Gay Subject Matter In Dunye's Film example essay topic

Cheryl Dunye was born in Liberia in 1966 but grew up in Philadelphia. She attended Temple University were she received a BA and then went on to complete her MFA at Rutgers University's Mason Gross school of the Arts. It was there that she first began using the video art form to delve into class, race and sex in the lives of black women. In addition to filmmaking, Dunye is an avid writer, and has published articles for Felix, Time Out and Movement Research. Cheryl Dunye is famous for her pseudo-documentary style of filmmaking, combining fiction and documentary to make what she's nicknamed the "Dunyementary". A lot of white feminist film, leans toward discarding usual narrative composition on the whole, but Dunye's films keep hold of certain usual narrative structures but are laced with different techniques in terms of cinematic language.

Her films challenge the received idea of documentary as a non-ideological kind of representation She feels that narrative is as true as we want it to be. We believe in narrative as truth, as document, and we believe in document as fiction. Dunye uses documentary strategies more than narrative strategies because documentary is already fiction, so there's camera structuring the approach to a subject; it puts her in a different space as a maker of media or entertainment. Cheryl Dunye's work automatically sets her aside as a pioneer because she is a woman in a field dominated by men. It isn't often that you find female directors / filmmakers and by following her heart and pursuing this career that she so obviously loves, Dunye has set her self up for an uphill battle for respect and recognition in this male orientated world. But, having said that, Dunye is equipped with an insight that male directors do not have, into the women's role in a film.

She can put across a more in depth portrayal of the female character's psyche, social status, emotional state and relationships with the other characters of the film, in ways the male directors have often not been able to grasp in their work, simply because she is a woman. Her experiences living life as a woman help her to make her female characters on film infinitely more relatable to her viewing audiences. It makes a wonderful change as well to see films solely told from a female perspective. All of Dunye's films create such a female positive space; they give you an opportunity to see a piece of yourself in all of her characters.

Being a female director simply puts a whole new slant on the movie, it allows the viewer to access the storyline from a fresh direction with altered nuances and an atypical emotional overtone. It makes a welcome change from the often-overwhelming masculine ambience of films to date. Cheryl Dunye came onto the indie film and art scene suddenly early in the 90's with a succession of thought provoking, gritty low budget short films. In Janine, a one woman short film starring Dunye, a director examines her relationship with a white, upper class classmate from high school, and how it effected her self image and also it's effect on her relationships and sexuality. Greetings from Africa is a comedy that explores the sometimes grey area of lesbian dating, She Don't Fade is a reflexive look at the life of a black lesbian in the United States and in a setting as lesbian as apple pie is American, Potluck and Passion is set in an actual potluck dinner, where a group of lesbian friends and acquaintances discuss racial, sexual and social politics. Greetings from Africa was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and Potluck and Passion was included in the Whitney Biennial in 1993.

In addition to these honours Dunye's works have been shown at film / arts festivals in London, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, South Africa and Paris. She has been awarded grants from Rockefeller Foundation, Frame line and the Astraea Foundation and fellowships from Rutgers University and Art Matters. In 1993 Dunye was given the MAR MAF Pennsylvania Major Artist Award and in 1997 and 1998 she received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award. She has received a media grant from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1995. The Watermelon Woman starring Dunye, is her first feature length film.

It received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which caused an uproar from conservative and right wing America, because they didn't approve of their tax dollars being used to promote gay art. Sadly there was also a large uproar from the Black Americans as well. They felt that the gay subject matter in Dunye's film maligned the Black Community. Despite all of the opposition, The Watermelon Woman was a profound success, winning the esteemed Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Award.

Set in Philadelphia The Watermelon Woman is about a black lesbian in her 20's called Cheryl. While working in a video store and freelancing as a camerawoman, Cheryl is trying desperately to make a documentary about Fae Richards, a black film actress from the 1930's who was popularly known as The Watermelon Woman. Beautiful and elusive and rumoured to have had a white female lover, Fae Richards seems to be quite an enigma, and delving deeper into the intricacies of her life further facilitates a plethora of unanswered questions. In the mean time in her personal life Cheryl herself is going through massive changes, she begins a love affair with a white woman called Diana and it begins to affect her interactions with the world around her, particularly in the black and gay communities which is quite relevant and true to life. It's like it's bad enough that you are gay, but do you have to doubly disgrace your race by dating a white woman. Throughout the film we are given a comedic, but sometimes derisive running commentary from Cheryl's best friend Tamara, played by Valerie Walker, who is a black lesbian who studies black porn.

Her character is a very lively and conservative lesbian who dates a beautiful black woman and she still kind of flirts on the side. Throughout the film she often and wholeheartedly offers up her opinion on any and all aspects of Cheryl's love, social and professional life. The film could clearly have been a documentary but while the character Dunye plays in the film is autobiographical, the rest of the story is fictional, including the historical allusions to Fae Richards. The Watermelon Woman is an excellent first feature. Dunye sets a standard for other aspiring filmmakers, especial black, female and lesbian filmmakers, to strive for. It was open and honest, it was intelligently composed, making you think without being over the top and pretentious, and even though it is meant to pose as a documentary, it doesn't over do the effect in an attempt to try and get you to believe that it is.

My only disappointment is the same one which accompanies almost every other lesbian film I have seen, the cinematography often looks just a step above a home video, but without funding and backing from the multimillion dollar filmmaking industry there is nothing really that can be done about that. Disappointingly, Dunye is one of the few Black women and probably the only openly gay Black lesbians to make a second feature film. Stranger Inside is Dunye's second feature. It was nominated for Best Director, Best Supporting Female and Best Debut Performance by the Independent Film Project's Independent Spirit Awards and won the Audience Award at both the Philadelphia Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival it also won the Special Jury Award For Outstanding Achievement at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Stranger Inside is about a young black woman called Treasure Lee, played by Yolanda Ross. Treasure has spent her entire life in an out of jail and on the night of her twenty-first birthday, Treasure deliberately stabs a fellow inmate to get herself transferred from her juvenile detention jail, to the main Women's State Facility. She does this because for the whole time she was growing up she has been told that her mother was dead, but one when one of her fellow gang members gets put into the state facility, she calls Treasure and tells her about a inmate in for life called Brownie, which may be Treasure's mother Margaret 'Brownie' Lee. Treasure can't miss out on the chance to finally meet her mother and maybe start a relationship, which is what drives her to do what she does.

The film explores the politics of life inside a women's prison; sexuality, whether innate or purely circumstantial, the forming of "family's", the corruption, drugs and the relationships between prisoners and prison guards through several main characters. Brownie rules the entire prison with an iron fist, controlling the drug trade, the money and perks and even the relationships of the women around her, Shadow is a ex gang member, trying to reform and kick her crack habit, Doodle is suppose to be a born again Christian in for embezzling, but is a hypocrite. There is a shop owner called Min who killed someone in self-defence and Kit, Treasure's lover, who deals drugs for Brownie. Her cellmate Fran, who is a staunch racist, antagonists this relationship. This film was produced by HBO and was the first lesbian film and definitely the first black lesbian feature that I had seen made professionally with a slick Hollywood finish. This added to the strength of the script and the acting in numerous ways.

Stranger Inside is the most realistic piece of cinematography set in a women's prison that I have ever seen as well. Dunye has obviously researched the subject thoroughly and combined her research with her imagination to pull off one of the most real and moving portrayal of prison life that I have ever come across. The thought's and actions of Treasure while complex are understandable and thought provoking as you watch her struggle to find meaning to the events of her life and fight to find some sort of control over where it's going, even if the avenues she takes to gain control aren't always the wisest. The support of the other characters and the relationship between them brings to light particulars which we could have never imagined.

The film is gritty and honest in it's allusion to the violence and sex in the prison system and Dunye's scene with Treasure and Kit having sex in the prison chapel is one of the frankest, most shocking and definitely the most thought provoking scenes I have ever seen. Through the eyes of the camera we get both parallel and completely different views from these two films. The Watermelon Woman is a remarkable balance between earnest academic investigation and utter satire while Stranger Inside is a deft, hard-edged drama that pulls no punches. The camera work in Stranger Inside is literally the following of an inmate; through the camera we as the audience live out Treasure's life, decisions, experiences and emotions behind bars, making you feel as if you become a part of her character. It is shot completely from her perspective, making the camera appear like her eyes and ears.

The camera work from The Watermelon Women on the other hands, presents the film in a different light, the audience feel more like spectators watching the goings on in the main character's life, like you would while people watching. Despite this, you are no less involved in the plot then you are with Stranger Inside, both films offer of the ability to suspend what's going on outside of them, and draw you into the main character's life with startling intensity. Cheryl Dunye is my favourite director because I find her work to be original, creative and most of all honest. She is not afraid to let her filmmaking revolve around the essence of what she is: female, black and lesbian. Even though I'm more interested in directing and writing for stage, Dunye's work inspires me to be true to the subjects which I would like to explore and not fear the reaction of the "majority".

The awards and acclamations she has received also alert me to the fact that there is in fact an audience out there to watch, and enjoy, work of this subject and calibre. Like myself, Dunye has struggled through the prejudices of her situation, being female; the "weaker" sex, being black; the "lower" race, and being gay the "lesser" human, and instead of allowing these things to defeat her she has risen above them and incorporated them into her world, alerting the rest of the world as to what it is like to live these experiences. By also acknowledging her lesbianism as an intricate part of her filmmaking, Dunye has also made great strides of the gay community. The main importance of gay & lesbian filmmaking to me is, as a lesbian, I need to see representation and affirmation of my sexuality in everyday life, film being a part of this. In other words, while it is great to watch all forms of theatre, I can't relate to girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, girl and boy get married and live happily ever after, portrayals in film. I'm a girl who falls in love with women, my daily life revolves around the joys, troubles and intricacies of being a same gendered loving person, and while watching movies I would like to see accurate and positive representation of these intricacies.

Geoffrey Giddings writes in his essay 'Fear of a Gay Identity' "Growing up, whether gay or straight, we are all naturally affirmed as heterosexual by this society. Because of this fact, I believe that we older and more conscious homosexual men and women should take on the duty to do whatever is within our power to combat the damaging images of homosexuality this society perpetuates by affirming the natural sexuality of young people who are aware of their homosexuality. This is simply in sync with our long tradition of elders 'looking after' the youth". (Fighting Words, Personal Essays by Back Gay Men) Dunye has taken up this gauntlet by refusing to bow to the values of mainstream society and providing us with positive and believable examples of the black, gay community on screen.

Bibliography

Smith, Charles; Fighting Words, Personal Essays by Black Gay Men; Avon Books June 1999 Web web web web web web.