Double Crossed

Despite Hollywood’s recent efforts to appeal to more racially diverse audiences, mainstream movies routinely present a limited view of nonwhites generally, and Black women specifically, in stark contrast to the broadly developed spectrum of white characters. Black women characters are frequently rendered invisible, and even in films featuring their image, Black women characters too often fall prey to historically stereotypical patterns. These consistently marginalized Black female images serve to reflect and reinforce messages of racial imbalance distributed worldwide.

In Double Crossed: Black Female Intersectionality in Hollywood, author Frederick W. Gooding Jr. chronicles the Black female experience through the lens of Hollywood. Gooding begins by contextualizing the origins of early Black female imagery onscreen, largely restricted to the domestic mammy figure, then traces how these images have shifted over time. Through close readings of such films as Gone with the Wind, Bringing Down the House, The Princess and the Frog, and The Help, as well as case studies looking at Oprah Winfrey and Shonda Rhimes, Gooding considers not only the image the Black woman creates, but also the shadow she casts. In other words, he argues, these consistent patterns of racial imagery reflect and reinforce messages of racial imbalance distributed worldwide. Overall, the volume demonstrates the historical, economic, and social consequences of Hollywood’s distorted representation of Black women onscreen and in real life.