“Everyone has a different story to share” 

- Saidiya Hartman

In Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, specifically the chapter A Minor Figure, Hartman says “everyone has a different story to share” and it is in that story where my work lies. Within the pieces of identity that are “different” but in the act of sharing and not sharing, the gaze renders it distorted from its originality due to biases of all kinds. It can be in the sharing that the translation of the gaze shifts and can transform the different “story” into a completely different meaning. This work will be observing specific scenes from the film Imitations of Life through Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, specifically Mulvey’s notion of bearers and makers of meaning. Additional theoretical frameworks such as bell hooks’ The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, Saidiya Hartman’s A Minor Figure, Manning Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, and Patricia Hill Collins’ The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother/Daughter Relationships will be used to support the observation of the characters and their told and untold stories. These theoretical frameworks help discover the answer to three questions that build the foundation of my analysis. Does the gaze truly see? If it does, what happens when one is truly seen? If it doesn't, is the self rendered in a state of being witnessed through societal misperceptions of identity resulting in perpetual invisibility? This writing argues that Sarah Jane and Annie Johnson are witnessed through a gaze that looks at them but does not truly see their identity and story which makes their existence invisible. Sarah Jane and Annie Johnson are invisible to the gaze which sees them based on racial oppressions. 

Imitation of Life directed by Douglas Sirk and released in 1959, shows a wide range of the effects of oppressive societal structures imposed on polarities, Black and White, Mother and Daughter, Female and Male, Poor and Rich. These polarities are positioned within the film in such a way that the spectator's gaze witnesses the opposing gazes within the film. The observer is as much part of the gaze between the characters as the characters looking at their own identities. The spectator observes within and not at the characters, thus living for the duration of the film within the sharing and not sharing of their different stories. The spectator bears witness to the stew of gazes. Douglas Sirk through the camera allows for the observation of the characters unlooking at each other due to the never truly seeing of identity. This dynamic creates a space where the spectator is the only gaze that sees the unseeing in action, allowing the spectator to witness the erection and deconstruction of identity. In this act, the spectator is looking at the translating of identity rather than acknowledging “true” identity. In this space, the only gaze that is closest to observing trueness is the spectator. Even though the spectator is witnessing these gazes, is it not in the witnessing that validates as the spectator still translates their alignment or opposition with the gazes?

 My research looks at Sarah Jane and Annie Johnson, specifically at Sarah Jane’s racial identity and Annie Johnson’s assumed societal positionality to show how the gaze does not see but merely translates societal narratives. As Mikki Kendall writes in Hood Feminism “traumas of the past are woven into the fabric of our coping mechanism,” my work builds upon this notion by declaring the gaze as a translator. (Kendall 97)

The gaze witnesses Annie Johnson through a lens that perpetuates societal misperceptions of the Black woman by rendering her an embodiment of racial stereotypes. Her very first introduction to the film, Annie is assumed by Lora Meredith to be a “mammy” and not the biological mother of Sarah Jane. This notion of the mammy trope is presented throughout the film and touches on racial struggles between the character’s identities. The spectator's gaze is confronted with the looking but not truly seeing of Annie’s identity. The gaze that assumes identity rather than acknowledges identity because of societal ideas regarding Black women that lean toward belittlement, demoralization, or dehumanization. Dr. Hartman poses a brilliant question regarding the identity of a Black child in a photograph while situating racial stereotypes that Black women are subjected to saying “ Who is she? I suppose I could call her Mattie or Kit or Ethel or Mabel. Any of these names would do and would be the kind of name common to a young colored woman at the beginning of the twentieth century. There are other names reserved for the dark: Sugar Plum, Peaches, Pretty Baby, and Little Bit-names imposed on girls like her that hint at the pleasures afforded by intimate acts performed in rented rooms and dimly lit hallways.” (Hartman 14) Like the little Black girl in the photograph that Dr. Hartman is discussing, it is in the act of societally naming and un-naming of an identity that curses Annie Johnson. The spectator bears witness to Lora’s gaze, wielded by societal discriminations, name and unname Annie. The initial gaze fixed Annie as the overly eager non-sexual Black woman that is extremely happy to care for white children, a mammy. In Patricia Hill Collins’ The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother/Daughter Relationships, Collins describes the trope as “The mammy, the faithful, devoted domestic servant. Like one of the family, Mammy conscientiously “mothers” her white children, caring for them and loving them as if they were her own. Mammy is the ideal Black mother for she recognizes her place. She is paid next to nothing and yet cheerfully accepts her inferior status.” (Collins 4) The mammy trope functions around the notion that overly excited Black women consent without commenting on how exploitation is used to racially skew power dynamics that suppress Black women’s labor by paying low wages while prioritizing the high demands required to care for white children. Mikki Kendall argues that racial stereotypes about Black women such as the mammy trope describe “Black women in ways that play up their sexuality and remove their humanity” (Kendall 86) The fact Annie is dehumanized through the act of being exploited for cheap labor is amplified when Lora realizes she never actually knew Annie’s personal affairs other than Sarah Jane. Lora seeing Annie as a service can be also witnessed when Annie is on her deathbed. (1:54:43-1:58:41) Lora looks at Annie and says “You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.” In response to Lora’s demands, Annie takes her last breaths of life and says “I'm just tired, Miss Lora.” In this moment, the Lora’s gaze symbolizes all the historical oppressions that regard Annie as a service that is under the colonial regime. The gaze does not see Annie as a Black woman dying without her child beside her but rather as a service without humanity. Annie’s response to the gaze echoes the tiresome pains that Black enslaved women before her felt. The Black enslaved women who died, like Annie did, tired of never being seen but used.

Drawing to the very first interaction between Lora and Annie, Lora’s gaze sees Annie as this trope when discussing the desire to have a person help her care for her child, Susie. Annie is fully aware of this gaze and uses it to support her efforts in the story that is not told to Lora, the story that Annie is a single mother of a Biracial child and needs work to provide food and shelter. This is the story that Annie carries but is one that she silences in order to survive, as her identity is distorted by the gaze that sees her as a “mammy.” Annie uses that distortion to create a life for her child, a home for her child. In this act of knowing she is not truly seen, Annie responds to Lora by asking if she needs “someone to take care of your little girl? A strong, healthy, settled down woman who eats like a bird and doesn’t care if she gets no time off and will work real cheap?” (3:55-6:37) Annie is deliberately using the gaze that positions her as a carer of white children to survive not only for herself but for her child. 

The gaze that sees Annie as the “mammy” and Sarah Jane as the “mulatto” can be directly tied to slavery during America’s colonial era. With the inclusion of this historical witnessing, Annie and Sarah Jane are the result of the positionality that renders Black women in constant relation to their skin and the service they can provide. Annie was denied the right to be a mother and Sarah Jane was denied a mother. Bell hooks in aint I a woman elaborates on the societal position of Black slave women’s offspring stating, “the offspring of any Black slave woman regardless of the race of her mate would be legally slaves, and therefore the property of the owner whom the female slave belonged” (hooks 16) The legalities surrounding Black enslaved women’s children empowered plantation owners to largely recognize the economic gain of breeding Black enslaved women, as the maternal structure of slavery can be further observed in how Sarah Jane is seen and how she sees. (hooks 16) Sarah Jane is constantly confronted with her mother’s race while there are little to no inquiries regarding her father’s race. This directly situates Sarah Jane within the gaze that focuses on racial biases which are built upon slave narratives that center maternal status. 

The gaze between the spectator watching the characters and the characters interacting with each other is confronted with not only racial misperceptions of the Black woman but also with Black motherhood and Biracialism. Does the gaze see a Black woman as a mother if her child has different colored skin? Or is Black motherhood rendered invisible? Following the same scene discussed earlier, Lora sees Annie as a mammy but is completely shocked when Annie proudly shares that she is Sarah Jane's mother. (3:55-6:37) Lora is left momentarily speechless as Sarah Jane is overall seen as being “whiter” by having lighter skin and straighter hair opposed to Annie who has a darker complexion and is seen as being “black.” Lora is perplexed by the possibility of a Biracial child's existence and to her assumption, due to her racial biases, that Annie was Sarah Jane’s mammy. Building on this idea of Annie being constantly assumed, Annie lives in a state of alway bearing societal meaning. In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey states a woman’s positionality and fundamental status in society as “still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.” (Mulvey 23) Through this lens, Annie is the bearer of the mammy and is unable to make her own meaning even when she declares herself a Black mother to a Biracial child. This declaration can be witnessed as making meaning as she is deliberately declaring Sarah Jane as her daughter but my work argues for an observation beyond. This act can be witnessed as meaning not making new meaning but rather transitioning away from the meaning that Annie bears. Annie will always bear the meaning of the mammy and the assumption Sarah Jane is not her child. She is unable to make a new meaning because society prescribed her the meaning she will always nonconsensually bear. In her declaration, she is not the maker of her meaning but denying what she is forced to bear. 

Mulvey can be directly connected to Sarah Jane’s racial identity and her struggle between how the gaze sees without truly looking at one's true self and how the gaze shifts when one truly sees the meaning they bear. The spectator's gaze sees Sarah Jane as a representative of what bell hooks calls the “ daughter who did not want to be confined by Blackness, that “tragic mulatto” who did not want to be negated.” (hooks 111) Through this perspective, Sarah Jane is witnessed as feeling cursed by her Biracialism because of its proximity to Blackness. Sarah Jane’s identity is structured around location or proximity, as this can be seen in her physical location and societal positionality. Sarah Jane is infatuated with her proximity to her mother’s Blackness and actively attempts to hide her biological mother to advance ranking in her societal position. She is the bearer of how society’s gaze renders her lesser because of her Black biological mother but attempts to make meaning through means of physically running away from her mother, her Blackness. In the act of attempting to make meaning, Sarah Jane is repeatedly confronted with feeling like she has no home and in turn no identity rather than the one prescribed.

Sarah Jane acknowledges her struggle with her racial identity or the societal gaze that looks negatively at that identity when she is playing with Susie on the beach. In this opening scene, she articulates her infatuation with location which is a recurring theme for Sarah Jane throughout her childhood leading her into adulthood. (6:57-7:34) This can be seen when Sarah Jane refers to having no home but it can also be witnessed as Sarah Jane’s sharing her untold story, speaking the words of her identity that struggle to reach the surface. In this moment of sharing her story, Sarah Jane is standing in front of four gazes. Sarah Jane is looking at Susie who is looking back at her. Annie, who is behind Susie, is looking directly at Sarah Jane and Lora is looking at Annie. The spectator is the fourth observer who is watching from behind Sarah Jane, almost watching through Sarah Jane’s eyes. The observer’s gaze is able to see all the micro-gazes that directly confront Sarah Jane’s struggle with her racial identity. First, the spectator’s gaze is drawn to Annie who is looking down on Sarah Jane with a disposition that urges to care for her child but also subtly trying to contain the overflow of discomfort that Sarah Jane has from everyone around. Sarah Jane is boiling over with an internal struggle stating she has “no place.” In a way, Sarah Jane is defining her societal placement as being a part of no binary, no polarity, utterly detached from racial categories because of her Blackness, whiteness, or lack of its pureness. In this moment of sharing her undiluted truth, Lora looks at Annie not Sarah Jane. It is in this gaze that Lora validates Sarah Jane's racial instability. It is in the act of Lora not looking that situates Sarah Jane furthermore in a state of invisibility. As in response to her announcement, Lora looks at Annie with a detached look that urges for a solution that quickly consoles Sarah Jane rather than heals her obvious racial wounds.

The Three Questions that build my Analysis.

• Does the gaze truly see?
  • If it does, what happens when one is truly seen?
  • If it doesn't, is the self rendered in a state of being witnessed through societal misperceptions of identity resulting in perpetual invisibility?

Sarah Jane is convinced that it is her mother’s Blackness and her biological connection to that Blackness that causes her suffering. It is not her Blackness but rather how society’s negative gaze of Blackness which makes her feel lesser because of her association with and being of color. Sarah Jane believes physical proximity to her mother denies her societal advancements which results in Sarah Jane trying multiple times to run away from Annie. This work focuses on two times when Sarah Jane runs away from her mother. The first instance that will be analyzed is her attempt to run away with her boyfriend, Frankie. (1:18:12-1:19:39) Frankie is a white, blonde man who, presumably by Sarah Jane’s comments, desires to work in Jersey. On a night full of optimism, Sarah Jane rushes to meet Frankie in hopes that they will run away together to Jersey. Sarah Jane believed she had hidden her racial proximity to Blackness from his gaze by hiding the fact her mother was black. It was in the act of not seeing her that she was able to navigate to the place she desired to be, to be higher in social ranking than her mother and Blackness. Frankie’s gaze altered her story when he became aware of her “true” identity. His gaze shifted from previously sexualizing her by catcalling and whistling as she walked by to physically slapping her in an alleyway because of her Blackness or lack of pure whiteness. Was it because of her Blackness or that he felt tricked which made him justify his violence? We can get a deeper understanding of why his gaze shifted and validated the strike of his hand against her cheek by observing the act of looking and seeing. It is in the connection between the spectator, Frankie, and Sarah Jane’s gaze that we can get a glimpse into how each of these gazes either did not see Sarah Jane at all or distorted her story into a completely different meaning. 

From first glance, there are three gazes in this scene, Sarah Jane looking at Frankie, Frankie looking at Sarah Jane, the spectator looking at them both. However, there is a fourth gaze, one of the most important gazes in the frame, which is Sarah Jane’s reflection looking back at her through the window. For this analysis, it is in Sarah Jane’s reflection that the gaze and its effects on her identity truly lies. Sarah Jane is being looked at for the first time by Frankie as he boldly stares at Sarah Jane. In this moment, all she can do is smile, hoping that his eagerness will take her far away from her proximity to her mother, her Blackness. Sarah Jane is smiling, performing as a woman who adores the male gaze. The male gaze performs in a similar way to the societal gaze that she is navigating in order to make meaning for herself. In the act of making, Frankie reminds her of the meaning she bears, her Biracialism. This reminder is a violent one, one that rapidly removes the smile from Sarah Jane’s face. This analysis is not about Frankie, it is merely showing how Frankie’s gaze shifted when he “truly” saw Sarah Jane and her attempt to make meaning which resulted in a violent societal consequence. 

Sarah Jane’s smile can be also witnessed as her attempt to placate society, as Frankie in this instance would be metaphorically society. She looks at society with a smile and society looks back at her. In this analysis, society is the focus as Frankie is seen twice and Sarah Jane is only seen as a reflection or a mere afterthought. We can see Frankie’s face and the back of his body as if we are seeing both the looking and unseeing of Sarah Jane. Frankie’s face represents society directly confronting Sarah Jane with her racial identity and connection to Blackness. The back of Frankie’s head represents the looking away and unseeing of Sarah Jane’s “true” identity. Sarah Jane is seen only as a reflection. This can be witnessed as Sarah Jane being denied the right to make her own meaning but rather a mirror of society and how she is seen through that gaze. The reflection represents how Sarah Jane is seen and not how she sees herself, thus distorting her story into a meaning that is acceptable by society. The window is a very powerful presentation of all of these gazes. Sarah Jane's reflection looking back at her could symbolize the very transformation that she had to endure. She is the product of all the gazes looking and unlooking. At that moment, does she see herself or is she distorted? 

During the act of trying to convince Frankie to take her away and sweep her off her feet like a prince charming, she is standing in front of the window with the word “BAR” painted in white. From the angle of the spectators' perspective it actually reads “DAR”. These are two words with very different meanings and the scene or image can be analyzed differently in response. When read as “BAR,” Sarah Jane and Frankie are observed as meeting in the dark of the night next to an establishment where drunk strangers will not recognize or care who they are. Frankie clearly desires to be in a place where no one knows he is fornicating with a Black woman because he flinches when a car drives by during their discussion. Sarah Jane needs a place of privacy to discuss her plans of running away. In this instance both for entirely different reasons, however Frankie for more disturbing reasons that are racist in nature, desires to discuss their business in private. When read as “DAR,” the entire scene and image changes. According to Cambridge dictionary, dar is a Polish word meaning “ a natural power of the body.” (English) With the inclusion of this word, “DAR” confronts the violent altercation that transpires after Sarah Jane’s “true” identity is confronted by Frankie. This can be taken a step forward and seen as Sarah Jane’s struggle with her racial identity and being forced to bear the meaning of having a Black mother in which her positionality is lowered because of racism in American society. In this analysis, Sarah Jane has never had power of her body thus she has never had “DAR.”

The power in Sarah Jane’s reflection can be also observed when she successfully runs away and is forced to reunite with Annie in a motel room. (1:39:40-1:43:59) Sarah Jane feels betrayed and desires not to see Annie. Sarah Jane does not know that Annie has fallen sick and this interaction could be the very last time they speak. This visit is a burden to Sarah Jane but is also Annie’s last wish. This scene and image has four gazes within the frame. The spectator’s gaze looking at Sarah Jane and Annie, Sarah Jane looking at herself, Annie looking at Sarah Jane, and similarly to the image before Sarah Jane’s reflection in the mirror is a key element. Sarah Jane is looking at her attempt to make meaning which she has tried to accomplish her entire life, shouting at her reflection “I am white.” This shout sounds more like a persuasive plea, attempting to persuade society or possibly herself that she is in fact white not Black. She yells her declaration trying to shed the meaning she bears, as Annie’s presence attacks the making of a white identity that Sarah Jane has tried her whole life to achieve. Sarah Jane is looking not at herself but at her “making,” as her reflection is filled with misery as she cries when she realizes she will never fully “make” her meaning but will forever “bear” her Blackness. 

In this moment, Annie is positioned similarly to how Sarah Jane was seen with Frankie, as a mere reflection. Annie now is seen only as the reflection, as the afterthought or in the imaginary. Annie is the reflection and not the subject. This can be witnessed as Sarah Jane’s persistence to erase her mother, her Blackness from her life. It is the act of looking at Annie’s reflection and not facing her that Annie is rendered imagined. This connection to the imaginary can be further examined when Sarah Jane’s friend sees Annie as having been Sarah Jane’s “mammy” growing up. Sarah Jane responds to her friend saying “all my life.” By saying these words, Sarah Jane is displaying the trauma that has been produced by society repeatedly seeing Annie as the “mammy” trope. Annie has had to bear the meaning of being seen as a “mammy” to her biracial child but it was also Sarah Jane who bears that meaning as well. Annie was denied being a mother and subsequently Sarah Jane was denied a mother. For Sarah Jane’s entire life, Annie resided in the imaginary and forced to live within the meaning society enforced. This trauma can be witnessed as Annie lives in the reflection, reflecting back the societal imprint that Sarah Jane actively attempts to erase. 

Furthermore, Sarah Jane is shown twice, part of her face and her entire reflection. Due to the image not showing the back of Sarah Jane’s head, this can be seen as Sarah Jane still holding onto her mother even though she positions herself within society apart. This could be witnessed as Sarah Jane still loving her mother, seeing her mother. In the moments that follow, the looking at her mother can be translated when Sarah Jane says “I love you” followed by a silenced “Momma” which is only mouthed. This shows that Sarah Jane loves her mother but not enough to embrace her societal position if she accepts her mother’s Blackness.

In How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, Marable discusses the intrinsic impact of white aesthetic indoctrination stating, “the aesthetic and popular culture of racist societies constantly reinforce the image of the Anglo-Saxon ideal in the minds of Blacks, creating the tragic and destructive phenomenon of self-hatred and cultural genocide.” (Marable 8) The tragic self-hatred Marable describes can be witnessed within Sarah Jane. As Sarah Jane declares she is white she simultaneously cries.  Sarah Jane is constantly torn apart between society and self resulting in the murdering of Sarah Jane’s happiness. When Annie asks Sarah Jane, if she is happy? Sarah Jane does not respond but merely looks in the mirror and says “I am someone else.” Sarah Jane is fully aware that whiteness is not going to bring her joy and happiness but merely societal advancement under the making of a falsified identity. It is in this response that she is alluding to the act of making but in the moments after this declaration she cries. This is not only the anguish of having to face racism in American society but because she is actively having to kill her racial identity, oppose her biological sleeve, and become white in order to be validated.  

Conclusion

In both of these images and scenes, the spectator's gaze bears witness to the telling and un-telling of stories. The distortion of identities that lies within the relationship between the observers and the observed. The beginning of this analysis began with four questions. Does the gaze truly see? If it does, what happens when one is truly seen? If it doesn't, is the self rendered in a state of being witnessed through societal misperceptions of identity resulting in perpetual invisibility? The answers to these recurring questions can be found within the interactions between characters because the gaze is not looking but rather translating what is being presented. Either it is the spectator translating the societal trauma imposed, how character’s battle their pains, or characters interacting with one another only to translate their own reflections, the gaze never truly sees the identity of the person in front. The gaze does not truly see a person nor does the gaze truly see itself. In the act of not seeing the truth within the identity and unable to make meaning, only able to bear meaning, the self is unseen. The self is rendered invisible to the infinite gazes unlooking at it.
 

It is not the act of being seen by the gaze that is the question that concludes this analysis, the question truly is can we ever truly see identity if we only see through history’s eyes?

Collins, Patricia Hill. The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships. Oxford University Press, 2005.

English–Polish Dictionary - Cambridge Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-polish/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023. 

Hartman, Saidiya Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

hooks, bell. Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Routledge, 2015.

hooks, bell The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators

“Imitation of Life.” Film Comment, 21 Dec. 2015, www.filmcomment.com/blog/sirk-from-the-archives/tumblr_mqedgrovgf1r6q0fko1_1280/. 

Kendall, Mikki. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot. Viking, 2020.

Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society. Haymarket Books, 2018. 

Mulvey, Laura Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Sirk, Douglas Imitation of Life (1959)

Systems, SpaceTime. “Imitation of Life (1959).” Movie, www.movie-mine.com/mm_info.php?%2Fen%2Fimitation_of_life_1959. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.