The Story of Eve

The Story of Eve

Chapter 1: The Eve Syndrome

"i found god in myself and i loved her fiercely." Ntzozake Shrange: For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.

Here we are in ancient Western Civilization. It is here, in the early church that the mythology of our church began: imagery that became fantasy in TV, films and music. It is here that the myth of woman as doppelganger began: the janus-headed bitch goddess of modern media. The myth of woman as bitch-goddess or as virgin-whore is both sexist and racist. Thus is distorts the image of God so that He is perceived as racist and sexist. At this mythology's core is the oppression of all. And according to it, if a woman is a virgin, she is the chattel of man and she nurtures him. She has no sexual desires, or if she does, man controls them. She is passive and poses no threat to him. She and only she, mythic goddess, is worthy of becoming wife and mother. (This is part of the reasoning behind the anti-abortion movement. In the minds of conservatives women's bodies belong to men. So if a woman becomes pregnant, she has to give birth whether she wants to or not.

In contrast, if a woman is not a virgin then she is mythic whore. Whores are aggressive, self seeking and passionate. Whores have their own minds; they are independent and have sexual desire. Moreover a whore's sexuality is hers and hers alone to control. Thus, a whore is good for one thing only: to be used sexuality and be tossed aside. Ultimately she must be destroyed.

And isn't this the case in popular films where the "whore" is blown up, stabbed, choked etc? Germaine to this myth, feminists are whores.

Part 2

What began with Eve in the Old Testament was continued with the Virgin Mary in the New Testament. But in order for us to understand the Virgin Mary's role in religious mythology, we must first understand Jesus. Number one there is a connection between the way in which Eve is portrayed (sexually) and the way in which Jesus and Mary are depicted (anti-sexually).

Number two Judeo-Christianity at its essence is the teaching of Jesus Christ, which begs the question who is Jesus? Who is Jesus and what has been done to Christianity in his name?

Jesus Christ was born poor and Jewish sometime between four and eight B.C. His human parents were Mary, a homemaker, and Joseph, a carpenter. He himself worked briefly as a carpenter. And though he has often been portrayed as blond and blue eyed, historians tell quite a different story. McCray (The Black Presence in the Bible, 1990) for example, maintains that several sources affirm the Blackness of both Mary and Jesus; and that in fact, portrayals of Jesus as White didn't achieve prominence until the 15th century (around the time the slave trade began); hundreds of years after his sojourn into humanity.
Jesus holds an unparalleled place in history. In his own human lifetime he created Christianity: a synthesis of Judaism and his own teachings. And he was a liberator: a revolutionary who challenged the power structure. For this he was executed. Yet those who would use Christianity to subjugate the masses have ignored this Messiah.

He is the liberator of the poor and the wretched and this sense he may even be described as "black," leftist, "gay" or "feminist" (R. McBrien, Catholicism 1981; p.380).

Chapter 2: The Prepackaged Opinion

Male dominated institutions, especially corporate interests, see the dangers posed to them by love's escape. Women who love themselves are threatening. But men who love real women, are even more of a threat. Naomi Wolf. The Beauty Myth

Mainstream media has been described as one of the most widespread tools of social control. Through films, TV, music and videos we learn what to eat and what to hope for; where to live, what to desire and what to dream. Mainstream media impacts these values in such subtle ways that it's downright scary. From day to day, hour to hour we are ingesting them -- values racism, sexism, classism and we're not even aware of it.

As Meehan, author of Ladies of the Evening found that some of the roles models we see on TV we ignore. Not many of us, for example, want to learn how to be a prostitute. But many other fantasy characters we see are parents, neighbors and lovers and these we do pay attention too.

People learn how to behave from television and film roles models just as they emulate real ones. Research has even shown that we can take on the attitudes, ideas etc from popular culture's portrayal of our group (e.g. Black women) then go on to make assumptions about how we think other groups might behave (e.g. Black men)! Many are afraid to disagree with these stereotypes because they're afraid of being laughed at or called an outsider -- so they spread in what has been called a spiral of silence (Price, 1989).

If all of this sounds like science fiction, consider the OJ Simpson trial: the defendant in question a Black male celebrity and former pro football star accused of murdering his white wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her male friend, Ron Goldman. Psychologists Friedland and Potash commented that we, as a culture, looked upon OJ as fallen hero and that we were both betrayed and stunned.

And the media's gory coverage of Simpson trial, including the manipulation of Blacks and Whites into opposing boxing corners, makes one wonder just who and what was being tried? Simpson's guilt or innocence or a man's right to own and abuse his property -- his property in this case being Nicole, especially since he was paying the bills? (As a case in point I talked several white men who swore that he was innocent!) Or perhaps the millions of Black folk who've been screwed by the judicial system were on trial and Nicole and Ron were sacrificed to their collective rage?

Hallis has described TV News as an ideological medium: providing not just information and entertainment but pockets of consciousness -- clues for reacting to social and political reality (Bell Hooks Yearning). I couldn't agree more.

Chapter 3: The Early Years

"The business of films is the business of dreams..."
Michael Woods. America in the Movies

Our time machine sets down at the turn of the century. America is young, fresh and full of ambition. Across an orange and purple tinted dawn walks Eve...she is still beautiful, still hopeful that some one will recognize her true, true name. She doesn't know that soon she will be exploited by the Hollywood dream machine... Let's roll forward to the year 1915: W.D. Griffith's notorious classic The Birth of a Nation is about to debut. Audiences are squirming in anticipation...

Between the mid-1890s and 1915 movies became America's most popular form of entertainment as film mythology gradually took shape. Black characters in this early motif were portrayed in Black face. Mammy made her debut around 1914. And American theaters introduced the tragic mulatto to the pantheon of Black mythology. She would become the darling of the Dream Weavers: my word for filmmakers. After all what do movie makers do but sell dreams?

The stage mulatto served to reinforce popular notions about white superiority.
The merest drop of Negro blood was a taint from which there was no redemption:
...[Yet:] a character's white blood was [also:] responsible for any positive features he
or she might have. A mulatto in these mixed blood plays avoided a tragic end only
if, just before the curtain rang down, it became clear that he or she was really all white.
(Daniel Leab, From Sambo to Superspade, pp.10-11.)

In these early films the mulatto was likable -- because of her White blood. Thus audiences were sympathetic to the poor creature’s plight -- she would have been happy but for her cursed Negro blood!

Of course the symbolism of the tragic mulatto myth is paper thin. She (most tragic mulattos were women) is a mythic being fight a battle between good and evil with herself. Her "good" side is obviously her White side: the side with Caucasian blood. But look closer: her white persona is also her goddess or virgin persona. In contrast, her Black persona is her "evil" (whore) side. And tragic mulattos were often depicted as promiscuous, cold-hearted creatures.

Thus, Black women when not portrayed as Mammies became Jezebels on screen: just as they had been portrayed by the slave master; and just as filmmakers continued to portray them well after slavery's demise.

Let us return to W.D. Griffith's Birth of a Nation: one of the racist movies of all time, as well as one of the biggest money makers in film history. Birth of a Nation was the slavery ideal come to life; and two families: the Cameron and the Stoneman were pivotal to its plot.

Dr. Cameron and his sons are gently benevolent "fathers" to their childlike servants. The servants themselves could be no happier. In the fields they contentedly pick cotton. In the quarters they dance and sing for their master. In the big house Mammy joyously goes about her chores. All is in order. Everyone knows his place. Then the civil war breaks out and the old order cracks (Danny Bogel Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films 1973 p.12).

The war years are terrible! In the South there is [title card/Birth of a Nation:]: "ruin, devastation, rapine and pillage!" Lions, and tigers and bears --oh my! Reconstruction begins and now a band of uppity Northern darkies and low life Yankee carpetbaggers enter the picture. They corrupt the former slaves -- who then turn on their good and loving masters.

Who will save the South?

Into this conflict, Griffith introduced Lillian Gish: as "Flora Cameron;" of the first -- if not the first Silver Screen virgins. As Flora Cameroon, Gish played a frail, blond teenager menaced by Griffith's next creation: "Gus," the "brutal, Black buck." Gus was the Southern nightmare of the Black rapist come to life. Of according to Southern mythology, the only reason Black men wanted freedom was so they could rape White women -- picking cotton 16 hours (and without pay) had nothing to do with it. Cast beside Gus, Flora became an icon: a blond symbol of virginity.

America Depressed pt. 1

I'd like to be very dramatic and say: "the sexiness of American films came to a screeching halt during the 1930." Sounds pretty good doesn't? Still friends, films aren't automobiles. There is always a time lag -- a period of incubation -- between action and reaction.

What's more, a closer look at the sexual freedom of the 1920s shows that it was nothing more than an illusion. For example Three Weeks is the story of a woman having a very satisfying love affair and then returning to an unhappy marriage. Great! That takes care of three weeks, how about the next 80 years?

And did you know that before 1929 it was taboo to depict any physical contact between Black men and women. Hallelujah was the first movie in film history to portray a kiss between African Americans -- so terrified were the White dream weavers of opening the Pandora's box of Black sexuality.

And with a sleight of hand Hollywood lifted one taboo, Black physical contact, and invoked another: the 1934 Production code. This code banned all sexuality on screen. Within this motif Native American women stepped out of the shadows and into Fallen Women roles. Hollywood was still using White actresses to play Native American roles but as awful as these films were, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. White women from this point forward would be whores or goddesses; Black women that curious mixture of goddess and servant: Mammy. Women were de-sexed; and would remain so until the 1940s.

Mammy had actually emerged during the 19th century idealization of slavery: as part of the Victorian family fairytale (Paula Giddings. When and Where I Enter.) This plantation family included: Old Marsa, the stern but fair patriarch; Missy a tolerant angel of mercy; a plantation full of grinning darkies; and Mammy, the plantation nanny and nursemaid. This "family" was the slaveholders answer to abolitionists: slave owners were trying desperately to save that peculiar institution --even as slavery took it last dying breath.

She [Mammy:] was first and foremost asexual and consequently she had to be
fat (preferably obese); she also had to give the impression of not being clean
so she was the wearer of a great dirty headrag; her too tight shoes from which
emerged her large feet were further confirmation of her bestial cow-like quality.
Her greatest virtue of course was her love for white folk whom she willingly and
passively served (Bell Hooks, Aint't I A Woman? 1981, p. 84)

Mammy was the ultimate in racist, sexist mythology and prefigured the 1930s myth of Aunt Jemima; appearing in such films as Gone with the Wind.

White actress, Mae West, was the sensation of 1933. That is until the Production Code shut her down. “Her voice radiated irony, her eyes sized up potential lovers as though they were sides of beef, and her hips mesmerized a nation” (Andrew Bergman, We’re In the Money: Depression America and its Films. 1971; p56).

If anything West was a parody of the fallen woman. She preferred dating wealthy men and draped her body with diamonds and furs she brought with their money. Yet despite the fact that West was a gold digger she was in control -- of her body and her finances: she could not be manipulated, refused to be solemn about her body and made it clear she liked her pleasures and like her freedom (Bergman, 1971). And her lighthearted attitude about sex reduced it social consequences to so much rubbish. When Cary Grant asks Mae: "Haven't you ever met a man who could make you happy?" her answer was liberating: "Sure. Lots of times." (Bergman, 1971; p.56).

Valjeanne Jeffers Copyright 1997, 2009 all rights reserved.
Published in PurpleMag #7
www.purplemag.com
Now I wrote the Story of Eve several years ago. But there are several fairly recent films I can think of where a feminist woman (feminist is the sense of "doing her own thing," "going her own way") comes to sorrowful end; for example The X Men