Jezebel stereotype essay

Black Jezebels in American Cinema. Grier, for example, in Coffy (Papazian & Hill, 1973) and Foxy Brown (Feitshans & Hill, 1974) goes undercover as a "whore" to get revenge on whites who have victimized her loved ones. In The Big Bird Cage (Santiago, Shaffer & Hill, 1972), Carol Speed plays a spunky black hooker inmate.

K. Sue Jewell (1993), a contemporary sociologist, conceptualized the Jezebel as a tragic mulatto - "thin lips, long straight hair, slender nose, thin figure and fair complexion" (p. 46). This conceptualization is too narrow.

Additionally, representations of females in the film contributed to the “jezebel” stereotype, which eventually became the ‘standard’ for black women (Pilgrim, 2012). Modern filmmakers must be cautious not to make similar errors in challenging stereotypes, as the goal is not to legitimize stereotypes but disband them.

Jezebel in the 20th Century The portrayal of black women as Jezebel whores began in slavery, extended through the Jim Crow period, and continues today. Although the Mammy caricature was the dominant popular cultural image of black women from slavery to the 1950s, the depiction of black women as Jezebels was common in American material culture.