Demirtaş 1

Zehra Demirtaş

Res. Assist. Ezgi İlimen

AKE 108 (02) Research Techniques

28 April 2022

Final Paper

An Overview of The History of The Mammy and The Sapphire Stereotypes On-Screen and Its

Evolution as Strong Black Women in Contemporary Media

Throughout their history, African Americans, regardless of their gender, have become

the targets of negative stereotypes onscreen. These derogatory images date all the way back to

slavery during the colonial era, which causes ill effects on Black people even to this day. In

the nineteenth century, Black people were ridiculed as lazy, slothful, listless, irrational people

in the minstrel shows by white people in blackface (Pilgrim “The Coon”). The Minstrel shows

were acted out as a humiliation device of black descent which included acts, plays, skits,

dancing, and musical shows (Terry 3). In 1991, a black feminist scholar named Patricia Hill

Collins coined the term “controlling image” to define the oppressive, sexist, and unjust

depictions of African American women. These controlling images were used to justify slavery

and to manipulate people by putting them into a one-dimensional mythical box.

Especially in the 1950s, White women were the definition of “true womanhood” by

being pious, pure, fragile, chaste, and domestic, while Black women were forced to carry

many stereotypical negative character traits. She was portrayed as “the mammy” who is an

old, strong lady with dark skin and obesity devoted to serving her white family. Her tender,

loving, nurturing nature made her a perfect obedient served who even put the white family’s

needs before herself and her family. This stereotypical portrayal is used as a justification for
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hindering the role of black women in various jobs and limiting them only to domestic jobs.

“The Sapphire” is loud, aggressive, stubborn, and malevolent. She is sassy, domineering,

abusive to her husband and children as well as unfit for traditional feminine duties. This

portrayal was used as a control device for black women to keep them to be calmer and more

servile against the upheavals of racial discrimination. This depiction was used as a

justification by slave masters who sexually assaulted black women branding them as naturally

sexually desired beings.

These historical stereotypes evolved into more contemporary ones, such as “Strong

black women”, or “Black best Friend”. Nowadays, many creators have reclaimed and changed

these negative stereotypes and created more grounded and realistic portrayals of black people.

The depiction of black people is expanding in narrative and their story is not just about

stereotypical black stories such as civil rights movies where black people fought against the

white people or other classical portrayals. More and more TV shows and movies depict black

characters whose stories are not about their skin color but are about their lives as human

beings. In this paper, I examine the history of the depiction of stereotypical black women’s

roles such as “Mammy” and “Sapphire” in mainstream media and the evolution of these

stereotypes as well as evaluate their negative impact on society’s perception of black women.

Among the many stereotypes of black women, Mammy is one of the most popular and

well-known depictions of African American women. She is the nurturing, lovely mother and

helper in the white family. Even though she is a slave in the house, she is content with her life

and her servitude. During the antebellum south, there were African American women slaves

who cooked, cleaned and took care of the children. After the Civil War, the South could not

let go of slavery, so this stereotype was created (Kayembe). During this time, many black

women had to work in white people’s houses as servants, but the mistreatment they endured

and the harsh reality of these workers did not gain a voice in the media because of the
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mammy caricature. The desexualization of black women concealed the sexual abuse of slaves

by their white masters. In her review, Ellen E. Jones explains that “The US was so desperate

to be absolved of the crimes of slavery, that such an absolver — maternal, asexual, ever-loyal

and Black — had to be invented.” Later in the Jim Crow era, these women were described in

the media as Mammy, old-wise ladies, who always look after their masters’ needs at the

expense of their own. Even though Mammy was depicted as dark-skinned, overweight,

unattractive, and mainly desexualized, in reality, the African American workers were selected

as mainly thin and light-skinned (Pilgrim “The Mammy”). They had a really poor diet and

low expectancies of life and looked nothing like stereotypical Mammy (Pilgrim “The

Mammy”). They were mainly portrayed as smiling, joyous, loyal workers to veil the

hardships of these women (Harris-Perry 77). According to Collins the mammy image was

“Created to justify the economic exploitation of house slaves and sustained to explain black

women’s long-standing restriction to domestic service, the mammy image represents the

normative yardstick used to evaluate all black women’s behavior” (80). Therefore, this

fictitious portrayal of African American servants has no place in American history.

In 1915, D.W. Griffith made a movie called The Birth of a Nation, which portrays a

black woman who defends her master’s house against the Union soldiers by putting her

master’s protection above her freedom. In 1927, Crosland’s The Jazz Singer marked itself as

the first “talkie” film ending the silent-film era. In the movie, Al Johnson sings the song

called “Mammy” in blackface. Some people suggest that in the song, Robin, the character that

Al Johnson plays, is actually singing to his own mother rather than singing with the aim of

mocking black people (Gioia). But this does not change his contribution to the discriminative

racial depiction of black people.

In 1934, Louise Beavers played Delilah who refuses to take money from her master

whose money came from the pancake mix that Delilah made in Imitation of Life. Even though
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Aunt Delilah’s own recipe made her boss Miss Bae rich, she does not take the twenty percent

interest in the company and rejects the idea of living apart from Miss Bae. When Miss Bae

tells her that she will have her own car and house, Delilah replies anxiously, “My own house?

You gonna send me away, Miss Bea? I can’t live with you? Oh, Honey Chile, please don’t

send me away.” Aunt Delilah turns down the money and the house in order to be with her

white boss. In the movie, the wider potential of Delilah is diminished by the film’s continued

use of visual and metaphorical representation of “Aunt Jemima” (Schudson). She cooks,

cleans, and embodies the role of nurturing black women insisting on taking care of Miss Bae

and Miss Jessie (Miss Bea’s daughter). Meanwhile, her own family starts to fall apart, her

biracial daughter Peola rejects her black heritage and passes to “whiteness” and leaves Delilah

dying from “a broken heart” (Pilgrim, “the Mammy”).

In 1939, Hattie McDaniel became the first black person to win an Oscar by playing a

character named Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Although this award helped African

Americans to be recognized in the film industry, it also contributed to the general

misconception of Black women who looked nothing alike in real life. The film depicts the

salve-owning South as a simple time by glamorizing it and whitewashing the audience by

using the image of a Black woman who is content with her life. In the movie Mammy is

obedient and loyal to her masters, treating Miss Scarlett with kindness and affection. She

plays the smart, old, and wise lady without complaining. She has a maternalistic instinct

toward Miss Scarlet who is basically her master - though it is not mentioned specifically she

is the boss of Mammy, she is the daughter of Mammy’s owner, therefore, becoming her

master-. Even though it is constantly shown that she is clever, she never seems to question her

loyalty to her slave owners. She does not have her own life, love interest, or dreams, she is

only subservient and devoted to Miss Scarlet. Her life was put in second place and it only

revolves around the people who enslaved her.

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Hattie McDaniel played many mammies throughout her career. The show Beulah and

the movie Show Boat both depict a strong, supportive good caretaker who devoted her life to

the improvement of her White Family was acted out by McDaniel (Sewell). When she was

judged for perpetuating negative racial traits by playing the mammy, she said “Why should I

complain about making $7,000 playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making $7 a week actually

being one.” (Brooks)

In 2011, the movie The Help set in the 60s recounts a story of a young white journalist

who tries to tell the story of suffering African-American women. Set during the Civil Rights

Movement, the movie shows the racism of that time lightheartedly. The narrative is not told

by Black women who endured real hardship and great discrimination. Instead, it is told by

their white savior. Along with the “white savior” narrative, the movie also portrays the black

women as mammies’ people who provide emotional support and enlighten white people with

their knowledge. One of the lead actresses Octavia Spencer has played a domestic worker

such as a housemaid, caretaker, or cleaner 21 times according to IMDb. She even won an

Academy Award with her character in The Help just like Hattie McDaniel.

Today the Mammy’s supportive and caring side shows itself in the trope of “Black

Best Friends”. Loise from Sex and the City plays a true supportive role to Carrie, and Buddy

from Free Guy gives advice and moral support to the main white character Guy. There are

many examples of token black best friend who is only there to support the white main

character. The movies like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Devil Wears Prada,

and Tall Girl contain Black characters who selflessly provide emotional support for the main

White character perpetuating the idea that Black people but especially women must always

gratuitously endorse and assist their white friends above their own life and obstacles.

The reflections of the mammy stereotype can also be found in the media as “Strong

Black Woman”. The movie The Color Purple contains the character Celie who is abused by
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both her father and husband prior to her freedom. Even though she suffered from

extraordinary difficulties she is still iron-willed, faithful, and maternal. The movie The

Curious Case of Benjamin Button portrays Queenie a Black woman who runs a business in

the 20s taking care of a white outcast baby with her so-called eternal strength and toughness.

According to The Take “These depictions risk implying that black women do not need

systemic change because they are strong enough to withstand society’s abuse.” (“The Strong

Black Woman Trope, Explained” 09.53-09.57). In reality, there are many stories of Black

women apart from their care and help toward other people, but their own unique stories and

life waiting to be told.

The other negative stereotype is the Sapphire also known as the Angry Black Woman.

She is loud and assertive, always complaining and targeting African-American men. She is

sassy, conceited, brutally honest, and always busy with chores. She was also depicted as

“unfeminine, undesirable, overbearing, bitter and, hell-raising” (Morgan & Bennett).

According to Tyler-Harris, she is the portrayal of “the black bitch” and “the emasculating

matriarch” (128).

The Sapphire caricature reinforces the idea that black women are unfit for society’s

structure of a modern family by having a vicious side and inherent sassiness coming from the

“sassy mammy”. This genre has evolved to black wives and mothers who judge their own

family members, especially men’s actions. Considering these depictions, a black woman who

openly shows her bitter, mean, and irritating side is labeled as a “shrewish Sapphires” (White

8). In her book Ain’t I A Woman, Bell Hooks draws attention to the portrayal of Sapphire in

Perry and Bond’s essay The Black Woman:

Movies and radio shows of the 1930s and 1940s invariably pedaled the Sapphire

image of the black woman: she is depicted as iron-willed, effectual, treacherous

toward, and contemptible of black men, the latter being portrayed as simpering,
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ineffectual whipping boys. Certainly, most of us have encountered domineering Black

females (and white ones too). Many of them have been unlucky in life and love and

seek a bitter haven from their disappointments in fanatical self-sufficiency.

The sapphire caricature was first created on the Amos ‘n’ Andy shows which lasted

between the 1940s and 1950s (West). In the show, the lead characters Amos Jones and Andy

Brown were portrayed as the coon stereotype (Bogle; Turner 119-125). Sapphire Stevens is

portrayed as rude, bossy, and aggressive always mocking her husband’s laziness and

knavishness. According to Morgan & Bennett, this “Angry Black Woman” portrayal comes

with the “No-Good Black Man” stereotype. They argue that both the radio show and tv show,

“Kingfish” promoted the negative pictures of Black men as “lazy, lying, hustling, hounding,

fast-talking, foolish, failing, no-good Black man”. In the show the anger that Sapphire Stevens

delivers only to her con artist husband, not the “generalized anger” to the society in which

today’s black women are known (Pilgrim “The Sapphire”). Her portrayal onscreen as the

“dominant partner” in a relationship side with the weak and irresponsible black male partner

causes the image that Black people have more dysfunctional families than whites.

According to David Pilgrim, Black people were mainly portrayed in all-black cast sit-

coms as stereotypical racial characters to receive laughs. He also argues that “In black-themed

situational comedies when there is a Coon character there is often a Sapphire character to

mock him.” In 1972, Sanford and Son portrayed Aunt Esther who is the sister-in-law of Fred

Anderson. She is a devout Christian and a domineering character always arguing and

criticizing Fred, using phrases like “fish-eyed fool”, “old sucka”, or “beady-eyed heathen”

(Pilgrim “The Sapphire”). Her husband Woodrow is portrayed as a weak alcoholic who is also

controlled and manipulated by Aunt Esther and reinforcing the idea of Sapphire as a

manipulative being.
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Sometimes the use of Sapphire does not need any minimization of male black

characters. In the show The Jeffersons, the maid character Florence Johnson constantly

ridicules George even though he is wealthy, smart, and hardworking. She always talks from

his back and teases him about his bald head and short height thereby playing the role of

Sapphire.

In more recent years the tv-show Empire contains Taraji P. Henson plays a character

who is “loud, hypersexualized and, at times, unnecessarily crude” (Williams). According to

Williams, Henson’s constant representation of the angry Black woman has turned her into “it

girl”. In the movie Acrimony, she also plays Melinda Gayle who is enraged and mentally

unwell. Her mental illness does not receive the care and attention by playing it off as “crazy”.

By labeling her a crazy angry Black woman, the movie ends with Melinda’s burst of anger

and death.

In her article, J. Celeste Wally-Jean suggests that “the “angry black woman”

stereotype arises from this foundation of negative images and the position of subordination of

African American women that seeks to restrain their expression of anger by negatively

labeling it.” In her comic series a Black artist, Bianca Xunise mentions her upbringing

believing that the anger she felt would be recognized as a weakness at that time so instead of

letting it out, she chose to suppress it. With these impossible standards and negative

depictions, African American women feel trapped in their life and avoid validating their

emotions in spite of the inequality they endured.

In her text, Bolon mentions the real angry Black women:

A real angry Black woman is multidimensional, not flat, not easily summarized by a

trope. She's a richly layered, sophisticated, intelligent human being, not a caricature.
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She's entitled to feel and display the full scope of human emotions. And she's entitled

to your respect while she does it.

This stereotype, like the Mammy, also coincides with the Strong Black Women trope.

In her book Sister-Citizen, Melissa Harris-Perry argues the history of this trope was originally

created by Black women in order to avoid the negative Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel

stereotypes (270). She claims that this thinking can be also limiting, writing:

By adopting and reproducing the icon of the strong black woman, African American

women help craft an expectation that they should be autonomously responsible and

self-denying caregivers in their homes and communities. This means that they are

validated, admired, and praised based on how they behave, not on who they are. (271)

Today more and more complex Black woman characters gain voices in media. Tv

shows like Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, and Dear White People are portrayed as

people with layers who are not reduced to one-dimensional stereotypes. HBO show Insecure,

created by Issa Rae portrays an awkward Black character who has many qualifications,

character traits as well as flaws, and insecurities just like a normal person. Hulu’s show Little

Fires Everywhere portrays Mia, a single Black mother, as a complicated person showing the

standards of forceful and resilient Black women portrayals are impossible to live up to.

To sum up, the origins of Black women stereotypes take their roots from the behaviors

of white people during the time of slavery and the Jim Crow era. With its depiction in media,

these women have been tried to be controlled and manipulated into not seeking their rights

and serving as second-rate to the society. However, the Black woman is not just a person who

is angry with the universe (Morgan and Bennett). She is not also a typical happy-sassy

mammy who lives life only to support and satisfy others. She can be sophisticated, caring,

loving as well as morally ambiguous, flawed, and chaotic. They can show weaknesses and
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vulnerability just as they can show emotional strength and determination. They are only

humans struggling in the world just like everybody else.

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