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Black Representation

The young men of the North "who hurried off to war in the spring of 1861 were not motivated, for the most part, by thoughts of emancipation and freedom for black Americans" (Ransom 13). Nearly all of the caricatures black Americans faced, particularly after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery were in essence a defense of slavery. These representations engrained the ideas of the happy servant, the stupid darkie, or the savage black that all support the notion that black Americans were better off as slaves. These images gave evidence that black Americans were incapable of assimilating to the society appropriately because of inherent inferiorities or worse yet because they wanted to remain slaves. .
             The Mammy could quite possibly be the most overt defense for slavery as she was often depicted as the happily obedient servant that was loyal and protective of the white house. The Mammy was stripped of sexuality and portrayed as a large, dark woman with a bandana covering her hair. She was also frequently portrayed as loud, crass and unrefined again a testament to her lack of sexuality (Ethnic Notions). The Mammy was a house servant that was distinguished by her fierce independence and showed the role reversal of the male and female in a black family. Whereas in white culture the male was usually the dominant figure in the household, in this instance the Mammy held definite control. She made her film debut around 1914 with a comedy titled Coon Town Suffragettes, which "dealt with a group of bossy mammy washerwomen who organize a militant movement to keep their good-for-nothing husbands at home But the militancy of the washerwoman served as a primer for the mammy roles Hattie McDaniel was to perfect in the 1930's" (Bogle 9). .
             It was an integral characteristic of the Mammy to be undesirable, for if the Mammy were a sexual being she would pose a threat to the lady of the house.


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