Maureen Peal & Imitation of Life :: John M. Stahl, Film, Movie

Imitation of Life is about Peola Johnson, light skined colored girl who tries to go through life as a light person. To achieve this she ostracises her family. She breaks all ties with her black mother and her culture and tries to fit into this friendship in which she really has no place. Its because of you, you made me black I wont be blackThe problems Maureen Peal and Peola Johnsson sh ar are as serious as the ones the young blck girls have in the bluest yes. According to Sandy Flit stipulationan-LewisIn to each one films representation of the transgressive woman-the black lady friend who looks white, and who, because of the contradiction betwixt being and likely which defines her, can fit comfortably into neither culture-there is a correspondence amongst feminine sexuality and alterity which results in a sexualization of the radical otherness of the black woman. (44) This is implemental to the development of Pecolas charater. This is also instrumental to the fate she meets in the end. Pecola and Peola are similar, not in their looks but in their situations. Pecola does also live between two worlds like Peola but in a different manner. Peolass problems are serious and the implictions are serious and extensive. According to Flitterman-Lewis, the mere term mulato brings up miscegenation, and theerfore leads people to think of forbidden sexual relations and the insufferable mixing of races Flitterman-Lewis 46).Pauline is so immersed into images projected by the screen that her daughter is named after Peola. Nevermind that mother nor daughter is mulatto like Peola.Nornally a mother would not want her daughter to be in such situations yet Pauline names her daughter Pecola and embraces the beauty ideals and Maureens mother embraces the film. Maybe in someway she felt a kinship with Pecola because she would understand her position. SourcesBlumler, J G & Elihu, K (1974) - Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research Vol.3, The Uses of Mass Communication flo w rate perspectives on gratifications research. CASageChristian, Barbara. Black Women Novelists The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976.