It was only a matter of time before a woman of color would make an overtly lesbian film.
Carrying the torch of the pioneering Rose (Go Fish) Troche, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman revolves around a black lesbian filmmaker who conducts research about the life of a 1930s actress known as “The Watermelon Woman.”
Poking fun at various sacred cows in American pop culture, the film makes statements about the power of narrative and the ownership of history.
Like Dunye’s shorts (“The Potluck and the Passion”), the narrative is elliptical and circular, borrowing its format from Jim McBride’s David Holtzman’s Diary, particularly the ending, when viewers realize they have been watching a fake documentary.
For the production, Dunye conducted research at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and the Library of Congress.
However, she realized that she did not have the specific resources she was looking for, and that accessing them was beyond the film’s budget. As a result she staged 78 of the archival photos in the film.
The production team decided against going to the Library of Congress to obtain materials and license them due to the costs, so instead Dunye and Zoe Leonard created new footage meant to resemble video from the 1930s. Playwright Ira Jeffries then took additional photographs in the same style.
The mockumentary explores the difficulty in navigating archival sources that either excludes or ignores Black lesbians working in Hollywood, particularly that of actress Fae Richards whose character bore the name that provides the film’s title.
The film also features a number of appearances by LGBT art figures such as Cheryl Clarke, Camille Paglia, David Rakoff, Sarah Schulman and others.
Inspired by:
The director was inspired by Melvin Van Peebles’ The Watermelon Man, about an Archie Bunker type who wakes up black one day and his whole life is changed.
Dunye also found inspiration from Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992) and Norman… Is That You? (1976)
Dunye was preparing a course on African-American women in film, when she read about Mable Hampton, Ma Rainey, and other artists on the fringe of the Harlem Renaissance and early Hollywood. Her lead figure, Cheryl, is a constructed character, partially based on Dunye’s life.
For this film, Dunye worked for the first time with a lenser, Michelle Crenshaw. Coming from the video world, where she would wear 12 different hats, letting that duty go was hard. As she explained: “There’s a certain look I get shooting by myself, a certain comfort and feel, but here, there were 20 crew people in the room.” Dunye was forced to give up the control and intimacy of video for the sake of better technical values.
Scandalous Film?
The reaction to the film from certain members of the African-American community was virulent. A Washington Times article quoted black conservative anger, “how can the NEA blaspheme the black community with this gay stuff” referring to a $31,500 grant Dunye received to complete the film.
For Dunye, the accusation was ridiculous, holding that the humor in her film allows “everyone a space to enter,” regardless of their particular history.
