The Watermelon Woman
                             A Film Review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on The Women's Show
                          WMNF-FM 88.5 Tampa, FL
                               June 28, 1997=0D

     Two weeks ago I was hoping to get down to the Sarasota Pride Fest to see
the first feature film by a black lesbian filmmaker about black lesbians
anyway because it = was screened last week at the National Women's Studies
Association meeting in St. Louis. T= his is a film that has engendered a lot
of turmoil on the right. Someone in Philly where the fi= lm was included in
its recent International Film Festival (and where it was shot incidentally)
re-marked that it has "the hottest dyke sex yet." This comment was picked up
by right wingers in Congress (and The American Family Association, natch), who
are using it to create a political firestorm. They discovered that this film
had received some funding from Women Make Movies (the wonderful feminist
film distribution organization that's celebrating its 25th anniversary this
year). Furthermore, they found out that Women Make Movies is funded in part by
the National Endowment for the Arts. Now the NEA is under attack again by
the right.   They're saying that the NEA is "using taxpayer dollars to produce
smut," e.g., "The Watermelon Woman" and Barbara Hammer's magnificent,
award-winning documentary "Nitrate Kisses."

  Poor Women Make Movies! They didn't make or produce or distribute "The
Watermelon Woman" -- they just gave some money to a talented young Black
woman filmmaker, yet they're being scapegoated by the looney-tunes right.
(Which is boycotting Disney so they must be Looney-Tunes!). The people
persecuting WMM are of the same sex-obsessed ilk as those in Oklahoma
who've had the police rounding up copies of the video of "The Tin Drum" for
"obscenity" this past week; that's Gunter Grass's award-winning anti-fascist
masterpiece. How ridiculous! How ironic! How scary.

    As soon as "Watermelon Woman" writer/director Cheryl Dunye heard the =
infamous quote about the hot sex she incorporated it into the advertising
campaign for the film. It's getting rave reviews and playing to packed
houses. (WMNF will be bringing the film to the Tampa Theater on August 3 and
4.  Let's all go and show the AFA what we think of their judgement on films!

    I think that "Watermelon Woman" certainly deserves the huge audience all
this free publicity is going to bring in. It is a completely captivating and
an astounding tour-de-force for a twenty- five year old filmmaker making her
feature film debut. The film is on the borderline between documentary and
fiction and one of its charms is that you don't know which it is until the
very end. The central character is Cheryl Dunye, a twenty-five year old Black
lesbian Philadelphia filmmaker. She works with her friend Tamara in a video
store where she pursues her interest in the history of Black women in films
by using customers' names to special order the films she wants to see; then
she looks at the films and returns them while her boss and the customers
are none the wiser (until she gets caught).

   While doing this she becomes obsessed with trying to find out the real
identity and life story of a Black actress who played a Mammy character in a
1930s Civil War epic called "Plantation Memories." The credits list her
simply as The Watermelon Woman. Cheryl's quest takes her to people on the
street, her mother and others who might remember the woman from the 1930s, a
Black film buff's collection, various film archives, etc. Along the way she
discovers the woman's real name, that she came from Philadelphia, that she was
a lesbian, and that she once had an affair with a white woman--all things
that are also true of Cheryl herself in the film. The video customer turned
lover that Cheryl gets into a relationship with is played by the ubiquitous
Guinivere Turner (of "Go Fish" and "Chasing Amy"). Once Cheryl has these
clues she's able to track down people right there in Philly who knew her and
to go to New York to a lesbian history archive and piece together her life.
She also visits the still-living sister of the woman's white lover.

     It is simply fascinating to follow along with Cheryl's detective work
(learning a lot about the history of Black women in film in the process),
juxtaposed against her own trials and travails with her boss, her friends,
her lover, etc.

    I want to say "Three Cheers!" to Cheryl Dunye for bringing us such an
intelligent, intriguing, entertaining, educational, and fund film. She's a
hugely creative new talent on the women and film scene. And, oh yes, the
dyke sex is pretty hot, but not pornographic in the slightest.

        For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and
Film.

Linda Lopez McAlister is chair of women's studies at the
University of South Florida, Tampa.  Copyright 1997. All rights reserved.
Please do not copy or reproduce th= is review without permission of the
author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.