“Pinky” (1949) is a Hollywood film about a light-skinned Black woman who has to make a decision about whether to be Black or White. It stars Jeanne Crain as Pinky, Ethel Waters, and the aging, legendary stage actress Ethel Barrymore (Drew Barrymore’s great aunt). It is based on the book “Quality” (1948) by Cid Ricketts Sumner. Elia Kazan directs.
Commercial and critical success: It was 20th Century Fox’s highest grossing film that year. It was named for three Oscars but did not win any.
Hollywood Whitewashing: Both Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne were interested in playing Pinky, but it went to a White woman, Jeanne Crain. Kazan did not think much of Crain’s acting, but that made her good for the part:
“The only good thing about her was that it went so far in the direction of no temperament that you felt Pinky was floating through all of her experiences without reacting to them, which is what ‘passing’ is.”
Censorship: It was banned in Marshall, Texas, in part because it showed a White man kissing a Black woman – even though the actress playing the Black woman was White! A cinema in Marshall played the film anyway. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, with the cinema winning on First Amendment (free speech) grounds.
White racism: Because it was written by White people, I expected the film to play down White racism. Hardly! It showed Whites being nice to Pinky and giving her the benefit of the doubt – until they find out she is Black! Then, suddenly, they change, almost like they have a split personality. There were several scenes like that, with the police, a shopkeeper and some good old boys. Yet when her White boyfriend finds out she is Black – he barely skips a beat! Huh?
Anti-racist messages: The film uses a doctor to argue that racism is not supported by science and a judge to argue that racism makes the US look bad in front of the whole world. It also uses Pinky’s grandmother (Ethel Waters) to counter the stereotype of Blacks as naturally lazy. On the other hand:
Mammy stereotype: Ethel Waters is selflessly devoted to an old White woman (Ethel Barrymore), whose ancestors most likely owned her ancestors. But at least Pinky has the good sense to object to it.
Tragic Mulatto stereotype: Because of when it was written, I expected Pinky to be a Tragic Mulatto, torn between the White and Black worlds and finding happiness in neither. It was a common stereotype used to argue against the mixing of the races (“What about the children?”). Instead Pinky finds that passing for White is no way to live: you need to be proud of who you are, which means proud of being Black and owning it.
Overall: Maybe in a few weeks I will come to my senses and this post will make me cringe, but having just seen it, I loved it (though “Skin” (2008) is still tops for me).
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- YouTube: Pinky – watch the whole thing
- passing for White
- Voluntary Negroes
- 1929: Nella Larsen: Passing
- 1959: Imitation of Life
- 1988: Adrian Piper: Cornered
- 1998: Danzy Senna: Caucasia
- 2008: Skin
- 2014: Little White Lie
- Hollywood tropes:
- too Black to play Blacks:
- 1949 in 33 pictures
589
I wonder if this the inspiration for Imitation of Life?
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Thank you!!
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The history of race in the US is so weird that you could not make it up.
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Damn. Thought this was a porno post…..
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@ Mary
The 1959 “Imitation of Life” goes back to a 1934 film version and the 1933 book, so it predates “Pinky”. But it would have been hard for 1959 film-makers not to have been affected by “Pinky” since it was hardly an obscure film of the time.
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I remember that I watched “Pinky” on TV some time in the 70s as a child. I don’t think I have seen it since, so it would be a good time to see it again after 40 more years of societal change. I do remember that my parents seemed to be very familiar with this film and its story line. It was perhaps the first time I realized the line between black and white was not as firm as one may believe.
And I note that it predated the 50s-60s Civil Rights movement.
Was this because she would have to kiss a white man, and the Hollywood rule at that time was that only a white woman could kiss a white man?
The same thing occurred to me when I saw Jennifer Jones play Dr. Han Su-yin in “Love is a Many Splendored Thing”.
He is from the North, right? But most of the racist white characters are southerners?
I think there is a strong message there that contrasts the Northern white liberal from the Southern white racist, memes still popular today. I have to watch the movie again to see if the protagonist’s rejection of that shows the problem with either meme, how the white liberal stance is no better for her sense of identity and self-worth than the white racist stance.
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@ jefe
My guess is that if they had used Lena Horne or Dorothy Dandridge it would have been banned throughout the South. Also It would have made it harder for White audiences to sympathize with Pinky since the racism against her would seem less shocking.
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@ jefe
Yes, her boyfriend was from the North, so that might account for his relative lack of racism in the eyes of the film-makers. But they did make it clear that he would only marry her if she gave up being Black, which he saw as an antiquated nuisance, but which she saw as the bedrock of her identity. She could escape racism if she passed for White, but that would mean living a lie, which in time would become unbearable.
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Donald Bogle, whose typology of Hollywood stereotypes I use (Coon, Mammy, Jezebel, Tragic Mulatto, etc), says that Ethel Waters’ acting was so good she transcended the flat Mammy stereotype she was given to play. But says that Jeanne Crain did not transcend her Tragic Mulatto character.
He sees Pinky as a Tragic Mulatto because by deciding to be Black she gave up her own personal happiness (marrying her boyfriend, living out her life in the relative freedom and comfort of a White woman, etc). But to me that was fool’s gold, she just did not know it at first. All she gave up was the chance to live a lie. Also, they gave her a happy ending – though maybe to a White audience being Black was the tragedy.
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since black people dont have white kids, did it say anything about how pinky came to be pink? interracial sexual liaisons seem to have run in the family.
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comment in mod? why?
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Discovered this film some years ago and watched part of it. Couldn’t watch it all the way through since it was too unbelievable to see a white woman play a light skinned black. On the plus side, I finally found out why so many high light skinned black women had the nickname “Pinky,” including my old girl scout troop leader.
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““Pinky” (1949) is a Hollywood film about a light-skinned Black woman who has to make a decision about whether to be Black or White.”
Absurd, unless one makes a fetish of ‘whiteness’. ““Pinky” (1949) is a Hollywood film about a white woman of known black African ancestry who has to make a decision about whether to be Black or White by repudiating said African ancestry.” That would be a more apt description. The way Abagond wrote this originally, implies some ‘essential’ blackness despite all outward appearances. Black, White, etc. are relative categories that a racist civilization uses to ascribe traits to individuals based on skin color. So says gro jo.
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Your moderation awaits comment!
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I wonder if there are any current ‘Pinky’ types?
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@Herneith
“I wonder if there are any current ‘Pinky’ types?”
Pinky type in what way? Secret Negroes? Or could pass but didnt? Passing is not such a critical issue today as it was in apartheid america. Some people like Dolezal want to be black and pass in reverse. Well. One person. I think Michael Bolton might be passing.
Some other candidates:
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@“I wonder if there are any current ‘Pinky’ types?”
Pete Wentz, who has to keep a fresh perm and stay out of the sun in order to live as a white man, is a good example.
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@ Jefe
Cid Ricketts Sumner, the author of the book that the movie was based on, was from Mississippi. She moved north after college to do graduate work at Columbia and seems to have spent the rest of her life in the northeast, although she went back home for frequent visits.
I would have to read the book to find out if it is the same as the movie in how Ricketts approaches the racism of southern rednecks versus northern liberals. But my guess is that she was familiar with both. The boyfriend may be better but he is still racist enough that he doesn’t want to marry someone who identifies as black and can’t accept the protagonist for who she is culturally and kin-wise.
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But they did make it clear that he would only marry her if she gave up being Black, which he saw as an antiquated nuisance, but which she saw as the bedrock of her identity. She could escape racism if she passed for White, but that would mean living a lie, which in time would become unbearable.
Living a lie? It would be much more than that. If they had any sense they would be thinking about the subsequent offspring – those children could have been born with any of their parents genes where their inherent genes would come through so in the case of Pinky who had black heritage the ‘secret’ would have been out there whether or not the Pinky and her boyfriend were willing to live in denial.
If you use the example of the story of people like of Sandra Laing then as far as the genetic presentation of the mix goes with such children, anything is possible!
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I believe that Hoda Kotb is “passing”.
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diablo6197 said:
I believe that Hoda Kotb is “passing”.
I didn’t know who this person was but when you guys say passing, what do you mean, is this based on her family heritage? in the US are Egyptians white? Do you have to actively have to have nothing to do with your race to be deemed as ‘passing?’ I ask that last question because for all I know, she constantly embraces her heritage and speaks about her family origins (but as I am not familiear with her I don’t know)
I suspect that in the UK that she would be deemed as other, maybe even Asian in an attempt to categorise but I not think that white would not be the default… However, if she herself asserted she was white, many would just accept it and not openly question it
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“I think Michael Bolton might be passing.” If you have to ‘think’ he must be white. René Izod Lacoste looks like a mulatto yet I can’t find any credible description of him as such. Can any of you, ‘experts’ on pinky(sans the brain) types elucidate? Can one be a dark-skinned white woman like Sandra Laing, why not? Why the persistence of the “light-skinned black category and the absence of the dark-skinned white one? As usual, my comment will await in ‘moderation’. Consistency at last!
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I have a very vague memory of this film. The movie that stuck in my mind about blacks passing for whites was “Imitation of Life”; the one released in 1959. (There was also a film before that in 1934.) Frankly I think the person in charge of casting made the right choice picking Jeanne Crain. I really can’t see Dorothy Dandridge or Lena Horne in this part. But that’s just me. Really good movie review.
P.S. Also liked that movie “Skin” (2008).
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re: abagond’s
So things have not really changed at all from the 1940s, or the names have changed, but the template is the same.
1940s: Give up being “colored”, there is no need to dwell on being black, what’s the point?
2010s: Don’t see colour. Become colour-blind. They don’t see colour, why should you?
That seems to me to be the Northern white liberal viewpoint. Hasn’t changed much. The adverse is the naked racist stance. 1940s: Jim Crow; 2010s: Alt-right.
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“Pete Wentz, who has to keep a fresh perm and stay out of the sun in order to live as a white man, is a good example.”
Eat your heart out. You’re too dark to pull the same scam.
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How many of the “redlegs” of Barbados have tried to “pass” for black? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redleg
Can my old buddy, An Irish-American Scribbler, formerly and affectionately, I might add, known as “Lordy” speak to the subject, given his expertise on French-Canadian Blackface?
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Why else would you think I want you to jump in? I miss the sh*t storms your comments used to elicit. I’d like you to tell me where I can reread my old battles with you on your defunct Lord of Mirkwood site. I did some of my best work there.
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@”I believe that Hoda Kotb is “passing”.”
I don’t think the majority regards her as white, except maybe on paper or purposes of artificially bolstering the white population. In white speak she’s way too “dark” and “exotic” but the bleached hair helps a little.
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@An Scrib, “you have nothing to fear but fear itself.” – Pres. Roosevelt 1932.
On the other hand, is it the potential for one of those always lurking, involuntary Freudian slips may reveal something even deeper?
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Say, did you ever notice the resemblance between Hoda Kotb
and Barack Obama? Now thats a tragic mulatto.
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@ ASG-M
“I think that only bad things could result if I interpose myself here.”
That’s been the result in almost every case where you’ve interposed yourself. Hasn’t stopped you yet.
How many people are you going to run off before you stop?
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That invisible blackness though…
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@”How many people are you going to run off before you stop?”
As many as abagond colludes with him to run off.
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^Of course his favourite president is the one who interned Japanese Americans, put an open racist Jimmy Byrnes on the Supreme Court……and invited all the Olympic winners EXCEPT 4-gold-medal-winner Jesse Owens to the White House
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Too bad we now have scribh aka lord of mirkwood aka xpraetorius on record calling a racist who interned human beings and but an open racist on the Supreme court his “favorite president”.
That his “favorite president” sent troops to defeat a rival does not make his “favorite president” any less of a racist.
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Blacks passing as white in America—
Arabs are/were(?) apparently classified as “White” so even if a person had dark skin, an Arab speaker could “pass” for white…
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/black-africans-considered-white-americans-170215073123425.html
Apparently some black musicians converted to Islam because they could go into hotels and restaurants in Jim Crow America as they were “white”….?…
it is mentioned in this video at around 11 min
seems confusing…..perhaps abagond could explain or comment on this phenomenon?
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@Abagond: Let’s not forget that back then interracial marriage was illegal in many states and probably at least frowned upon in the rest.
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@ George
That’s true, but there were people then (and even 100 and 200 years before then) who went ahead and got married anyway (in the places where it was legal) and dealt with the societal disapproval. Her boyfriend in the movie loved conformity and social opinion more than he loved her for everything she was.
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@ ASG-M
Interesting how you’ve sidetracked into an argument about FDR instead of answering my question, which had to do with you and only you.
With the added benefit of being able to position yourself in said argument as a victim and a downtrodden minority, I notice as well.
I don’t give a flying f*ck about FDR, your grandparents, or your great-grandparents. It’s your own behavior that’s at issue.
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“let me celebrate the man who lifted my grandparents and great-grandparents, through his social democratic welfare programs”
The guy you obsess over, Hitler, also “lifted” people’s “grandparents and great-grandparents, through his social democratic welfare programs”
But most Germans don’t go around saying he was their “favorite” chancellor.
You, on the other hand, have once again shown your true racist colours by telling us your “favorite President” was the only one in history to intern Americans of a particular ethnicity, just like Hitler did with Germans of a particular ethnicity.
“Oh, and are you tired of being called a “racist black British supremacist” yet? ”
LOL! No because I know that you respond to facts you don’t like with ad hominems. Plus imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So thank you!
And you can’t even keep your ad hominems straight. Aren’t I supposed to be, in your own words, “Caucasian”?
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@ George
Her boyfriend was from Massachusetts, where anti-miscegenation laws were overturned in 1843.
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“the only one in history to intern Americans of a particular ethnicity”
Even if we aren’t considering reservations equivalent to internment camps as a whole, some were initially very much prison camps guarded by soldiers. Natives who left the boundaries of the reservation without express permission would be hunted down and killed by U.S. army troops.
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OFF TOPIC: FDR, Hitler, resw, ASGM and any of his relatives (unless they have stories of passing for White).
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@resw
Comment deleted as off topic.
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@ ASG-M
You can answer me on the open thread. I’m waiting.
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^so’s that. why hasn’t it been deleted.
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@resw
Get a grip.
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Right, I know you have to provide special privileges to your white racist “liberal” commenters who helped you campaign.
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@ Abagond
It’s all right with me if you delete the comment in question. It’s already served its purpose as a redirect to the open thread.
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Mulatto is such a horrible word – It originates from the word mule; half donkey half horse. So if one is mulatto I wonder which of their parents are represented by the donkey and which the horse? Hum hum
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It is a mistake to describe Pinky as a light skinned black women. Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge were light-skinned black women.
Pinky is a white-looking black woman. Meaning: she’s supposed to look white (pass for white). Neither Lena nor Dorothy can pass for white. They look MIXED at best.
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