Bogle, Donald. “Imitation of Life: Mother Knows Best.” Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc., 2001. 57-60.

This portion of Donald Bogle’s Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, and Buck: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films offers a detailed synopsis of Imitation of Life. Bogle discuses the humanization of the Negro servant within the film. Although the black woman was a servant, she was imbued with dignity.  On the surface, the film appears to be a simple tale of motherly love and motherly woes; however, beneath lies, according to Bogle, “a conscious apotheosis of the tom spirit and an unconsciously bitter comment on race relations in America.” Louise Beavers’ Delilah is a combination of tom and mammy and her daughter, Peola, is the subversive tragic mulatto figure, not wanting to be white, but wanting the same things in life as white people. 

This reading offers a unique perspective and interpretation of the film.  Contrary to many other readings, some of which are cited in this annotated bibliography, Bogle believes that the racial theme is the most significant of the film.  He argues that the humanization of Beavers, which is a result of a new social consciousness that had infiltrated the motion picture industry after Roosevelt’s election and the end of the Depression, the film portrays the modern black woman, although she is still a servant. From Bogle’s piece, it can be argued that black female spectators are able to identify with the black character in this mainstream film; thus, the viewer des not need to use her “oppositional gaze.”

Bogle, Donald. "Black Beginnings: from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Birth of a Nation." Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc., 2001. 3-18.

The opening chapter of Bogle’s landmark text begins with a history of Uncle Tom, the American movies’ first black character, and Edwin S. Porter’s 12 minute film, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. After the tom’s debut, a variety of black presences arose in cinema, such as the coon, the tragic mulatto, the mammy, and the brutal black buck.  Each were stereotypes used to entertain by stressing Negro inferiority.  Bogle goes on to define the popular Black caricatures.  The tom was a Good Negro character, always content in pleasing his White master.  The coon presented the Negro as amusement object.  There were two types of coons: the pickaninny and the uncle remus. The pickaninny was the harmless, little screwball Negro child actor. The uncle remus was the first cousin to the tom, naïve and comical.  The third figure of common black stereotypes was the tragic mulatto, or the victim of divided racial heritance whose life is ruined because of the drop of black blood. The Mammy, or “handkerchief head,” represents the content, ready to please black female servant. Lastly, the brutal black bucks are the oversexed, violent black men who lust for white flesh. Audiences believed that these Black caricatures embodied all the aspects of the black experience itself, rejecting the slightest modification of these archetypes. 

Bogle details the characteristics of the “mammy” stereotype, which are important to be familiar with when attempting to understand why black women would not enjoy the portrayal of Louis Beavers within Imitation of Life. He also explains the notion of the “tragic mulatto” figure, giving the reader better insight into the complexity of the character of Peola. Without knowing the definitions of mammy and tragic mulatto, it would not be possible to fully comprehend all that is wrong with the film in terms of racial issues.

Bogle, Donald. "Chapter 8: The 1970s Bucks and a Black Movie Boom." Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. Ed. 4. New York: Continuum, 2001. 231-241.

Chapter 8. The 1970s Bucks and a Black Movie Boom (p. 231-266; 231-241 relevant to film)

Film critic and NYU/Penn professor Donald Bogle (whom Spike Lee refers to as the top historian of African American film) segues from a chapter about the rise of black militants into the cinematic expression of that popular African American attitude. He recreates the setting of the early 1970s (Vietnam protests, youth movement, Black Nationalism), yet complains that the old same stereotypes “dressed in new garb to look modern, hip, provocative, and politically ‘relevant’” keep appearing.

The early 1970s marked the “age of the buck”, started by white filmmakers until it is fully explored without Hollywood hindrance by Melvin Van Peebles, the “black movie director and folk hero”, and his film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. After a short Melvin Van Peebles biography, he summarizes the plot of Sweetback, stressing the point that Sweetback does indeed escape the pursuit of the law, meeting “violence with violence in order to triumph over the corrupt white establishment.” This appeals not only to the black audience but to an emerging, revolutionary young white audience as well. The character of Sweetback answers the black public’s call for a serious, sexually assertive black protagonist. After years of asexual characters such as Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, often relegated to subservience and/or comic relief rather than assert themselves against the establishment, Sweetback actually stands up to “the Man”.

The reception of this movie, as Bogle notes, was mixed in spite of the overwhelming commercial success. The older black generation saw it as a “daydream of triumph” while the young militants saw it as a call to revolution. Since Van Peebles made the film under the pretense of pornography, he had pretty much free reign during production and only really felt the wrath of the white establishment during distribution and eventually, public backlash. However, Bogle notes that even though this film seemed revolutionary, at the heart was the same old brutal black buck, f*cking his way out of situations with black and white women and frequently resorting to violence as a means of escape and triumph. His separation even from white counter-culturists like the Hells’ Angels in the film heeded Black Nationalist calls for separatism, striking an urban chord with its depiction of the ghetto. Bogle confides, however, that although the ghetto pimp is glamorized as the protagonist, the film “fails to explain the social conditions that made the pimp such an important figure.” Ultimately, he decides that the film is more of a social documentary than a traditional motion picture, displaying a snapshot of that tense period in race relations, ultimately formulized later that year by Hollywood's Shaft and Superfly into a more film-like structure.

Bogle is accurate in his description of the film's reception and relevance. Although he acknowledges the historical significance of the film, he also notes that it is widely misinterpreted and received over a broad spectrum of opinions. The use of the stereotypical brutal black buck as the protagonist in Sweetback undermines the film's "revolutionary" categorization, but through the overuse of action and "film school aesthetics" applied in the editing room, a profitable genre was born.