their passing for white and it would work in their interests until they were discovered to be half black. The debate on skin color and being able to “pass” has been a part of history for a long time. It still to this day is something that is dealt with from others especially because of the different ethnicities being in interracial relationships and it becoming more popular.
In many parts of the 1959 film, the camera is zoomed on the emotions in Sarah Jane and Annie’s face. According to Sikov (2010), “In addition to subject- camera distance, directors employ different camera angles to provide expressive to the subjects they film” (p.12).I find it significant because it shows the viewer the heartbreak of the African American mother about her daughter not wanting to be known as black.
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Peola left her Negro college, and decided to take a cashier job in a white’s only restaurant. When her mother Bea, goes to the restaurant to find her, Peola is humiliated. She finally tells her mother that she is going away, never to return, so she can pass as a white woman without the fear that Delilah will show up. Delilah goes on heartbroken that her daughter, Peola, does not accept her as her mother and she eventually forgives Peola as she succumbs to heartbreak and dies.
Peola was given less of a discriminatory role as a traditional stereotypical African American woman that is usually portrayed in films. “The character Peola is unique cinematically because her actions do not clearly connect her with other more prominent Black female stereotypes” (Bowdre(2014), p.27). The question here is was she given a better role because she was passing for white? I begin to think of both mothers that were given roles as a maid. They both had more of the “mammy” or “aunt jemimiah” approach in both