Gaines, Jane "The Scar of Shame": Skin Color and Caste in Black Silent Melodrama

Jstor.org, Cinema Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4 (summer, 1987), pp. 3-21 <http://www.jstor.org/>

     This article shows how The Scar of Shame raises issues regarding the race and class constitution of the audience which bear on its mode of address. It tells how in the 1920’s “race movies” (movies made specifically for all black audiences) were created by the black bourgeoisie, in collaboration with the whites, for the entertainment of the class “below them”.  The class hierarchy of the blacks is explained through by showing the differences in the northern urban versus the southern rural black societies.

Gaines’ article argues that melodrama reenacts a moral pattern that parallels the moral system that that community operates upon.  The Scar of Shame, safely in a parallel universe can bring up emotionally volatile issues and traumatic outcomes.

A history of the discovery and restoration of The Scar of Shame described briefly but in detail.  It tells how it has become one of the most frequently exhibited examples of black cinema heritage, and how it has become one the source materials for new black independent film and video making.

The Scar of Shame was produced specifically for a black audience, but directed and photographed by white professionals. It shows the division of labor between white and black artists even when producing race films. 

The biggest point this article makes is how The Scar of Shame’s structure supports the case for the culpability of the upper and lower classes.

Gaines, Jane “Fire and Desire: Mixed Race Movies in the Silent Era” Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press. 2001.
     Fire and Desire asks what ‘‘we want from a theory of film that takes race into account,’’ a question that has barely been broached. In her book, Gaines insists that the ‘‘black’’ umbrella commonly used to describe even the smallest portion of black blood gives a false unity to the ongoing feeling of self and other that truly  informs the cultural tradition of race movies. Gaines warns that “to overlook the whiteness in race movies may be to claim them for a pure but impossible blackness” (271). This book shows that although race films are thought to be black films, for blacks, by blacks, there is no such thing as a pure black film. Every race film had white influence, and for the most part were produced, directed, and distributed by white people. Her main point is that what is thought to be pure black cinema is really just a mixed space, with cultural influences intersecting other cultural influences. Gaines does not hold up Oscar Micheaux’s, or any other race film as examples of an ‘‘authentically black’’ cultural representation, but always focuses, theoretically and historically, on the mixed nature of these films, to the basic fact that the light-skinned heroes of these films are only black by virtue of the positive application of blacks made by race movies of the time.
Gaines does not argue against the importance of race films for the African American community, but rather shows that even though a movie was meant for blacks, they were immensely influenced by whites. What is commonly thought to be independent black films are really mixed films, with a multitude of different cultural influences.  Fire and Desire sets the stage for a more mixed approach to the history and theory of race in film, and shows the importance that the reader understands this when viewing race films from the silent era.