Pinky and Imitation of Life

I saw the same version of Imitation of Life when I was thirteen or fourteen. I remember watching it with my mom, it was on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) or something like that. I started watching at the part when they are moving into their new house, so when I finally saw Sara Jane and began to understand that she had “problems”, I assumed that the source of these problems had been addressed at the beginning of the movie, the part that I missed. However, after seeing the movie in its entirety, I now realize that Sara Jane was just pissed off. Yes, she was annoying and her self-hatred was completely offensive to me but I understood Sara Jane’s anger. I think that, for many of us, her intense feelings towards herself and her mother and her subsequent passing, were a little off putting. But when I really took the time to try to think about what it would be like to be black during that time (I didn’t have to think too hard), I realized that Sara Jane had probably witnessed her mother being treated like a second-class citizen her entire life. Sara Jane had probably also seen the way white people changed the way they treated her as soon as they found out she was black. I don’t think that we can expect a person like Sara Jane not to be confused and angry. And then when we think about Annie, I’m not totally convinced that she didn’t want her daughter to pass. She did die of “a brokenheart” but I think that she was just upset that Sara Jane had to leave her or wanted to leave her in order to pass. Just like Rena’s mother in House Behind the Cedars, I think Annie was “proud” of her daughters appearance and actually coveted it, which is why she was so attached Sara Jane (in the beginning she tells Laura that she never took jobs that wouldn’t allow her to bring her daughter).

And then there’s Pinky. A heartwarming tale that encourages African Americans of a higher complexion to stay within their communities and do well for their race. Whatever. Pinky is just as angry as Sara Jane but she’s smarter, because she doesn’t misdirect her anger. Its hard to compare these two movies because they deal with two different aspects passing: Imitation of Life is concerned with the effects of passing, not only on the individual, but also their family and the people they leave behind. And Pinky deals with an individual that has passed, come back, and is trying to decide whether or not passing is really worth it. But one thing that both movies have in common is that they present us with a depiction of Black people ( who don’t or can’t pass) that do not condone passing and are actually vehemently opposed to it (not so much Imitation of Life, but let’s just say that Annie wasn’t “ok” with it).

Unnecessary Admissions?

I thought it was interesting how Pinky chose not to strategically pass for white at times when it would have made the present situation far easier. Toward the beginning of the movie when Pinky goes for a walk and is followed by two leering, drunk white men in a car the, they ask her why she is walking in the “nigger neighborhood” at such an hour and she replies with out hesitation that she lives there, thus revealing that she is black. Of course it is admirable that she does not hide her blackness but at the same time it seems foolish to tell these men who clearly have bad intentions that she is black. There is another instance when Pinky gets into a fight with Jake and his wife and then admits to the police who are ready to haul away the noticeably black other two that she is also colored. It is true that it would not have been right to let Jake and his wife go to jail but it would have been easy and very tempting considering Jake was trying to swindle her out of money and his wife was violently accosting her. Pinky differs so much from Irene in Nella Larsen’s Passing who does not hesitate to allow her light complexion entry to white privaledge.

Pinky

When Pinky returns from the north after graduatnig from nursing school, she returns to her grandmother’s house. A sound that I noticed was the sound of the train whistle. At first I thought it was a the train passing that I heard a million times inside my room ( I was thinking “huh, these are some great speakers that I have” lol), but then i got up and moved closer to the tv and realized it was coming from the movie (there was even a point when the train sound was come from the movie and in from my widow at the same time and I felt crazy lol). The  train whistle to me signified when Pinky was crossing a border. This sound is heard when she first enters her grandmother yard, and Aunt Dicey thinks that Pinky is a random white person untils she realizes that it is her granddaughter. Later we realize that Pinky has been passing for white up North and her grandmother is upset by this act and tells her to pray to God for forgiveness and to never speak of it again.

The train whistle is heard many more times throughout the movie and although they do not occur at the same time, Pinky passes unknowingly for white three times in the movie. The first time is when she goes to get her grandmothers money and a black woman wants to cut her because she thinks she is tryign to steal her man and take her money. the police officers automatically assume that the two black people are guilty and that Pinky was molested in some way because they thought she was white. As soon as Pinky informs them that she is black she is automatically roughed up and taken down to the station. The other times is when she takes a walk at night and two white men assumes that she is white and tells her she shuldnt be walking in a black neighborhood. when she tells them that she lives there they realize she is black and begin to chase her and we can assume they wanted to rape her. She seen as a sexual object for these men and fetishized because she is black. The last time is when she goes to buy a veil for Miss Em’s funeral and the storekeeper waits on her because she thinks she is white. When they realize that she is white, the price goes from $2.95 to $4.95 only on the basis that she is black. In all of these instances Pinky crosses borders. In their minds she is white, until they realize she is black and she crosses back over into the black race and is treated unjustly as such.

I think that it is admirable that Piny does not deny her black heritage, but instead she reclaims and embraces it. The end of the movie was very predictable from the point her grandmother suggests that she stay to practice nursing in their town and when the black physician Dr. Canady asks her to train some black students for nursing. It is even  more obvious when she inherits Miss Em’s estate she decides to take it to court to fight for what she believed in. White and black people alike tell her that she should give up becuase no black person inherits land from a white person nor wins a case against a white person. Pinky howevers believes that she should get what is rightfully hers and ultimately wins her case, a huge accomplishment for the black race. Pinky opens Miss Em’s Clinic and Nursery School staffed by black women (yay!).

Pinky also stands up for what she believes in when she refuses to move to Denver with Tom to pass for a white woman. If she did that she points out that she would not be herself and she wants to be a black woman.