The Rectangular View

The Watermelon Woman is an independent film masquerading as an independent documentary, which is shown at the end of the film. Cheryl Dunye plays Cheryl, a black lesbian working in a privately owned video rental store with her best friend, Tamara (Valerie Walker). Cheryl’s an aspiring film director interested in films from the 1930s and 1940s that feature black actresses, and one in particular because it stars a black woman playing a mammy who is credited as The Watermelon Woman.

There are a lot of comic elements to this movie, especially when it comes to scholarly research, which never goes well. The information at the library is segregated and not all of it can be checked out. Cheryl also visits The Center for Lesbian Information and Technology (CLIT), which is run by volunteers. At CLIT, the information is stored in boxes, must be read on the premises, and photos are not allowed. And while one of the volunteers, played by Sarah Schulman, talks about preserving the documents, she also dumps a box of documents on a desk with very little care.

There’s also a scene where Camille Paglia, playing herself, talks about how African Americans should not be offended by black stereotypes and uses her white Italian heritage as rationale. I like this scene because it shows white privilege while making you question if The Watermelon Woman is documentary or a mockumentary.

Cheryl gets her best information when speaking to people who lived in the 1930s and 1940s and knew of or actually knew The Watermelon Woman, who she finds out was a woman named Fae Richards. Cheryl also learns that Fae was a lesbian singer who longed to make it in Hollywood and had a romance with a white lesbian director. All while Cheryl begins dating a white woman and has to deal with the repercussions.

Like most independent movies, the acting has a lot to be desired. And while that didn’t bother me too much, I wish it was better only because the movie clips with Fae Richards are done well enough to be plausible until the actors speak. If Cheryl Dunye had shown the scenes without dialogue, it would have been one more thing to make me believe that Fae Richards could have been a real person.

This movie is such a great mix of fact and fiction, so much that it can play with your head. There are pictures of actual singers and actors mixed with fictional characters; the history is real, but the specifics are not; the footage shot for the documentary is grainy and raw while the movie footage is more crisp; and the director plays the main character. It’s all done to give the film a sense of realness and, aside from the bad acting, works very well. Better acting would have made you Google Fae Richards once it was over.

The message behind The Watermelon Woman is just as valid now as it was when it came out in 1996. And although the film is about black lesbians and how their history has been hidden, its themes are presented in a way that should appeal to anybody. And for that alone it deserves to be seen. I will confess that this was the second time I’d seen The Watermelon Woman and found it as enjoyable as the first time.