.

In addition to works by Prince-Bythewood, I also examine DuVernay’s The

Door and Selma. I selected these films as prime examples of her narrative work, which centers

Black women in ways rarely seen in cinema. The Door, showcases a small heterogeneous group

of Black women interacting with each other, demonstrating the importance of community. It was

crafted to illustrate the beauty, sophistication, and love of Black women. I also selected

DuVernay’s most recent work, Selma, because she highlights the influence of Black women in a

Civil Rights narrative traditionally dominated by the “Great Man” history of Dr. Martin Luther

King, Jr. In her dramatization of the story, she constructs a powerful and impactful

representation of the movement and its multiple heroes.

 4

Review of the Literature

An Other ‘Other’

In her seminal essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975/2004), Laura

Mulvey argues that the cinema frame, in its male-centered foundations, acts as a medium through

which scopophilia, the “pleasure of looking” (Mulvey 1975/2004), and fetishism of the female

body are gratified. The gratification of this scopophilic pleasure is permitted within the bounds

of the socialized ego, which otherwise discourages this outside of the cinema frame (Mulvey,

1975/2004). According to Mulvey (1975/2004), the frame, which has been traditionally used in

the objectification of the female body to satisfy the male spectator’s scopophilia, often interrupts

the action of the narrative to gaze at fragmented pieces (face, legs, hands, etc.) of the female

body that fill the screen. The male gaze positions the objectified female as an Other valued by

her ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ rather than her subjectivity and active role in the narrative (Mulvey,

1975/2004).

Additionally, Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) asserts that Black women are simultaneously

oppressed at the intersection of race and gender. They are at least doubly affected by social

structures that often regard blackness and femininity as inherently inferior to whiteness and

masculinity, respectively. Therefore, in addition to the objectification of the male gaze, Black

women have likewise been Othered through the pale gaze of the White spectator. In his

examination of the blackface minstrel tradition in the United States, Eric Lott (1992) argues that

“’Black’ figures were there to be looked at, shaped to the demand of desire; they were screens on

which audience fantasy could rest, securing White spectators’ position as superior, controlling,

not to say owning, figures” (p. 28). Further, Lott (1992) explains that the Black male body was

eroticized and fetishized by the White audience. Similar to Mulvey’s description of the
 5

objectifying function of the cinema, the minstrel show provided a space in which White

spectators explored their curiosities and infatuations with the “black” body without engaging the

socially unacceptable desire for the real, “untouchable” Black body2 (Lott, 1992).

Manthia Diawara (1988/2004) argues that in contemporary cinema the Black body has

been used to position African Americans as secondary characters who exist primarily for the

scopophilic pleasure of the White audience. He also argues that Black supporting characters have

consistently been juxtaposed with White main characters, often covertly reinforcing the

preeminence of whiteness and the peculiarity of blackness (Diawara, 1988/2004). Hence, the

historical pale gaze in conjunction with the male gaze positions Black women in cinema outside

of the norm of the White, male subject who has historically inhabited the center of the narrative.

Expanding on Diawara’s argument, Patricia Hill Collins (2013) uses theatrical props to

metaphorically describe society’s structural foundations and the power relations within, which

primarily position the White man at the center—as the main character—and all others as

secondary—as props in his show.

There in the middle of the stage stands a young, blonde, attractive, virile, white American

male, script in hand, eloquently reciting his lines. A spotlight follows his every move, an

unspoken technical mechanism that lets us know that he is the star of the drama.

Strangely, even though we may show up at different theaters in search of different plays,

they all seem curiously the same. Our star, and those who resemble him, seems to occupy

the middle of every single story, even when he is not on stage. All stories are his story.

It’s as if no other story ever happened. (p. 4)

Here, Collins demonstrates the colonialist tradition of othering and White supremacy that remain

pervasive in social structures. The structures centralize the White man as the norm, casting this
 6

character in “the middle of every single story” (p. 4) while most often casting all others to the

side as “cardboard” decorations (Collins, 2013). Traditional Hollywood films strategically

position people of color and women as props that serve to reaffirm the White protagonist’s

intelligence, masculinity, and superiority. Collins’s metaphor demonstrates the traditional power

relations that underlie the history of representations of Blacks in cinema.

Representations

Early filmic representations of Blacks in U.S. films perpetuated egregious and overtly

exaggerated images of watermelon-eating, chicken-stealing, ignorant, and contented Black

slaves. Such images were cinematic reproductions of long-standing African American

stereotypes that affected Blacks socially, economically, and politically. In Toms, Coons,

Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, Donald Bogle (2001) examines five African American

caricatures that have circumscribed African American identity since cinema’s emergence.

Bogle’s survey helps readers better understand representations in contemporary films, which

often depict more subtle versions of the traditional stereotypes that continue to position African

Americans as an objectified, exotic “Other.” He argues that “because the guises were always

changing, audiences were sometimes tricked into believing the depictions of the American Negro

were altered too. But at the heart beneath the various guises, there lurked the familiar types [tom,

coon, mulatto, mammy, and buck]” (2001, p. 18).

The tom, coon, and buck are primary caricatured depictions of Black masculinity. The

tom is the “socially acceptable Negro” who lives primarily to serve his White massa’ (Bogle,

2001, p. 4). He recognizes his “natural,” subjugated role and remains content in his inferiority

despite constant mistreatment and abuse (Bogle, 2001). The coon character and its variants—

pickaninny and Uncle Remus—are the unreliable, unintelligent, and lazy niggers who are “good
 7

for nothing more than eating watermelons, stealing chickens, shooting crap, or butchering the

English language” (Bogle, p. 8). The brutal Black buck is particularly significant in the

representation of Blacks as it continues to influence contemporary constructions of Black

masculinity. According to Bogle (2001), as the savage, oversexed, animalistic, and violent

nigger, the buck elicits fear and constitutes a great threat to White society, specifically for White

women who are identified as the objects of the buck’s uncontrollable lust (Bogle, p. 14). Thus,

according to this ideology, the buck must be socially, emotionally, and physically castrated to

restrict his power-hungry nature.

Images used to characterize Black women include the mammy, tragic mulatto, jezebel,

matriarch, Black lady, and the “angry Black woman” (Collins, 2009; Powell-Wright, 2010;

Springer, 2007; Sims, 2006). These archetypes are all employed as a means of social control.

They commonly share identities at the intersections of race and gender but at times differ at the

intersections of class and sexuality. For African American women, stereotypical caricatures have

often served as reminders of their positions within dominant patriarchal social systems.

Of the traditional representations of Black women, the mammy is the most enduring. She

is often portrayed as a quarrelsome, “fiercely independent” Black woman whose life revolves

around taking care of her White “family” (Bogle, 2001, p. 9). Her dark skin and obesity,

characteristics considered unattractive by the dominant ideology, positions her as nonthreatening

to White femininity (Bogle, 2001; Sims, 2006). Further, the mammy is asexual, and as a result,

only shows interest in the romantic lives of her White masters, while demonstrating a lack of

desire for her own intimate relationship. According to Patricia Hill Collins (2009), “The mammy

image is central to intersecting oppressions of race, gender, sexuality, and class” (p. 80). The

caricature’s undying loyalty to her White family, her asexuality, and her low class contribute to
 8

her nonthreatening status, allowing her to exist subordinately within White society, as a

complicit part of the dominant patriarchal power structure. “By loving, nurturing, and caring for

her White children and ‘family’ better than her own, the mammy symbolizes the dominant

group’s perceptions of the ideal Black female relationship to elite White male power” (Collins,

2009, p. 80). Thus, Whites embrace her because she is aware of and willfully accepts her racial

and gender inferiority.

In the 1934 version of Imitation of Life (1934), Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers) is a

prime example of the mammy caricature. She and her fair-skinned daughter, Peola (Fredi

Washington), live with and work for a White woman, Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), and

her daughter, Jessie (Rochelle Hudson). Although Beatrice builds a successful business from

Delilah’s “secret” family pancake recipe, Delilah happily lives in the basement of Beatrice’s

mansion and works as her full-time housekeeper.3

Delilah’s daughter, Peola, is one of the quintessential representations of the tragic mulatto

on film. The caricature is the byproduct of miscegenation and as such, often functions as a

cautionary tale. Although the tragic mulatto is not imperatively female, in films the character is

most often a light-skinned woman with Eurocentric features that make it easier for White

audiences to sympathize with her. According to researchers, Mark P. Orbe and Karen E. Strother

(1996) “media depictions [of the tragic mulatto] were mostly consistent in portraying bi-ethnic

characters as endlessly tormented by their (bi-)identities” (p. 115). Peola’s social confusion is

based in her ancestors’ violation of the interracial taboo as she is ultimately bound by the one

drop of Black blood (Bogle, 2001) rule and therefore inferiority. As Peola attempts

unsuccessfully to “pass” for White several times in Imitation of Life, she eventually harbors great

resentment for her Black mother, whose dark skin and public acknowledgement of their familial
 9

relation reveals her Black bloodline. After she disowns her mother and runs away to live as a

White woman, Peola returns for her mother’s funeral after she dies of a broken heart. Peola’s

constant struggle with her ethnic identity are the primarily causes of the rift between her and

Delilah. Thus, according to this portrayal of the tragic mulatto and others like it, “mixing” races

will cause great familial distress, a concern that helped necessitate the U.S.’s anti-miscegenation

laws.

In addition to the mammy and tragic mulatto, the jezebel is one of the most pervasive

controlling images. The caricature emerged from the “breeder woman” stereotype, which was

used to justify the rape of female slaves in the U.S. (Collins, 2009; hooks, 1981). Characterized

as a sexually “loose,” unrespectable woman, the caricature persists as a recurring justification to

objectify Black women in the media. Additionally, the jezebel plays a seminal role in

commodifying Black female bodies, which have been “especially important for capitalist class

relations in the United States” (Collins, 2009, p. 143). Contemporary variations of the archetype

include the “hoochie”, “hot mama”, and the “freak” (Collins, 2009; Harris-Perry, 2011).

Hypersexualized and stereotypical depictions of Black women are particularly evident in hip

hop, reality television, and other platforms/genres, and greatly contribute to the success of these

media.

Since Nina Mae McKinney’s portrayal of Chick in Hallelujah (1929), the cinematic role

of the exotic, sensuous Black woman has persisted. Often, actresses with more Eurocentric

features and lighter skin, such as Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne, were cast in roles as

“objects of male desire” (Regester, 2010). Although these actresses were extremely talented,

their light, beautiful skin and sex appeal was often the most prevalent point of identification for

them, especially in opposition to their dark-skinned, mammy counterparts (Regester, 2010).

 10

More recently, erotic fetishization of Black women’s bodies has often focused on the size of their

breasts and bottoms. However, lighter brown skin and Eurocentric features have endured as

standards of beauty. Hence, Black actresses such as Pam Grier, Halle Berry, and Kerry

Washington have continued to occupy the erotic gaze of the spectator.4

Contrary to the jezebel, the “Black lady” represents appropriate ladylike appearance yet

unfeminine behavior. Defined by her middle-class status, reserved heterosexuality, and education

(Reid-Brinkley, 2012), the Black lady emerged primarily out of resistance to the normalized

images of hypersexualized Black women (Harris-Perry, 2011). “In an effort to resist those

stereotypes, black women in public leadership positions buried normal, innocuous expressions of

sexuality behind an image of either pristine asexuality or narrowly defined respectable married

identity . . . these black women leaders sought to establish their respectability” (Harris-Perry, p.

6). However, in resisting the hypersexual characterizations, they become trapped inside the

singularity of the Black lady, which is characterized by her lack of femininity, assertive attitude,

and her focus on professionalism and achievement (Collins, 2009; Thompson, 2009; Reid-

Brinkley, 2012). She is the career-minded, middle-class Black woman that has to work much

harder than everyone else; however, she does so at the “expense” of Black men (Collins, 2009),

whose jobs are wrongfully “taken” by Black women.

Cinematic images of the Black lady are primarily evident in stories concerning Black

middle-class families. In films such as Boomerang (1992), The Best Man (1999), and Deliver Us

from Eva (2003) the Black lady is juxtaposed with an image of the “ideal” Black woman, who is

primarily concerned with caring for her husband and family (Thompson, 2009). In each of these

films, the Black lady is depicted as an independent woman so hell bent on success that she has

very little regard for her family and friends. Ultimately, the Black lady must be “saved” by a
 11

heterosexual relationship in order to escape her punishment of rejection and inevitable

loneliness, the result of her professional accomplishments.

The matriarch is yet another controlling image, which exists specifically within the Black

family but contradicts dominant patriarchal ideals about family structure. As the head of the

Black household, the matriarchal figure emasculates Black men. First, because she is a woman,

she represents absence and the threat of castration (Mulvey, 1975/2004). Second, she is overly

aggressive and goes against the patriarchal family order. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan contends

in his infamous “Moynihan Report,” the matriarch’s position as the head of the home is the

reason for the deterioration and destruction of the Black community (Collins, 2009; Sewell,

2012). “Her inability to model appropriate gender behavior” (Collins, 2009, p. 84), which is to

submit herself to “true womanhood” as defined by the model of White patriarchy, lies at the core

of the matriarch’s negative image. This harmful image ultimately re-emphasizes the need for

Black patriarchy, which, according to Collins, functions as a vehicle for legitimizing Black

culture (as cited in Collins, 2009, p. 85) in that the structures within the culture must be similar

to the dominant, White, patriarchal system to be credible.

Importantly, some of the most notable images of the matriarch are visible in Tyler Perry’s

“Madea” movies. Mabel Simmons (Tyler Perry), more commonly known as Madea, is the

matriarch who functions as the leader and center piece of her Black family. Her purpose in films

such as Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) and Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) is to bring her

dysfunctional family together and to protect Black women from abusive Black men. However,

Madea also symbolizes her family’s brokenness as she is a single mother whose daughter is

rarely seen and whose primary familial connection is to her brother, Joe. As he constantly

ridicules her “manliness” and undesirability to men (Johnson, 2014), Joe suggests that the
 12

primary cause of the family’s dysfunction is the “overbearing strength” (De Larkin, 2014, p.54)

of an emasculating Black woman.

Lastly, the angry Black woman frequently underlies many of the controlling images that

traditionally represent Black women. Melissa Harris-Perry (2011) describes the caricature as

“shrill, loud, argumentative, irrationally angry, and verbally abusive” (p. 87). These

characteristics, according to black feminist scholars Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett

(2006), are often essential to the representation of Black womanhood. Characteristics such as

constant anger and bad attitudes are so engrained in controlling images of Black women that they

have largely become normalized in mainstream portrayals of Black women.

Collectively, the stereotypical characteristics of the mammy, tragic mulatto, jezebel,

Black lady, matriarch, and ‘angry Black woman’ reinforce and normalize negative images of

Black women. These character types perpetuate and justify division, subjugation and inadequacy

among Black women and within Black communities. According to Melissa Harris-Perry (2011),

this is the “crooked room” in which Black women are confined by the prevalence of controlling

images. Harris-Perry contends that “having a clear view of the distorted images and painful

stereotypes that make America a crooked room for African American women is the first step

toward understanding how these stereotypes influence black women as political actors” (p. 32).

In Reel to Real, bell hooks (2009) examines the pervasiveness of cinematic images and

analyzes the discourses of race, sex and class in film through a critical cultural and feminist

framework. She argues that movies create and recreate discourses, which do not mirror reality

but rather rearrange or contribute to audience perceptions of the real (hooks, 2009). Similarly,

Janell Hobson (2012) argues that the problem with caricatures, such as the mammy and tom, is

more than the gross distortions and characterizations of a race of people to specified images;
 13

rather, it is the perpetuation of inaccurate or limited discourse distributed to a U.S. viewing

public that is largely still segregated (Hobson, para. 3). “[Films] not only reflect society in its

own image, they can also cause society to create itself in the image of the films” (as cited in

Ellison, p. 177). In addition to the film operating as a vehicle for the dissemination of dominant

ideologies, hooks (2009) argues that mainstream cinema has the potential to deconstruct and

resist the normalized, caricatured images of blackness. By seizing the means of production, Gina

Prince-Bythewood and Ava DuVernay have challenged these images in independent and

mainstream cinema.

Methodology

For this research, I use textual analysis to analyze films directed by two African

American women. Within the realm of rhetorical and discourse criticism, textual analysis centers

the text as the object of examination. The text can include photographs, cinema, and other media

alongside written language as the source from which meaning is constructed (Barthes,

1980/1981, 1973/1974; Bordwell, 1989).

According to Roland Barthes (1980/1981), the process of meaning construction occurs

through interpretation, which exists in the abstract space between the “readerly” and “writerly”

texts. Their categorizations are based on a spectator’s ability to actively engage with the text. In

the readerly text, which is intentionally constructed to be a product, meaning is embedded in the

work and structured for the reader’s consumption (Barthes, 1973/1974). “Reading” implies the

inactivity of the spectator as a passive observer. The spectator does not contribute meaning

outside of the context of the text; rather, the author’s specific intent is the sole source of the

text’s pre-constructed meaning.

 14

Conversely, the writerly text is continuous production of the text. It is important to note

that the “writerly text is not a [physical] thing” (Barthes, 1973/1974, p. 5). Rather, it is the

theoretical contradiction of the readerly. Instead of “reading” meaning from the text, the

spectator continues to create the text from unstructured pieces of information. Barthes

(1973/1974) describes the writerly as, “the novelistic without the novel, poetry without the poem,

the essay without the dissertation, writing without style, production without product,

structuration without structure” (p. 5). The writerly text is infinitely “written” without specific

purpose or design. It implies meaning created through absolute subjectivity, in which the

spectator is essentially the author of the unwritten text (Barthes, 1973/1974).

The complete writerly text is impossible to achieve, and the readerly text is ultimately

inaccessible without specific authorial intent. Thus, Barthes (1973/1974) introduces

interpretation as an alternative in which “To interpret a text is not to give it a (more or less

justified, more or less free) meaning, but on the contrary to appreciate what plural constitutes it”

(p. 4). The plural text refers to recognizing the numerous pieces of information and contexts that

affect the text’s interpretation. Multiple layers of signified meanings (language, cultural cues,

etc.) based on the author’s context work in conjunction with the subjective knowledge of the

spectator’s own context. For example, film theorist Judith Mayne (1993) describes Barthes’s

analysis of Sarrasine as “an approach to the study of textuality that ‘reads’ in a ‘writerly’

fashion, attentive not to any single determination but rather to how textuality is formed by the

interplay of different discourses — political, narrative, psychoanalytic” (Mayne, 1993, p. 15).

Discursive codes foregrounded in the texts are ones by which the spectator begins to interpret

and frame his or her positioning in relation to the film.

 15

Generally, the interpretation of film texts involves the analysis of film elements such as

dialogue, lighting, cinematography, and editing. These elements contribute to the construction of

meaning, using visual and aural cues to incorporate the spectator’s knowledge of film language

in the interaction between the spectator and film. The language of individual shots and frames as

well as the syntactic construction, based on editing and narrative, constitute the space in which

cinematic meaning can be constructed. According to film theorist David Bordwell (1989),

“Comprehending and interpreting a literary text, a painting, a play or a film constitutes an

activity in which the perceiver plays a central role. The text is inert until a reader or listener or

spectator does something to and with it . . . Meanings are not found but made” (p. 3). Therefore,

meaning, constructed through the comprehension and interpretation of the text by the spectator,

is filtered through the interpreter’s conscious or unconscious knowledge of his or her own

positionality. Similar to Barthes’ engagement of the concepts of readerly and writerly texts, the

interpretation of film texts is constituted by the spectator’s subjective and social positionalities.

The analysis of cinematic representations relates specifically to traditional caricatured

portrayals of African Americans. It carries a history of coded images that have traditionally been

representative of a White supremacist outsider version of African Americans’ realities. The

meanings embodied in these images are constructed through narrative and cinematic as well as

social and political codes, creating cinematic figures of embodied stereotypes such as those

identified by Bogle, Collins and Harris-Perry. Thus, an interpretive “reading” of a film text is

constructed through the lens of the spectator amidst social discourses.

At the foundation of this study, I recognize that the text cannot exist without the author,

who for these analyses are directors Gina Prince-Bythewood and Ava DuVernay. I also

recognize that, as films primarily constructed for more mainstream audiences, there are elements
 16

of Love & Basketball, Beyond the Lights, The Door, and Selma that are affected by industrial

factors. These codes may include Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings,

funding restrictions, and general profit-driven strategies for wide-spread marketing. In addition,

as I interact with the texts, I incorporate my knowledge of traditional controlling images and my

subjective knowledge of Black womanhood in the analyses. As a Black woman and film scholar,

this knowledge is essential in interpreting the films’ re-presentations of Black women. In my

analysis, I examine each of the films paying close attention to themes that correspond with Black

womanhood and how the directors use filmic elements (editing, dialogue, focus, etc.) to

construct them. However, in accordance with Barthes’s discussion of the plurality of texts, I

acknowledge that my analyses of these films are not the only valid interpretations. Further, as my

individual knowledge evolves, I acknowledge that my interpretations can likewise evolve.

Notwithstanding, as I incorporate the directors’ commentary on their films and include historical

and sociological research to further ground my analyses of these texts, I aim to present

examinations of Prince-Bythewood and DuVernay’s films that effectively illustrate the

significance of their work in the industry and the importance of their re-presentations of Black

women.

Organization

This thesis is organized as follows. Chapter Two focuses on Gina Prince-Bythewood’s

Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights. Love & Basketball is a fictional love story that follows

Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy McCall’s (Omar Epps) relationships with each other,

their families, and the sport that they love--basketball. Beyond the Lights is also a fictional love

story that follows Noni Jean (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a famous singer, as she journeys from a

suicide attempt to self-healing with the help of her love interest, Kaz Nicol (Nate Parker). In
 17

these analyses, I examine Prince-Bythewood’s portrayals of Black women as she re-presents

them through girlhood, motherhood, and the main characters’ varying careers. In the third

chapter, I examine DuVernay’s narrative short, The Door as well as her feature-length film,

Selma. The Door is a commercial film which centers on a Black woman whose transformation

from depression to liberation occurs as a result of her interactions with other Black women.

Selma chronicles the events surrounding the 1965 Civil Rights march from Selma to

Montgomery, Alabama. The portrayal of Black women as well as an understanding of traditional

media representations and spectatorship as discussed in this chapter are at the foundation of these

analyses.

Olga Idriss Davis (2007) defines Otherness as “the embodied space of difference. It is a

constructed, performed space of identity between the ‘who’ society crafts you to be and the

‘who’ you determine to become” (p. 312). This definition also illustrates the potential for

challenging the broad gap between social construction and self-identification. Likewise,

challenging the dominance of social constructions through the creation of divergent imagery can

contribute to the deconstruction of Otherness. Cutting against centuries of colonialist

perspectives and constantly-evolving stereotypes about Black bodies requires the inclusion of

narratives and images that challenge the legitimacy and universality of dominant ideologies. For

Black women in cinema, the inclusion of agency and complexity as narrative elements are

significant for challenging traditional, monolithic characterizations of hypersexuality,

unintelligence, and subjugation. Accordingly, Love & Basketball, Beyond the Lights, The Door,

and Selma contribute to the assortment of cinematic representations of Black femininity and, as

such, the dissolution of homogeneous Black womanhood.

 18

CHAPTER 2

GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD

Black women’s collective knowledge is based in personal memories of individual

experiences that connect heterogeneous communities across towns, countries, and oceans.

Although many of these experiences are unique to Black women, they can also relate to other

multicultural communities in which the members interact and share knowledge. This is one of

the grounding principles of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s films. She explores and shares uplifting

stories about Black women with multicultural audiences with the purpose of encouraging

feelings of “empathy” (Greene, 2014). In an interview with NPR, she explains, “The more we

can do that in film and television, I really think it can improve the world. That’s my drive”

(Greene, 2014).

In preparation for her future career in filmmaking, Gina Prince-Bythewood received her

formal education in screenwriting and directing from the University of California Los Angeles

Film School. After graduating in 1991, she began her professional career as a screenwriter

penning episodes of A Different World (1987-1993), a sitcom chronicling the lives of African

American students attending an Historically Black University. While working on A Different

World, Prince-Bythewood continued to develop her screenwriting skills by creating images of

Black people rarely seen in media. This work also led her to write for other TV shows including

South Central (1994) and Sweet Justice (1994-1995).

After several years of writing for TV, Prince-Bythewood wrote her first feature-length

screenplay, Love & Basketball, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2000.

That same year, she also directed Disappearing Acts, which aired on HBO in December. She
 19

then returned to work in television directing episodes of Girlfriends (2000-2008), The Bernie

Mac Show (2001-2006), and Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009). In each of these shows,

Prince-Bythewood continued to tell stories centering on Black characters. Her most recent

directorial works include the theatrically released, The Secret Life of Bees (2008) and Beyond the

Lights (2014).

Of the feature films that Prince-Bythewood has written and directed, Love & Basketball

and Beyond the Lights, the subjects of this chapter, were largely motivated by her life. Her

experiences as a biracial (Black and White) woman, a daughter, a mother, a wife, an athlete, and

a director are essential to her storytelling. By incorporating these multidimensional elements into

her Black female characters she continues to cut against traditional representations of Black

women.

Love & Basketball

Before Prince-Bythewood became a writer and a director, she was an athlete. She initially

started participating in sports as a young girl competing against boys in various sports, including

soccer and basketball (Prince-Bythewood, 2015). Her experiences while participating in athletics

combined with her passion for sports and her competitive spirit led her to write and direct the

largely autobiographical film, Love & Basketball (McCalmont, 2015).

After completing the script for Love & Basketball, Prince-Bythewood began shopping it

around Hollywood. However, she soon discovered that it would not be easy to secure funding for

her first feature-length directorial project when each studio she pitched her film to rejected it.

Fortunately, the script was eventually accepted into the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab, an

intensive program dedicated to developing independent screenwriters’ film scripts. At the end of

the program, Prince-Bythewood presented her revised script at a table reading after which execs
 20

from Spike Lee’s studio, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, agreed to finance the film on a $15

million budget (McCalmont, 2015).

Love & Basketball is a love story that follows the relationship between two basketball

players, Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy McCall (Omar Epps). Like an organized

basketball game, their lives are divided into four “Quarters” beginning with their first meeting in

1981 at the age of eleven and continuing through their post-collegiate basketball careers.

Importantly, Monica is the main subject of the love story, in which she pursues and is likewise

pursued. She is the prime example of a dedicated athlete, and she is the main character with

whom the audience is asked to identify and grow. As the story unfolds, Love & Basketball

explores Monica’s life as a determined female basketball player in a male-dominated sports

world and as such, the film includes commentary about issues of gender inequality and sexism in

competitive sports. Finally, in recounting this tale, Prince-Bythewood explores three themes that

are rarely explored in black-themed films either singularly or together—female athletics, Black

girlhood, and mothering.

Black Female Athletes, Girlhood and Mothering

From the beginning of Love & Basketball, Prince-Bythewood crafts Monica as a Black

female athlete whose persona deviates from “normal” standards of Black femininity. Reflecting

on her construction of the character, Prince-Bythewood comments, “What I was most happy

about is that, you know, with Monica’s character there wasn’t a scene when she was little where

there is an epiphany about ‘oh I’m an athlete’ or ‘this is why I love basketball’. It was just a part

of her” (Prince-Bythewood & Lathan, 2000).

In her non-traditional performance of femininity, Monica’s “tomboy” personality is

instinctive rather than something to grow out of. This is particularly evident in the first scene in
 21

which eleven-year-old Monica (Kyla Pratt) meets young Quincy (Glenndon Chatman). In this

scene, Prince-Bythewood begins to explore and deconstruct the male/female binary that

determines “appropriate” adolescent behavior and categorizes athletic ability by using a two-on-

two basketball game that pits Monica against Quincy. Significantly, before the game begins,

Prince-Bythewood emphasizes the role that clothes and hair play in constructing gender because

Monica is mistaken for a boy. She is dressed in blues jeans, a V-neck t-shirt, and a Los Angeles

Lakers baseball cap with her hair tucked underneath. Standing with two of his friends, Jamal

(Jess Willard) and Kelvin (Chris Warren), Quincy unwittingly invites Monica—a girl—to play.

When Monica removes her hat in preparation for the game, her long hair is revealed. Quincy and

his friends surprisingly react, “Oh! She is a girl. . . . Girls can’t play no ball” (Lee & Kitt, 2000),

a statement to which Monica simply replies, “ball better than you” (Lee & Kitt, 2000). Quincy is

emphatically convinced that girls are inherently incapable of playing basketball because,

according to traditional standards, aggressive competition is linked solely to masculinity.

Further, he contends that if she can play she must be a “dog” (Lee & Kitt, 2000)—unfeminine,

ugly, and a lesbian. In this sequence, Prince-Bythewood illustrates the pervasiveness of

longstanding gender norms that, beginning in childhood, people are socialized to accept.

During the game, Monica capably competes against Quincy and his friends—pushing,

shooting, rebounding, and “talking smack.” After demonstrating that she is every bit their equal,

Monica is poised to make the game-winning shot. Realizing that his team’s defeat is imminent,

Quincy shoves her into the grass where she lands awkwardly and scars the right side of her face.

His decision to avoid losing to a girl by any means necessary illustrates his fear of emasculation,

and Monica is “punished” for her ability to beat the boys.

 22

Prince-Bythewood uses this scene to acknowledge the pervasiveness of gender

expectations in sports, even in unorganized, driveway basketball. However, she also challenges

the dichotomous assertions of “soft” femininity versus aggressive masculinity. In the following

scene, as Monica looks into the mirror at her still bleeding face, she smiles. Although her mother

insists that she “stop running around like a little boy” (Lee & Kitt, 2000), the scar that develops

as a result of the fall becomes neither a symbol of shame nor a deterrent to further engage in

“unfeminine” behavior. Rather, it becomes an essential part of Monica’s identification, carrying

with it the story of her first meeting with Quincy as well as the satisfaction that she was on the

brink of beating him at “his” game.

In the beginning of the Second Quarter, Prince-Bythewood uses Monica’s scar as an

aspect of her basketball persona. She begins with a montage of close-ups and out-of-focus shots

of Monica in her basketball uniform. Medium shots of her dribbling and shooting during a game

are intercut between close-up images of her number 32 jersey, her gold chain, and her gym

shoes. Contrary to the traditional use of close-ups used in the fetishization of the female image,

Prince-Bythewood uses these close-ups of Monica’s body to construct her depiction as a

basketball player. Rather than a gendered image of an athlete, Prince-Bythewood depicts Monica

as simply a “ball player” (Lee & Kitt, 2000), wearing the attire and intense attitude of a sports

competitor. Additionally, using low angle shots and fast-paced cuts she constructs the sequence

of her basketball game as intense and competitive—characteristics not often attributed to female

athletics. Thus, Prince-Bythewood depicts the excitement of the game and Monica’s intimidating

and aggressive bravado (Prince-Bythewood & Lathan, 2000) as suitable competitive behavior

that is neither inherently male nor female.

 23

Prince-Bythewood constructs Monica’s mother, Camille (Alfre Woodard), in direct

opposition to her daughter. While Monica is a rough and tumble superstar athlete, Camille is the

embodiment of “appropriate” feminine behavior. She is a middle class, stay-at-home wife and

mother who happily cooks, cleans, irons, and washes clothes. Camille’s hair is always pressed

and curled and her wardrobe is largely comprised of plain-colored blouses and dresses. She

represents ideal Black womanhood, and she attempts to teach her daughters to exhibit “correct”

feminine behavior.

Although the instructions on appropriate womanhood that Camille relays to her daughters

(especially to Monica) are often superficial, they reflect the dynamics of mothering relationships

that affect Black girlhood. As Camille attempts to teach Monica about beauty and feminine

behavior, she illustrates traditions in which Black mothers lay the foundation for personal and

cultural values within and despite the predominance of Eurocentric standards of beauty (Collins,

2009). This powerful potential of Black motherhood is intimately connected with the

development of Black girls as they are often taught by observation and instruction about

themselves and about survival as Black women. As Prince-Bythewood explores the relationship

between Camille and her daughters, she depicts the lessons that she attempts to teach as

simultaneously oppressive and political.

Camille’s lessons are particularly evident in a scene during which she and Monica’s older

sister, Lena (Regina Hall), prepare Monica for a high school dance. Unlike any other depiction of

the character in the film, in this scene Monica wears lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, and diamond

earrings. Her hair is pressed and curled, partially covering the right side of her face. Lena fixes

her hair and makeup while Camille adorns her with the final touch—her grandmother’s pearls—

as she is now “presentable” for the dance. These standards of beauty (especially straightened
 24

hair) are problematic for Black women on multiple levels because Black women are often

haunted by traditional standards of beauty—Eurocentric features, fair skin, and long flowing

hair. Black women remain fixed outside the space of traditional beauty, despite constant revision

and manipulation to achieve these unattainable standards (hooks, 1992). Presented to be looked

at and eroticized as inherently outside of the realm of “purity” traditionally afforded to White

womanhood, beauty for Black women is most often defined outside of their own community.

Although rooted in the reinforcement of superficial standards of beauty, Prince-

Bythewood’s construction of this scene is political as she illustrates the beautification process as

a means of positive interpersonal connection within the Black community. bell hooks (1989)

explains that the significance of the process of girls getting their hair straightened is often more

important than the physical result of straight hair. The process is a privilege reserved for special

occasions (church, family gatherings, dances, etc.) and primarily for “grown women” (Boylorn,

2013, p. 176). This is perfectly articulated in the scene when Camille sits next to Monica, smiles

and says, “Tonight, don’t worry about yesterday’s game or the recruiters or anything else. I just

want you to enjoy being beautiful” (Lee & Kitt, 2000). She places “grandmother’s pearls” (Lee

& Kitt, 2000) around her daughter’s neck and fully embraces her as a part of their familial

community of Black women. Additionally, the tradition symbolizes the passage of knowledge

and values through the three generations of women represented in the scene. The importance of

this ritual is based in membership and affirmation within an intimate group of Black women

whose underlying goal is the maintenance of the community. Whether or not the basketball

recruiters want her, Monica now and always will belong to the family of beautiful Black women.

The remainder of the film follows Monica’s struggles and triumphs as a Black female

athlete as she competes in college and then in a professional basketball league overseas. As a
 25

college athlete, Monica is constantly in the gym practicing so that she can compete at the highest

level on the court. Notably, during her collegiate basketball years from 1988-1992, the Women’s

National Basketball Association (WNBA) has not yet been founded and as a result, her goal is to

become the first woman to play in the NBA. Because she is a woman this is a lofty ambition,

while for Quincy, who is male and the son of a professional basketball player, it is an

expectation.

Importantly, in the resolution of Love and Basketball, Monica’s relentless dedication and

arduous journey culminates in the realization of her dream—playing professional basketball.

However, she first achieves this dream overseas and then in the Women’s National Basketball

Association (WNBA), which was founded in 1996. Prince-Bythewood uses this resolution both

as the cheerful ending to the narrative and as the crowning piece of her re-presentation of Black

female athletes. In this scene, Monica is introduced in the starting lineup as the guard for the LA

Sparks. In front of hundreds of cheering fans, she stands on the court alongside the other starters

and smiles. She looks toward the stands where Quincy sits in the audience holding their young

daughter. Importantly, this scene reverses common ideals about gender roles and athletics. Here,

Monica is a successful, professional basketball player while Quincy assumes the traditionally

“feminine” role of sitting on the side to cheer and take care of their daughter.

Love & Basketball opened to mixed critical reception, a factor that may have played a

role in its modest $27.4 million gross at the box office. Specifically, critics generally disliked the

progression of the story; however, they praised Prince-Bythewood’s directorial ability. For

example, Elvis Mitchell comments, “The director’s feel for characterization and her knack for

ambience keep ‘Love and Basketball’ on the move until the realization sets in that it’s not really

about anything” (2000, para. 6). Commenting on Prince-Bythewood’s directing, he writes, “It’s
 26

in the small touches that this movie comes alive, and it’s rare that directors can pull off this kind

of thing. . . . ‘Love and Basketball’ is the first step, however unsteady, of an intriguing new

talent” (Mitchell, 2000, para. 8). Similarly, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote:

On paper, the conflicts may look overdiagrammed . . . like many ”uplifting” films that

come out of the Sundance Institute, you can see pencil marks from the playbook on

screen. But the story of Quincy and Monica, their personal clashes and their athletic

dreams, breaks away from other sports-themed dramas, thanks to the clarity and dash of

Prince-Bythewood’s agile directorial style and the exciting originality of the subject.

(2000, para. 3)

In addition to garnering lukewarm reviews in the mainstream press, academics have also

criticized Love and Basketball. Most notably, in Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African

American Cinema, an examination and critique of “blackness” in contemporary mainstream

films, David J. Leonard questions the film’s effectiveness as a black film. Generally, “The

tendency of middle-class-oriented African American films to construct a world without problem,

as one of happy people with happy problems, not only challenges prevalent popular

representations in Hollywood, but also validates a post-Civil Rights America” (Leonard, 2006, p.

97). He describes Love & Basketball as a film whose potential classification as a black film is

undermined by its inattention to issues of class and race. Further, he contends that Love &

Basketball contributes to issues of racial and class denial in the United States as it largely ignores

the pervasiveness of these inequalities.

While Leonard’s analysis of Love and Basketball may hold some merit, it fails to

acknowledge the film’s re-presentations of African American women. Prince-Bythewood’s

nuanced depictions of Black femininity and motherhood complement Monica’s characterization

 27

as a Black female athlete. Despite the constant conflict between her and her mother, by film’s

end it becomes apparent that neither performance of femininity is necessarily correct or

incorrect. Each depiction of Black womanhood is essential to Prince-Bythewood’s diverse

representations of Black women and challenges traditional stereotyped representations that

characterize Black women as homogenous.

Beyond the Lights

In her most recent film, Beyond the Lights, Prince-Bythewood once again centers a Black

woman as the active subject of the love story. Despite her previous writing and directing success,

Prince-Bythewood initially had difficulty finding funding for her film. Originally titled

Blackbird, Prince-Bythewood pitched the script to several studio execs all of whom passed on

the project, contending that the film “felt too small” or that it would be better received with a

White male lead (Fragoso & Prince-Bythewood, 2014). Undeterred by such comments, Prince-

Bythewood continued searching for a company that was willing to finance the film. She

eventually reached a deal with Relativity Media, which agreed to produce Beyond the Lights on a

budget of $7 million. Elated that she found a distributor committed to making the project as she

had conceived it, Prince-Bythewood explained, “it was just about overcoming ‘no’ and finding

that one ‘yes’” (Fragoso & Prince-Bythewood, 2014, para. 11).

Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Noni Jean) and Nate Parker (Kaz Nicol), Beyond the Lights

tells the story of a biracial (Black and White) singer, Noni Jean, who is on the verge of becoming

a huge star. However, as Noni’s fame rises, her success comes at the expense of her own

identity, which is now completely controlled by the music industry. Bombarded with constant

reminders of her hypersexualized image, Noni becomes severely disillusioned with her career

and attempts suicide. After Kaz Nicol, a young police officer, stops her from jumping off of her
 28

hotel room balcony, the two fall in love and she begins a journey of self-discovery. The

remainder of the film follows Noni as she works through her internal struggles and works to find

her own unique voice.

In her exploration of Noni’s journey as a young, Black female singer, Prince-Bythewood

explores the impact of music, mothering, hair, and achievement in the development of her

personal identity. Further, using the story of Noni’s transformation from a constructed pop star to

a socially relevant independent artist, Prince-Bythewood critiques the music industry’s

traditional exploitation of the female body.

Mothering “Blackbird”

In developing Beyond the Lights, Prince-Bythewood examined the lives of Black female

artists who have endured in the mainstream music industry. More specifically, she drew

inspiration from singers such as Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Nina Simone (“Gugu

Mbatha-Raw,” 2016) to construct Noni’s world inside and outside of the music industry

spotlight. Although she used a number of established African American singers, Prince-

Bythewood’s incorporation of Nina Simone’s music and unique spirit resonate the loudest

throughout the film.

To better understand Simone’s presence in the narrative, it is beneficial to briefly discuss

her life and music. Simone, whom many have regarded as the High Priestess of Soul, began

playing the piano by ear at three years old (Garbus, Wilkes & Jackson, 2015). She studied from a

young age to become a classical pianist and later, began to sing and create songs that fused

classical music with jazz and blues (Garbus, Wilkes & Jackson, 2015). Simone started her

singing career in a bar in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she used her unique voice and

unconventional style in performing different renditions of popular songs (Epler, 2016). During
 29

the Civil Rights movement, her career underwent a transformation as a result of the 16 th Street

Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers in Jackson,

Mississippi (Epler, 2016). After those tragedies, Simone wrote many of her songs to express her

frustrations about the constant mental, emotional, and physical violence in the South (Garbus,

Wilkes & Jackson, 2015).

Simone’s identity as an unapologetically Black woman is a significant aspect of Noni’s

construction and development. At the most basic level, the main character’s name, “Noni,”

closely resembles the name, “Nina,” which Simone adopted for herself. Additionally, Simone’s

song “Blackbird,” which describes a Black woman’s oppression (Bart-Planged, 2015), is the

basis of Noni and her mother’s relationship as well as the transformation of Noni’s music career.

Further, similar to Simone’s description of four different Black women in her song “Four

Women,” Prince-Bythewood also re-presents various images of Black women through cinema.

Prince-Bythewood explains that she used Simone as inspiration for the film because, “during her

time, Nina was unapologetically black and proud of who she was, and it reflected in the

authenticity of songs like ‘Four Women.’ And this is something that Noni absolutely struggles

with because she has been instructed to be a male fantasy” (as cited in Tillet, 2015, para. 13).

Using Noni’s performances of Simone’s “Blackbird,” Prince-Bythewood emphasizes

both the spirit of the song and the essence of Simone’s unapologetic blackness. In the first verse,

Simone describes the inevitable future of the Black woman, singing, “No place big enough for

holding all the tears you’re gonna cry. ‘Cause your mama’s name was lonely, and your daddy’s

name was pain. And they called you little sorrow ‘cause you’ll never love again” (Simone,

1966). Prince-Bythewood begins the film with an adolescent Noni, singing this song at a talent

contest. Her White mother, Macy, has been alone for years because her parents rejected her for
 30

having a Black child, and Noni’s biological father abandoned her. Hence, Noni is “little sorrow,”

a ten-year-old girl looking primarily for a mother’s approval as she unwittingly sings the

foreshadowing lyrics of the song.

As young Noni stands singing “Blackbird,” her mother stands nervously offstage where

she mouths the words to the song while watching the judges’ reactions to her daughter’s

performance. At the end of her performance, Noni smiles as she stands in the center of the stage

while the audience applauds. She sees Macy call her from off stage, and she runs gleefully to her

mother’s warm embrace. This is an important scene that seemingly illustrates their affectionate

relationship; however, Macy’s encouraging gesture is quickly disrupted when the emcee

announces that Noni has been named the first runner-up. Her smile turns to anger, she pulls her

daughter from the stage, and storms out of the room. Once outside, Noni begins to cry as Macy

instructs her to throw away what she deems a worthless, second-place trophy. Noni asks “Why,

mummy?” (Allain & Bythewood, 2014) and Macy responds, “Do you want to be a winner, or do

you want to be a runner-up?” (Allain & Bythewood, 2014). This statement underlies Macy’s

motivations throughout the film. Further, this scene, sets the tone for their subsequent

interactions during which Macy is primarily concerned with her daughter’s “winning” career

while Noni hesitantly obeys all of her mother’s instructions.

As Beyond the Lights progresses it becomes even more apparent that Macy is primarily

concerned with Noni achieving success in the music industry at all costs. She consistently tells

Noni how to dress, and instructs her to straighten her hair, in the attempt to make her marketable.

Each instruction that Macy gives is at the expense of Noni’s personal identity. She constructs her

daughter’s public persona to appeal to the audiences’ pleasure of looking, prioritizing the

Eurocentric standards of beautiful hair and the sensual desirability of the exotic other. With
 31

straight-hair weave, Macy hides the “coily” hair that reflects Noni’s biracial identity and she

instructs her to wear clothes that accentuate the size of her buttocks and breasts. In the profit-

driven music industry, the product to be sold is Noni’s commodified Black body. She is the

“Masterpiece” that is constructed, examined, and sold to music execs by her White mother.

The racial underpinnings of Noni and her mother’s relationship are particularly relevant

when juxtaposed with Felicia, whose brief entrance into the film represents the community of

Black women to which Noni also belongs. Introduced as Noni’s “othermother”5 in a moment of

crisis, Felicia is compelled to help Macy “fix” her daughter’s hair after she realizes that Noni

does not have Black women in her life to do so. Felicia represents the Black mother or mother

figure, who is often the one who possesses the extensive knowledge of Black hair—how to wash

it, comb it, braid it, etc.—and who transfers that knowledge to subsequent generations.

Importantly, as young Noni sits in the salon chair, she becomes connected to a Black community

of which she had not previously physically been a part. Traditionally a site of communal

intimacy and connection for Black women, the salon is a new experience for her and becomes

the means through which she and Felicia connect. In this scene, Prince-Bythewood establishes

Noni’s hair as central to her identity.

Hair and Transformation

Historically, blackness has been externally defined through skin color, hair texture, and

other physical features (Camp, 2015; Collins, 2009; hooks, 1992; Lester, 2000). Black

communities have often continued the tradition, identifying blackness based on the texture and

manipulation of hair. Be it natural, chemically modified, or weaved, the ways in which Black

women choose to style their hair is significant as it is often an external expression of

individuality or a symbol of their position in the struggle against colonialist ideals. Therefore, in
 32

the construction of Noni’s identity, Prince-Bythewood uses hair to symbolize her journey

through self-definition and transformation.

For the majority of the film, Noni is thousands of miles away from home, engrossed in an

industry and career that centers primarily on the fetishization of the Black female body. When

Beyond the Lights shifts from 1998 South London to present-day Los Angeles, there is a stark

contrast between the shy ten-year-old Noni Jean and the sexualized stage character that she plays

for the sake of stardom. As a young girl her hair is pulled back away from her face, as she

nervously performs a song that seems to be an expression of herself. On the contrary, adult Noni

only sings what she is directed to sing and hides her true self behind her constructed persona.

Hence, when Noni contemplates suicide, her weaved hair acts as a veil, shielding her real

identity from the world. As she sits on the balcony railing contemplating letting go, close-ups of

her focus on her the long, purple-tinted hair that covers half of her face. Although similar

“veiled” shots have often been used in the erotic fetishization of women (Doane, 1991), Prince-

Bythewood uses her covered face to interrupt the erotic gaze of which Noni had previously been

the object. Instead of the “Masterpiece,” we see sadness as tears roll down her face and she says,

“You still can’t see me” (Allain & Bythewood, 2014). Noni’s hair, then, functions as a symbol of

her hidden self with whom she wrestles throughout the film.

When Noni finally overcomes her internal struggle, her hair becomes an important part of

the transformation as she literally rids herself of that aspect of her constructed persona. While

she and Kaz are in Mexico, hidden from the pressures of their careers and their complex worlds,

she looks into the mirror and picks up a blade-like object. Noni begins to cut and pull the strings

that bind her hair. With each piece of purple weave that she cuts off, Noni moves away from her

hypersexual character; and we are re-introduced to the vulnerable, innocent, young girl from the
 33

beginning of the film. When she emerges from the bathroom with her naturally short, coily hair

she looks nervously down at the floor waiting for Kaz to react. He pulls her close to him and

kisses her hair in affirmation. Because she has rid herself of the weave that previously veiled her

face, Kaz can now fully “see” her. The constructed “Masterpiece” is gone and replaced with the

“real” Noni.

In addition to her hair, Noni’s clothing also begins to reflect the change that she is

undergoing. The attire that she wears for the Billboard Awards show at the beginning of the film

is starkly different from her dress at the close of the film. Assembled by her wardrobe specialists,

Noni wears a shimmering golden strapless bra top with a leather skirt adorned by a shackle-like,

golden collar around her neck that links to similar cuffs wrapped around her arms and waist. The

clothes, which literally and metaphorically connote oppression and bondage, starkly contrast

with Noni’s attire at the end of the film as she closes a concert in London. She adorns her braided

and naturally coily hair and wears a simple black, long-sleeved romper and cowboy boots. The

change in Noni’s apparel at the beginning and ending of the film signify the reconstruction of her

character and the realization of her identity.

Importantly, Noni’s performance of “Blackbird” changes from an expression about the

inevitable entrapment of the bird to an articulation of its regeneration. Her rendition of

“Blackbird” in the final scene reflects her journey from near death to self-expression and life. As

she describes in an interview before the concert, the “fantasy girl” (Allain & Bythewood, 2014)

symbolically died falling over the balcony while “the real Noni Jean got pulled back up” (Allain

& Bythewood, 2014). Accordingly, at the final concert, gone are her pop culture persona and the

manufactured, bubble gum songs that led to her ascendance in the industry. Although she begins

nervously singing in the center of the stage, the crowd roars and she begins to move around.
 34

Here, Prince-Bythewood uses Noni’s final song to reimagine the insurmountable oppression that

characterizes Simone’s lyrics and Noni’s previous hypersexualized performance. Noni sings, “As

I dive in without my wings, at the speed of light I’m flying to my end. As I fall without my

wings, I’m in the last song the blackbird will sing. I’m free at last, free from you. Free from the

past. Freedom at last. What is life other than a cage to me?” (Allain & Bythewood, 2014). Then,

according to the lyrics, the Blackbird is reborn as a phoenix, flying above the ashes of the former

bird. These lyrics metaphorically recount Noni’s escape from the limitations of her

“Masterpiece” persona as she presents her true self to the crowd. In a more literal sense, these

lyrics refer to Noni’s fearless leap off of the stage into the audience. Performing in her home city

with the support of Felicia, Kaz, and thousands of fans, Noni has become fearless much like

Nina Simone had years before her.

Beyond the Lights opened in 1,700 theaters and grossed approximately $14.6 million

(“Beyond the Lights,” 2016). Following its release, reviews for the film were largely mixed. For

example, Andrew Barker of Variety comments, “’Beyond the Lights’ is a strange beast, a music-

industry romance that alternates freely between wisdom and mawkishness,

caustic entertainment-biz critique and naive wish fulfillment, heartfelt flourishes and soap-opera

shenanigans” (para. 1). Likewise, Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair describes the film as “a

familiar story told with little invention . . . a placeholder for a more sophisticated, attentively

drawn movie” (para. 8). In contrast, Entertainment Weekly’s critic, Leah Greenblatt (2014)

comments, “[Beyond the Lights features] smartly nuanced commentary on race and fame and the

relentless negotiations that a young woman . . . has to make in a world that expects her to be

everything but herself” (para. 2).

 35

In her creation of Beyond the Lights, Prince-Bythewood incorporates conventional plot

structures and happy-ending resolutions that reviewers often criticized as ordinary. However,

within these ordinary structures, she explores the vulnerability, strength, similarity, and

heterogeneity of Black womanhood. Through genuine character interactions and her honest

depiction of a Black woman at the center of her story, Beyond the Lights is uplifting and

meaningful as it challenges traditional controlling images of Black women.

 36

CHAPTER 3

AVA DUVERNAY

As a Black female director, Ava DuVernay’s role in developing and centering images of

multi-dimensional Black women is critical. She draws the audience into the cinematic reality of

Black characters, specifically portraying the heterogeneity of Black lives. In an interview with

Aperture magazine, she explained, “The images that we consume and that we take in, can

nourish us, and they can malnourish us. They become a part of our DNA in some way. They

become a part of our mind, our memory” (“Black Lives, Silver Screen,” n.d., para. 9). Indeed,

cinematic memories are collections of sensory information that inform our understanding of the

world. DuVernay recognizes the power of movies and the impact that they have on peoples’

lives, a point that is evident in her discussions of cinema. In particular, she contends, “We see the

world and each other in pictures. That’s why I think film is so emotional. . . . It’s an artificial

rendering of what’s already going on inside. . . . that is why I’ve been so drawn to it” (“Black

Lives, Silver Screen,” n.d., para. 9).

DuVernay’s understanding of the power of cinematic images is impressive, especially

considering that she did not formally study the discipline. In 1995 she graduated from the

University of California Los Angeles with Bachelor’s Degrees in English and African American

Studies, and soon after she began her professional career working as a publicist at 20 th Century

Fox Studios. After working there for a short time, DuVernay decided to open her own marketing

firm. She founded The DuVernay Agency, which specializes in publicizing films specifically

geared toward African American audiences. Since 1999, her agency has developed and executed

marketing campaigns for over 100 television programs and theatrical films for directors such as
 37

Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, and Michael Mann. While working with such high-profile

directors, DuVernay spent time on their sets where she gained tremendous insight into the

filmmaking process and developed a love for the craft. In an interview with Madame Noire, she

explains, “I didn’t know I wanted to be a filmmaker until I was on set watching other

filmmakers. . . . I’d be watching people direct and . . . really started to get into it just by

observation” (MN Editor, 2012).

Equipped with newfound knowledge of the production process and inspired by her love

of hip hop music, DuVernay began her filmmaking career in 2008 when she directed This is the

Life, a hip hop documentary about the Good Life Café in South Central Los Angeles. This

critically-acclaimed film was a precursor to her next project, My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth

About Women and Hip Hop (2010), which she directed for Black Entertainment Television

(BET). The documentary focuses on legendary female emcees including Nikki D, MC Lyte, and

Missy Elliott, honoring their unique styles and providing insight into their experiences in the hip

hop industry. DuVernay continued to focus on Black women’s interpersonal and intrapersonal

experiences in her ensuing project, I Will Follow (2010), her first feature-length narrative film

which she wrote and directed.6 Using her personal story as inspiration, DuVernay chronicles a

Black woman’s emotional journey as she attempts to deal with grief after her close aunt dies of

cancer.

DuVernay’s “breakout project” (Siegel, 2015, para. 1), Middle of Nowhere (2012),

continued along the same trajectory, centering Black female characters and deeply exploring

their experiences. The film was shot in 19 days on a budget of $200,000. It stars Emayatzy

Corinealdi, Omari Hardwick, Lorraine Toussaint, and David Oyelowo. In the production of the
 38

film, DuVernay also worked with film editor Spencer Averick and cinematographer Bradford

Young to bring the story to life.

Middle of Nowhere follows the story of Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi), a medical student

whose life is dramatically altered after her husband, Derek (Omari Hardwick), is sentenced to

eight years in prison. While waiting for his release, Ruby works nightshifts as a nurse and

attempts to keep their life and home together; however, when she meets Brian (David Oyelowo),

a charming bus driver, she begins to question her loyalty to her husband. Throughout the film,

Ruby works to discover who she is and to find the true meaning of happiness. Middle of

Nowhere premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was well received. In particular,

DuVernay became the first African American woman to win the festival’s prestigious Best

Director Award.

DuVernay’s early success as an independent director launched her directing career and

led to opportunities to direct additional independent films and mainstream projects as well. In her

ensuing works, she maintains her commitment to advancing a diversity of images of Black

womanhood that cut against the stereotypical caricatures that have historically characterized

African American women in film. In doing so, DuVernay incorporates her artistic vision as a

filmmaker and her experiential knowledge as a Black woman to center other Black women. This

is apparent in The Door (2013) and Selma (2014), which are the focus of my analyses in the

remainder of this chapter.

The Door: She, L-V-O-E

As a result of the success that DuVernay achieved on films such as My Mic Sounds Nice

and Middle of Nowhere, Miu Miu, an Italian women’s clothing brand owned by Prada, invited

her to write and direct a short film for its Women’s Tales series. Launched in 2011, the online
 39

collection is a series of ten short films centered on the representation of fashion and femininity.

Women’s Tales features shorts directed by women from various parts of the world including

Japanese director Naomi Kawase, French director Agnes Varda, and Italian director Alice

Rohrwacher. These filmmakers were given free range to tell their own unique stories,

incorporating elements of their cultures such as language in addition to their respective aesthetic

styles. Thus, the films collectively recount a multiplicity of narratives by and about women from

around the world.

DuVernay’s addition to Women’s Tales, The Door, is currently the only film in in the

series focusing on Black women. Although the film was conceived as a sophisticated commercial

to advertise Miu Miu’s line of women’s clothing, DuVernay uses The Door to showcase Black

women in an emotional story of community and healing. Significantly, the film features an all-

Black female cast comprised of actors with different complexions, styles, and personalities.

Adepero Oduye (“L”), Emayatzy Corinealdi (“V”), Goapele (“O”), and Alfre Woodard (“E”)

star as the community of women who help the main character—Gabrielle Union (“She”)—in the

aftermath of her divorce. Entering through the literal door to She’s home and the symbolic door

to her emotional space, each friend brings “something of themselves” to comfort “a friend in

need” (as cited in Prada, 2016, para. 2). Through the narrative, composition, and music used in

the film, DuVernay explores the multi-dimensionality of the main character’s persona and

connects the lives of these very different Black women through their relationships with She.

The Door (2013) opens with a wide shot of She, which establishes the main character’s

emotional state. On the balcony of her home overlooking the Hollywood Hills, She stands alone

looking toward the horizon. Positioned at the edge of the balcony in the center of the shot, She is

framed through a glass window as the camera slowly tracks forward. Emphasized by the box-
 40

shaped enclosure in conjunction with her position at the balcony’s edge, the shot begins to

illustrate her physical and emotional entrapment in the house. She cannot move forward past the

balcony, and she cannot move very far backward as the wall functions as a physical boundary

that hinders her movement. Further, the barred door to the right of the image resembles a jail

cell, emphasizing She’s physical and emotional imprisonment in the house. Further emphasizing

the depths of her emotional entrapment, She never attempts to move away from the balcony’s

edge, demonstrating that she lacks the desire to break free.

In addition to setting the mood of the film, the opening shot establishes the underlying

foundation of the film’s narrative—the centrality of Black women. In particular, DuVernay uses

the shot to invite the spectator into the narrative with She. Although She is positioned in the

center of the image, the opening shot is initially constructed through the objective gaze of the

spectator, resonating with the to-be-looked-at-ness that Laura Mulvey (1975/2004) describes in

her seminal essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” The spectator’s omniscient gaze is

constructed from a distance and through a window, allowing the spectator to freely watch the

mysterious figure as she faces away from the camera. However, toward the end of the shot as the

camera tracks forward, She turns her head slowly toward the camera as if aware of the closer

movement of the on-looking spectator. Her look toward the audience interrupts the spectators’

gaze, and they become the first people to metaphorically walk through the door.

Of the community of friends who comfort She, L is the first to arrive at the door to She’s

home. Through the glass and wooden frame, we see her blurred figure as she waits for the door

to open. As the door opens, L moves closer into focus gazing directly into the camera. The film

cuts between close-ups of She and L as they look at each other, communicating without speaking

or gesturing. L represents empathy in the community of Black women. This is demonstrated as L

 41

seems to carry She’s emotional weight to the extent that she even often reflects her friend’s

sorrowful expression. As she prepares to take She out to eat, L chooses a white pencil skirt and

light brown blouse for her friend to wear. While the clothes do not significantly alter She’s

emotional state, L’s efforts represent the first step toward healing as she is the first piece of L-O-

V-E in the narrative. At the end of the scene, the lyrics of the song titled, “Turn Your Lights On”

by Emanative and Ahu appropriately summarize the sequence and She’s subsequent interactions

repeating, “If you ever feel lonely, turn the lights on” (Emanative & Ahu, 2010).

V is the next friend to arrive at the door. She wears a pink fur jacket with black floral

prints, a pink skirt, and a black cropped shirt; and she chooses a pink dress accentuated with

black designs for She to wear. V takes her out to the club where they dance rhythmically in sync

to a song featuring an upbeat drum. V encourages her to move freely, and She begins to smile,

briefly allowing herself to let go and enjoy the moment before returning home to her place of

sadness.

In the next sequence, O arrives at the door with tickets to a concert in which she will be

performing. Wearing a long, black dress with a red graffiti-like pattern in the front, she selects a

long, black dress with a similar graffiti pattern for She to wear. O takes She to her concert where

she performs Goapele’s “For Love.” Through the lyrics of the song, O expresses her deep

passion for music as she sings, “music is the love of my life” (Goapele, 2012), words that signify

the music’s intimate connection to her soul. Significantly, O shares this personal experience with

She as she focuses on the lyrics that seem to speak to and uplift her. In addition to functioning as

a means of communication, these lyrics emphasize the primacy of love and underscore its

significance among this community of Black women as well as others like it.
 42

After spending time with L, V, and O, She gains enough courage to leave her house

although she has not yet completely overcome her sadness. She visits E, the mother figure of the

story and the embodiment of wisdom (“Behind the Scenes,” 2016), at her home. As She and E

talk, a song titled, “Because” by Ra-Re Valverde plays, functioning as the dialogue in the scene.

The song repeats: “You say ‘why’. I say ‘because’. ‘Because’ is not an answer but it’s all I’ve

ever known” (Valverde, 2010). Significantly, these lyrics resonate with the familiar phrase

“because I said so” often heard in parent-child relationships, a point that further emphasizes She

and E’s mother-daughter bond. Also, as the lyrics repeat “because,” the music alludes to the

narrative’s final resolution of acceptance rather than explanation. The answer that She may seek

from E is not as important as their interaction and She’s empowerment to move past her

emotionally challenging situation. Further, despite never knowing the cause of her divorce or the

circumstances surrounding it, we witness She’s emotional transformation through each

interaction in the community. Thus, the answer, “because” is sufficient as E is the final friend

with whom She interacts and the crowning piece of the L-O-V-E that is necessary to lift her out

of heartache.

After experiencing L-O-V-E, She returns home where she removes her ring, puts on long,

leather gloves, and finally walks through the door of her house on her own. As She stands in the

final scene gathering her things, her figure vertically fills the right third of the screen before she

walks out of the shot. The position of her body, which measures taller than the camera’s low-

angle, emphasizes She’s newly acquired strength and prominence. Importantly, because She is

now able to move inside and out of the camera frame, the character is free.

As DuVernay highlights each friend that arrives at the door, she illustrates a community

of Black women working together to encourage a fallen sister. Significantly, using “L,” “V,”
 43

“O,” and “E” for the characters’ names, the director describes the foundation of their individual

relationships and the core of this community. The individual members of L-O-V-E, comprise a

network of Black women who, in trying to help one member, demonstrate the necessity of

connection and a capacity for Black women to inspire themselves. Patricia Hill Collins (2009)

describes the collectivity of Black womanhood as each having unique lives, personalities, and

personas but sharing similar experiences. Accordingly, DuVernay highlights the existence of

individuality, communality, and beauty through this short film. In discussing the project, she

summarized, “It’s a story about sisterhood. It’s a story about helping one another. . . . I think as

women we do that but it’s not often celebrated in the narratives that we see” (“Behind the

Scenes,” 2016).

Reviews of The Door were largely positive, with many commenting on the film’s

composition, videography, and the centrality of the all Black female cast. In a review for The

Daily Beast, Allison Samuels asserts, “DuVernay pulls together a stunning cast of brown female

faces that each manages to haunt the screen without ever uttering a word” (2013, para. 5).

Likewise, cultural activist, E. Nina Rothe, of Huffpost Entertainment writes, “DuVernay creates

a portrait of love, loss and LA that sent shivers down my spine” (2014, para. 3). The film’s lack

of dialogue and emphasis on visual structure and music are also continuously noted in the

reviews. Amy Moore of 28 Times Cinema, describes The Door as “a unique way of displaying

the interior lives of women from a feminist point of view and with no sign of masculinity. [The

film] shows both strength and vulnerability in a capturing love story” (2013, para. 2).

Speaking about her decision to tell this love story, DuVernay remarked, “love is at the

core of all our passion, at the core of all stories for me” (as cited in Rothe, 2014, para. 5). She

articulates this sentiment in The Door, which presents rarely seen multidimensional images of
 44

Black womanhood. In depicting such a strong and caring community, DuVernay demonstrates

that at the end of the day it’s all L-O-V-E.

Centering Black Women in Selma

In her next feature-length project, Selma, DuVernay reunited with cinematographer

Bradford Young to bring the story of the voting rights movement to the cinema screen. However,

DuVernay was not the first director attached to the project. Notable directors Stephen Frears,

Paul Haggis, Spike Lee, and Lee Daniels each dropped off the film before she was finally invited

to direct Selma at the request of the film’s star, David Oyelowo7 (Film Independent, 2015).

DuVernay explained, “[Oyelowo] brought on, lobbied for, cajoled, pushed, pulled, convinced,

pitched the producers to the idea of hiring, you know, a woman [DuVernay] who had made an

independent for $200,000” (Gross, 2015). Given a relatively small (for a mainstream Hollywood

film) budget of $20 million, DuVernay used her exceptional directing ability to make this

historic film.

In addition to directing Selma, DuVernay also used her screenwriting experience to help

develop the film’s final script. Although she is not credited as a screenwriter for the film,

DuVernay spent a significant amount of time revising Paul Webb’s original script (Kugler,

2015). First, because she did not have license to use Dr. King’s original speeches,8 DuVernay

had to rewrite the words and recreate the spirit of his speeches (Kugler, 2015). Also, DuVernay

introduced specific names into the story to reflect the multiple individuals who were instrumental

in the success of the movement.

Selma chronicles the journey of the organizers in the voting rights drive, including Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo), Diane Nash (Tessa Thompson), Ralph Abernathy

(Colman Domingo), James Orange (Omar J. Dorsey), and Andrew Young (André Holland) as
 45

they protest and assist the Selma community in petitioning the state for the right to vote. In

recounting the planning and execution of the march, the film highlights the everyday people who

stood firmly against injustice. Selma concludes with the historic march across the Edmund Pettus

Bridge to the capitol steps in Montgomery, Alabama, which was a seminal moment in the

struggle for Black equality.

Although Selma is generally perceived as the story of Dr. King (D’Addario, 2015;

Patterson, 2015), DuVernay uses the film to challenge the male-centered historical narrative that

commonly characterizes the Civil Rights Movement. This dominant tale often centers Black men

such as Dr. King and Malcolm X as leaders with opposing viewpoints who galvanized the

African American struggle for equality. Indeed, Dr. King and Malcolm X sacrificed their lives in

the pursuit of Black equality and are rightly remembered as two of the most significant players in

the movement. However, their legacies often overshadow Black female activists whose work laid

the foundation of the movement (McGuire, 2011). In Selma, DuVernay gives particular attention

to the influence of the strong, intelligent, patient, and powerful Black women who were essential

figures in the voting rights movement. More specifically, she centers Coretta Scott King, Diane

Nash, Amelia Boynton, and Annie Lee Cooper in her reconstruction of the events that led up to

and subsequently occurred in Selma, Alabama.

Before delving into DuVernay’s powerful depictions of the aforementioned Black

women, it is important to note the critical reception, which in the aftermath of its release, both

praised and criticized Selma. In the reviews, critics commended the film’s construction of

historical events, but objected to the depiction of certain characters and the timeline presented in

the film. At a screening and Q&A for the film held in January 2015, former New York Times

reporter Gay Talese, applauded the film:

 46

I'm a reporter — back then I was a New York Times reporter — and we care a lot about

factual accuracy. . . . It has to be right . . . and my feeling was, at the time, 'Hollywood is

not going to do well by this story,' in terms of the verifiable truth. . . . I came to the end of

that fabulous film and I thought, 'God, she got it! How did she do it?'. . . I was on the

Pettus Bridge and I watched the mayhem, the madness of Sheriff Clark. . . . When I was

seeing the film, I was seeing what I remembered, truly remembered. (as cited in Feinberg,

2015, para. 10)

In contrast, Selma was criticized for its portrayal of historical figures including President

Lyndon B. Johnson (Califano, 2014) and, most relevant to this analysis, Coretta Scott King.

Some reviewers have asserted that Scott King’s depiction in the film does not fully represent her

as the “strong-willed woman” that she was (Reynolds, 2015, para. 3; Burk, 2015). Barbara

Reynolds of The Washington Post, writes:

The movie presents a Coretta who exists under a fog of fear as she endures the terror of

Selma. It portrays a Coretta who blames her husband for

leaving the family during his trips to lead the movement. It shows a Coretta

who timidly acquiesces to the charges that her husband dishonored their marriage

vows and tearfully asks if he loves his mistresses. That Coretta is pure Hollywood fiction.

(2015, para. 1).

Although Selma does not delve deeply into Scott King’s long history of activism,

DuVernay depicts her as a key figure within this specific period of time in the Civil Rights

Movement. In response to these criticisms, she explained, “I’m trying to imbue [Selma] and

invite people into the spirit of the movement. . . . That was my intention. That’s what I believe

we have done” (Ifill, 2015).

 47

Analysis: A Collaboration of Heroes

As the First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement, Coretta Scott King is one of the most

influential leaders in Civil Rights history. Born on April 27, 1927 in Heiberger, Alabama, Scott

King was raised in the segregated South. While growing up, she encountered numerous instances

of racial injustice including the “separate but equal” elementary school doctrine, which forced

her and her siblings to walk three miles to school while the White children rode the bus

(Crawford, 2007). She encountered other issues of social injustice as a college student and

subsequently joined the Antioch College chapter of the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving on committees for race relations and civil

liberties (Crawford, 2007, p. 109).

In 1952, while studying music at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Coretta Scott

King met her future husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The following year they married, and

Scott King postponed her aspirations of becoming a singer to focus on taking care of her family

and fighting against racial inequality. Importantly, she recalled, her educational experiences and

previous activist work “seem[ed] to have been preparing [her] for [her] life with Martin”

(Crawford, 2007, p. 108). During the movement, she hosted meetings in their home, delivered

speeches when Dr. King was unavailable, and supported him through the duration of their

marriage (Crawford, 2007; Young, 2006). Even after his death, Scott King continued to uphold

their dream as she worked to create the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social

Change, lobbied to establish Dr. King’s birthday as a federal holiday, led the efforts for a march

in commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington, and continued to speak about national and

international civil rights issues (Crawford, 2007; Young, 2006). As a mother, daughter, wife, and
 48

activist she is remembered for her unwavering poise and beauty in the midst of constant threats

to her life and family (Crawford, 2007; Young, 2006; Christian, 2006).

Representing her strength and poise, DuVernay depicts Scott King as one of the most

important women in Selma. At the opening of the film, DuVernay acknowledges Scott King’s

influence as she visually positions her (Carmen Ejogo) as a central figure alongside Dr. King.

Selma opens with a black screen while a re-creation of Dr. King’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize

acceptance speech is audible. The voiceover narration begins: “I accept this honor for our lost

ones, whose deaths pave our path and for the twenty million Negro men and women motivated

by dignity” (Colson, Winfrey, Gardner, & Kliener, 2014).

Selma’s opening continues with a close-up of Dr. King looking directly into the camera

as he appears to address the film audience. Then, in the same shot, the camera tracks backward

as he looks down and says “This isn’t right” (Colson et al., 2014). Significantly, DuVernay

begins with the representation of this dominant, familiar presence then interrupts the image by

cutting to a medium close up of him standing in front of a mirror attempting to fix his tie. As he

prepares for his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, DuVernay humanizes Dr. King, depicting him

struggling to complete a task that we assume would be relatively easy for such a prominent

historical figure.

While the opening of the film initially foregrounds Dr. King, succeeding shots in the

sequence introduce Coretta Scott King as a prominent character alongside him. Selma returns

two additional times to close-ups echoing the film’s opening shot. In the second close-up, Dr.

King once again dominates the center of the frame; however, he appears apprehensive as he

struggles with his tie. Scott King appears in the frame behind Dr. King although her image is

smaller than his. She is out of focus and blends into the dark background. Similar to dominant
 49

narratives that often exclude Scott King’s significance in the Civil Rights Movement, in this

second close-up, she literally stands in the shadows positioned behind Dr. King. In the final shot,

DuVernay re-presents Scott King by having her emerge from the dark background into the

spotlight. Dr. King shifts to the left side of the frame. Simultaneously, Scott King steps forward

into focus and is positioned on the right side of the frame slightly behind his left shoulder as he

continues to look in the mirror. As she moves forward, her gaze shifts from Dr. King to the

mirror. Significantly, this close-up parallels the opening of the sequence. While in the first shot

the close-up of Dr. King comprises the majority of the frame, DuVernay literally makes room

within the frame of the final shot for Scott King to stand alongside him as they jointly gaze

toward the film audience. Ultimately, in the progression of these three shots, we see Scott King

literally transition from the background to the foreground of the scene, which establishes her as a

major character in the film, and Civil Rights discourse, more broadly.

In addition to visually positioning Scott King as one of Selma’s central figures,

DuVernay also captures her mental and emotional strength by referencing the personal struggles

that Scott King endured while living in the midst of the movement. She specifically articulates

Scott King’s strength and vulnerability in the dialogue between her and Dr. King after they listen

to an ominous tape recording sent to them by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The

recording plays: “King, you know you’re a complete fraud and a liability to all Negroes. Like all

frauds your end is approaching. You are done” (Colson, et al., 2014). As the recording ends,

“beast” (Colson et al., 2014) sounds that allude to evidence of Dr. King’s extramarital affairs are

audible as he and Scott King uncomfortably sit and listen. Tension fills the room as the film cuts

between Scott King’s face and Dr. King’s seemingly guilt-ridden expression. She dismisses the

recording as a ploy of the FBI similar to several other threatening phone calls heard earlier in the
 50

film. However, in this scene, Scott King is also agitated, and unlike in their previous interactions,

she voices her frustration:

I’ve gotten used to a lot. All the hours wondering after your safety. Worried about how

you are. This house. Renting here. No foundation. Without the things the children should

have all because of how it would look. But I have gotten used to it for better or worse.

But what I have never gotten used to is the death. The constant closeness of death. It’s

become like a thick fog to me. I can’t see life sometimes because of the fog of death

constantly hanging over. (Colson et al., 2014)

Here, Scott King expresses the frustrations that have built up inside her. The unsettling

imminence of constant physical threat, rumors of her husband’s infidelity, and his constant travel

leaving her home alone to take care of four children underlie her feeling of exasperation in this

scene. In addition, her articulation of the “constant closeness of death” (Colson et al., 2014)

echoes a non-fictional personal account in which Scott King explained, “It was not just Martin

who had to be committed to the cause, but I as well. Although we had learned to live under the

constant threat of death, we were convinced that what we were doing was important enough to

die for” (as cited in Crawford, p. 110). The monologue brings her personal story to the spotlight

and rather than existing solely as a prop in the shadows of Dr. King, Scott King is given center

stage while Dr. King and film audiences must listen to her.

In addition to giving Scott King a prominent voice in Selma, DuVernay also centralizes

the deaths of four little girls, using the tragedy as the catalyst for the voting rights struggle in

Selma. As Dr. King begins to deliver his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the film cuts to

an image of traditional church windows pierced by the sun’s brightness and projecting light onto

an adjacent staircase. Six Black children enter from the left of the frame walking down the stairs
 51

while the voiceover of Dr. King’s speech remains audible. As he speaks about the effectiveness

of nonviolent protest and hope for the future, the image of the children laughing, talking, and

wearing their ‘Sunday best’ reinforces the optimistic message. The girls dressed in their white

gloves and dresses and the boy dressed in a dark-colored suit are the embodiment of childlike

innocence even in the midst of racial struggle. As the voiceover ends, the audio of their footsteps

and their voices becomes louder. The boy leaves as the girls talk about swimming, and Coretta

Scott King’s hairstyle—simple concerns of young, Black girls. As the five girls reach the bottom

of the stairs, one of them stops to reveal to the rest of the girls how Coretta Scott King keeps her

hair so neat. As she stands near the bottom step with the camera tilted upward as if she is on

stage about to make an important announcement, an explosion interrupts her speech and she is

engulfed in a cloud of fire and smoke. The background becomes dark as the screen fills with

shards of wood and clouds of smoke. Fabric from the girls’ dresses fill the screen followed by

images of their small, stocking-covered legs, white dress shoes, and other of remnants of their

Sunday best, which have been transformed from images of hope to symbols of relentless racial

violence.

In a place that was supposed to be a sanctuary, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley,

Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair—the four girls who were killed—and Sarah Collins—

who lost her right eye—became the tragic victims of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist

Church in Birmingham, Alabama. To construct this powerful sequence, DuVernay emphasizes

the girls’ subjectivity and the crudeness of the bombing. As she invites the audience into the

world of Black girlhood—an experience not often explored in mainstream media—she interrupts

their wholesome images with a devastating explosion. She replaces it with sobering imagery of

the girls’ world in pieces. Discussing the scene, DuVernay explains,

 52

[I] was approaching it from my point of view as a woman filmmaker. . . . [Rather than the

physicality of the blast or gusto of the violence], I was much more interested in reverence

for the girls. And so it was important to me that you hear their voices. . . . five little black

girls walking down a staircase in what should be a safe place, in their sanctuary, in their

church. . . . You start to come into their world just as they are taken out of the world.

(Gross, 2015)

Importantly, DuVernay uses the four little girls’ experience as a bridge to introduce the

subsequent events in Selma. In particular, the final shot of the girls’ bodies lying in the wreckage

of the church building is dissolved into the image of a voter registration form. The transition

interconnects these events as significant to each other even though the incidents were, in reality,

geographically and temporally separate.

In constructing these sequences, DuVernay uses a personal account from Diane Nash,

who was a major player in the struggle for civil rights in the South (Gross, 2015). A native of

Chicago, Illinois born May 15, 1938, Nash began the fight against racism after encountering

segregation for the first time when she was a junior at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee

(Wynn, 2007). As a result of the racial discrimination that she endured, in 1959, along with other

university students and religious leaders, Nash helped form the Student Central Committee, the

organization which led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC) in April 1960 (Owen & Wilson, 2013; Wynn, 2007). Although not elected as its

president because, according to activist John Lewis “she was the wrong sex” (as cited in Wynn,

2007, p.82), Nash played an essential role in SNCC as one of its founding members. Specifically,

she was one of the driving forces of the Freedom Rides, organizing the protest rides from
 53

Birmingham, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi despite dangerous threats levied at the

participants by the Ku Klux Klan (Wynn, 2007).

Nash was also vitally instrumental in the creation and execution of the movement in

Selma. In an interview, Nash recounted that at the time of the 16th Street Baptist Church

bombing she and her then-husband, James Bevel, were inspired by the deaths of the four little

girls to press forward with the struggle for Black equality and to create the initial plan that

became known as the “right to vote movement” (“Diane Nash,” 2015, para. 5). With the

thoughtfulness and strategic planning of men and women working towards a unified goal, Nash

asserted that the work in Selma was a “direct result of [the four little girls] getting killed”

(“Diane Nash,” 2015, para. 3). In her civil rights work, she remained tirelessly committed to the

nonviolent philosophies of “compassion, commitment, courage, [faith, and most important, self-

discipline]” (Wynn, 2007, p. 75), rejecting fear of personal violence for the progression of the

movement9 (Kugler, 2014; Wynn, 2007).

Though her appearance in the film is brief, Nash is depicted as an important figure in

Selma. Referencing Nash’s personal account of her work, DuVernay first introduces Nash

traveling alongside Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, and James Orange on the long

road to Selma. As they prepare for the upcoming march, Abernathy jokingly complains about the

128-mile journey to their deaths on which they are embarking. Nash reminds them of the

importance of the movement in Selma explaining, “This right here is the next great battle”

(Colson et al., 2014). Significantly, this line is situated in the context of what could be referred to

as a domestic race war in which Blacks have been exponentially assaulted, harassed and killed

for trying to exercise citizenship rights (McGuire, 2010; Sitkoff, 1981). Although the “battle” to

which Nash refers does not reference an official declaration of war by a governmental
 54

organization, it is a commentary about the mental and physical resilience that it takes to engage

in activist work. In this battle, the systemic structures of racism must be fought against through

strategic and, for SCLC and SNCC, nonviolent means. “The next great battle” also references

Nash’s real-life courage to participate in protests and demonstrations even through persistent

threats of violence. Further, in this scene, DuVernay foreshadows the later events of “Bloody

Sunday,” and highlights Nash’s presence alongside prominent male figures of Civil Rights

history.

In addition to Diane Nash, DuVernay introduces Amelia Boynton as one of the two most

prominent Black female organizers of the movement in Selma. Born August 18, 1911 in

Savannah, Georgia, Boynton began activist work as a young girl alongside her mother, Ann

Hicks Platts (Truong, 2015). Before and after the passage of the 19 th amendment, she and her

mother traveled through Savannah distributing pamphlets advocating for women’s right to vote

(Truong, 2015). Speaking about her experiences Boynton explained, “I remember I would sit in

the horse and buggy and she would go to places and she’d get me to knock on doors and ring

door bells, get the women out, take them down to the registration office, and let them register”

(National Visionary Leadership Project, 2013). Boynton continued to advocate for voting rights

after moving to Selma. She also left her job as a high school teacher to work as a home

demonstrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, teaching young girls homemaking and

social skills (Anekwe, 1965). In collaboration with her late husband, Samuel W. Boynton,

(whom she met in Selma), Boynton founded the Dallas County Voters League. As the name

suggests, the organization was dedicated to getting Black citizens in Dallas County registered to

vote (Anekwe, 1965). For approximately 32 years, Boynton worked tirelessly in Selma’s voting
 55

drive. Her efforts ultimately helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and

earned her recognition as the matriarch of the voting rights movement.

In Selma, DuVernay initially introduces Boynton (Lorraine Toussaint) as one of the

original activists in the movement waiting to meet Nash, Abernathy, Orange, Young, and Dr.

King as they arrive in Selma. Although briefly depicted, as she stands in the hotel next to

Frederick Reese (E. Roger Mitchell), another leader in the voting drive, DuVernay foreshadows

her significance in the film. Also, DuVernay depicts Boynton and Nash as the only two women

standing in protest in front of the Dallas County courthouse with the other male leaders. As they

stand alongside Dr. King in opposition to Sheriff Jim Clark (Stan Houston), they are in a position

of leadership as the other protesters kneel in front of them.

One of the most notable moments in which Boynton is presented in Selma is in a scene

between her and Coretta Scott King, which takes place before the latter is to meet with Malcolm

X (Nigel Thatch). As Boynton and Scott King walk arm-in-arm at the side of a church, Scott

King expresses her uncertainty and the anxiety that she is experiencing over the ensuing meeting.

In response, Boynton offers powerful words of encouragement:

I’ll tell you what I know to be true. It helps me in times when I am feeling unsure—I

know that we are descendants of a mighty people who gave civilization to the world.

People who survived the hulls of slave ships across vast oceans. People who innovate and

create and love despite pressures and tortures unimaginable. They are in our bloodstream,

pumping our hearts every second. They’ve prepared you. You are already prepared.

(Colson et al., 2014)

Through this monologue, Boynton articulates the intelligence, strength, suffering, and resilience

of Black people throughout history and becomes the figure through which DuVernay highlights
 56

African Americans’ long tradition of triumph over struggle. Also, as Boynton delivers the speech

she places herself and Scott King among the historic “people” (Colson et al., 2014) whose blood

pumps through their hearts. Significantly, the use of “people” (Colson et al., 2014) encompasses

a heritage of active men and women who innovated, persevered, and passed down their

collective knowledge through generations of individuals connected by common oppressions.

In addition to centering Coretta Scott King, Diane Nash, and Amelia Boynton as key

leaders in the movement, DuVernay also introduces Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) as an

important figure whose experiences exemplify the struggle for voter registration in Selma.

Cooper is first introduced inside the courthouse in Selma as she attempts to register to vote. We

see a close-up of her voter registration form on which she writes her name. Then, we see a close-

up of Cooper’s face as she focuses to neatly fill out the form. The film then cuts to a long shot of

her as she sits waiting on a wooden bench at the bottom of the staircase. Significantly, in this

shot, the camera is positioned at the top of the stairs while Cooper, small in size, is positioned in

the top right corner of the screen. The position of the camera begins to emphasize Cooper’s

powerlessness before she even submits her form in the attempt to register to vote. When she is

called, Cooper approaches the registration window and hands her paperwork to the clerk.

Abiding by the South’s Jim Crow voting regulations, the clerk quizzes Cooper on her knowledge

of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution and Alabama county judges. After she fails to name the

county judges, the attendant promptly denies Cooper’s registration application. DuVernay uses

Cooper as an example of the common struggle of voter registration for Black citizens. In an

interview discussing the woman and the character, she explains, “Annie Lee Cooper was a

woman who attempted to register five times. And she represents . . . hundreds of people at the
 57

time that were attempting to vote, that were brave enough to withstand threats to their lives and

to their livelihoods by walking into those places” (Norris, 2014).

After living in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio where she was successfully able to

vote, Cooper began “losing patience” (May, 2013, p. 64) with the unreasonable voting

restrictions in Selma. On January 25, 1965, her patience with the unlawful restrictions and police

harassment wore exceptionally thin as Cooper stood in line, once again, and attempted to register

alongside 200 other protestors in front of the Dallas County courthouse (Lynch, 1965). In

recollection of that day Cooper said, “I was just standing there when his deputies told a man with

us to move, and when he didn’t, they tried to kick him. . . . That’s when (Clark) and I got into it”

(“Woman,” 2010). After she confronted Clark, the conflict escalated when he slapped her and

poked her with his club. Cooper responded by striking him in the head multiple times. In doing

so, she reddened Sherriff Clark’s left eye and knocked him to the ground (“The Black Woman”,

1999; “Lady Slugs Sheriff,” 1965; May, 2013). Subsequently, she was wrestled to the ground

and struck with a nightstick, a blow that created “a resounding whack that could be heard

throughout the crowd” (“34 Arrested,” p. 2A). Although her retaliation against Clark was in

opposition to the nonviolent philosophy of the movement, Cooper’s actions encouraged many of

Selma’s citizens who were tired of racial tyranny (“Praise Sheriff-Slugging,” 1965). Months

later, the incident was remembered as one that exemplified a part of the “Selma spirit” (“In

Selma Today,” 1965) of triumph over fear that propelled the movement forward.

DuVernay recreates Cooper’s seminal altercation with Clark, capturing the spirit of

frustration and conquering fear that fueled unwavering protesters during the movement. She also

calls attention to the courage that was necessary to fight against injustice in Selma. The scene

begins with a group of protestors walking toward the courthouse where Sheriff Clark and his
 58

deputies stand in wait. Led by Dr. King, they approach the front of the building and kneel facing

the officers. As Sheriff Clark forces his way through the crowd, he begins to harass an elderly

man, Cager Lee (Henry G. Sanders), and his grandson, Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield),

ordering them to kneel faster. Cooper intervenes, striking the back of the sheriff’s head, which

knocks him to the ground. She is immediately apprehended by Clark’s deputies, who slam her to

the ground. DuVernay briefly lingers on this moment, initially showing a medium close-up of

Cooper as she struggles with the deputies. The film then cuts between close up shots of other

protestors standing by. Cutting quickly between differing angles of the same moment and the

bystander’s facial reactions, she demonstrates the chaos and intensity of the arrest and Cooper’s

struggle against it.

Toward the end of the scene, we see a final close up of Cooper’s arrest, which shows her

face as she screams and grapples with the two deputies. The construction of this final close-up of

Cooper is significant as DuVernay draws inspiration from independent filmmaker Haile Gerima.

In particular, one of the inspirations that cinematographer Bradford Young cites is Gerima’s

inventive use of the camera: “When he [Gerima] wants to convey the psychological decay of the

main character, he hangs the camera from a tree and spins it. . . . in order to put us in the shoes of

the person who’s hanging from the tree” (“Black Lives, Silver Screen,” n.d., para. 7). Similarly,

in this scene, DuVernay and Young use the camerawork and editing to invite the spectator to

identify with Cooper’s struggle as she is thrown to the ground. The close-up of Cooper fills the

screen while her eyes are closed tightly, and her mouth is open wide as she screams out. While

the background is blurred and the audio is muffled, the focus remains centered on the agony in

her face. Further, using slow motion in showing her descent dramatizes the feeling of falling

backward as she anticipates the impending impact of the concrete. Before she hits the ground,
 59

the shot returns to normal motion, and there is a resounding thud as she lands on the ground.

Here, DuVernay forces the spectator to remain in the moment for the duration of the fall and to

finally “feel” the impact as Cooper does. Thus, DuVernay uses this revisionist construction of

the event to highlight the spirit of this Black woman who stood against fear.

Through her portrayals of Coretta Scott King, Diane Nash, Amelia Boynton, Annie Lee

Cooper, and the four little girls—Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and

Denise McNair—DuVernay positions Black women and girls at the forefront of the history of

the movement in Selma. Recalling her initial thoughts when she was called to direct Selma,

DuVernay notes:

This is my father. My father is from that place. My father is from Lowndes County

Alabama… I looked at him. I looked at John Lewis. I looked into the face of Amelia

Boynton. I looked into the faces of these survivors of murder attempts on that bridge in

1965. On a bridge that's still to this day named after the grand dragon of the Klu Klux

Klan in the area; and I had no thought about any of that other crap that usually had

motivated me to make films . . . I went into that film with one thought, singular and

clear—serve this story. (SXSW, 2015)

Selma’s performance at the box-office demonstrates that DuVernay indeed served the

story. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, Selma was widely released in approximately 2,100

North American theaters and grossed $52 million domestically (“Selma,” 2016). The film also

made decent gains internationally, grossing an additional $14 million (“Selma,” 2016).

Therefore, domestically and abroad, DuVernay delivered a film to audiences that challenged the

Dr. King-centered, overarching narrative that has often relegated Black women to the shadows.

In doing so, she provided viewers with a range of Black women characters whose presence on
 60

the cinematic landscape oppose the stereotypes that are all too often used to define their

identities.
 61

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

In this examination of Gina Prince-Bythewood and Ava DuVernay’s films, I contend that

the re-presentation of Black female images, particularly through the directorial visions of Black

women, is paramount. In their films, the multidimensionality of Black female characters and the

exploration of their stories reflect the directors’ unique, artistic visions and personal experiences.

As a result, the stories attempt to draw audiences into the world of the characters through non-

traditional depictions of Black women. These re-presentations are at the center of the analyses in

this thesis.

Using Barthes’s description of interpretation, which lies within the abstract space

between the readerly and writerly texts, I examine the pieces of textual information (editing, shot

composition, sound, etc.) through my positionality as a Black woman and film scholar. I

recognize both the artistic presence of the directors in constructing the films (similar to the

readerly) and my active presence as the spectator whose knowledge is constantly evolving

(similar to the writerly). These elements are essential to my analysis of Prince-Bythewood and

DuVernay’s films.

In Chapter Two, I analyzed Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball (2000) and Beyond

the Lights (2014), focusing on the film’s re-presentations of Black womanhood. My analysis

demonstrates that Prince-Bythewood centers Black women through the exploration of girlhood,

motherhood, self-identification, and athleticism. Examining these themes, which are rarely

explored in media from Black women’s perspectives, Prince-Bythewood provides unique multi-

dimensional images of Black women.

 62

Similarly, in Chapter Three, I analyzed DuVernay’s re-presentations of Black women in

The Door (2013) and Selma (2014). My analysis focuses on her use of the cinema to portray

heterogeneous communities of Black women within the narratives. In particular, she explores

themes of love, community, and empowerment to show meaningful images of Black womanhood

that are rarely seen. In doing so, DuVernay cuts against the one-dimensional controlling images

that have historically characterized Black women.

In their upcoming projects, Prince-Bythewood and DuVernay will likely continue to

foreground Black women as they create and share their stories through film and television. Price-

Bythewood is currently the executive producer, writer, and director of a new Fox television

series titled, Shots Fired (2016- ), which will air in the Fall of 2016. The series stars Sanaa

Lathan as one of the two out-of-town prosecutors who investigate the shooting of an unarmed

White teenager by a Black police officer in Tennessee. In the show, which was inspired by the

tragic shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Prince-Bythewood reverses the non-

fictional narrative of the incident and explores the racial implications of the shootings.

Additionally, DuVernay has a number of film and television projects in the works.

Currently, she is the executive producer of Queen Sugar (2016- ), a new drama series based on

Natalie Baszile’s novel of the same name, which airs on Oprah Winfrey’s cable network, OWN.

The show chronicles the relationship between a New Orleans-based journalist and activist and

her sister after they inherit a sugarcane farm from their recently deceased father. In addition to

her work in television, DuVernay will also continue directing theatrical releases. Her next feature

will be Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, a science fiction film based on the classic children’s series

by Madeleine L'Engle. The film follows the adventures of a young girl as she travels through

time and space searching for her missing father.

 63

Future Research

In addition to Gina Prince-Bythewood and Ava DuVernay, other Black female directors

such as Cheryl Dunye, Kasi Lemmons, and Julie Dash have also directed films that deeply

explore the lives and memories of Black women. These filmmakers also contribute to the

assortment of Black female images that challenge the pervasiveness of traditional stereotypes. In

addition, their works have yet to receive consistent academic attention, a point that is evidenced

by the fact that as of the writing of this thesis, there are few scholarly books solely devoted to

examining Black women directors. Therefore, in the future I will examine more Black female

filmmakers and their works to demonstrate the ways in which they have seized the means of

production to provide a more complete range of Black women characters on the silver screen.
 64

ENDNOTES
1
In this thesis, I use the terms ‘re-presentation’ and ‘re-present’ to reference the directors’

various constructions of Black female images that significantly differ from the traditional, one-

dimensional depictions of Black womanhood.

2
Historically, lynching photos have also been used to propagate the objectification and

mutilation of the Black body. Further, these photos have also been used to accuse the

perpetrators of these heinous crimes. The people in the photos were never punished, which

illustrated the U.S.’s disregard for Black life.

3
One of the quintessential examples of the mammy figure is Hattie McDaniel’s role in

Gone with the Wind (1939). Her portrayal of Mammy is outspoken, humorous, and proud in spite

of her subservient role in the basic script (Bogle, 2001; Regester, 2010). According to Charlene

Regester (2010), McDaniel effectively brought the background mammy character to the center of

attention, earning her the first Academy Award given to any African American. However,

following the example of McDaniel’s comical and candid performance, modern mammy

portrayals in films such as Bringing Down the House (2003) and The Help (2011) resonate with

the comedic brashness of her representation and the inferior social position of the controlling

image. Importantly, African American male performers such as Martin Lawrence and Tyler

Perry have also performed the mammy, further perpetuating the stereotypes associated with

caricature. Lawrence’s Big Momma’s House trilogy and Perry’s series of Madea films represent

prime examples of the phenomenon. In addition to caring primarily for their White families,

these modern representations most noticeably reflect the traditional heavyset appearance of the

type as an essential piece of their physical comedy.

 65

4
Despite the traditional degrading function of caricatures, Black actors often played

crucial roles in adding depth and dignity to the characters onscreen. Significantly, Ethel Waters

(Petunia Jackson) and Lena Horne‘s (Georgia Brown) performance in Vincent Minnelli’s Cabin

in the Sky (1943) exemplify the subversive ways in which actors attempted to challenge

traditional, stereotypical roles of Black people. In particular, in the club scene, Waters’ role as

the mammy and Horne’s role as the jezebel are undermined by the reversal of their traditional

characterizations. When Petunia enters the club, she becomes the center of attention and the main

desire of the most powerful men in the room while Georgia is left standing in her shadow. In

opposition to the mammy’s traditional asexual and unattractive construction, Minnelli and

Waters add greater depth to the otherwise one-dimensional caricature.

5
Patricia Hill Collins (2009) explains the importance of “bloodmothers,” “othermothers,”

and “women-centered networks” (p. 192) in the Black community as they share responsibility for

raising and teaching children.

6
In 2010, DuVernay founded Array, previously called the African American Film

Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), to distribute films created by women and people of

color around the world. The organization began with the collaboration of Black film festivals and

film series in major markets including Atlanta, Georgia, Los Angeles, California, and New York,

New York. Capitalizing on each of the festivals’ and series’ individual resources, Array

“nationally” (Film Independent, 2013) promoted and released I Will Follow (2010) as the

organization’s first independent distribution effort. Since then, the organization has continued to

provide a means through which stories by and about women and people of color can be released

to national and international audiences.

 66

7
David Oyelowo’s “seven-year journey” was profoundly instrumental in finally bringing

the film to life as he held to his deep conviction that God called him to play the role of Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (Film Independent, 2015).

8
The license was already owned by DreamWorks and Warner Bros. to be used in a biopic

produced by Steven Spielberg (Band, 2015).

9
Nash also discussed her relationship with Dr. King while working in Selma: “I never

considered [him] my leader. . . .I always considered myself at his side and I considered him at

my side” (“Diane Nash,” 2015, para. 9).

 67

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VITA

Graduate School
Southern Illinois University

Danyelle M. Greene

[email protected]

Adrian College
Bachelor of Arts, Communication Arts and Sciences, May 2014

Thesis Research Paper Title:

Cutting Against Controlling Imagery: An Analysis of Films Directed by Gina Prince-
Bythewood and Ava DuVernay

Major Professor: Dr. Novotny Lawrence