Dorothy+Dandridge

Smith

toc The artist I have chosen to showcase is Dorothy Dandridge for her role in the film __Carmen Jones.__ I have decided to utilize Dorothy Dandridge for many diverse reasons. Foremost, I would like to express her role as a dynamic African-American beauty icon. As previously discussed in the meta installation, it is not a secret that aside from her acting prowess, the success of Dandridge was heavily based on her crossover looks which reflected hegemonic ideals of Eurocentricity on the African-American female contemporary beauty (Lena Horne and Eartha Kitt). Secondly I would like to explore the political contexts within this film that revolved the Civil Rights Movement, like Dandridge, other stars involved in Carmen Jones such as actors Diahann Carroll and Harry Belafonte along with the director Otto Preminger had strong political (left) stances. Lastly, I would like to explain how her role and the film in general is cogent to the state of Black Hollywood today. For example, like then there a few Black crossover actresses and those few embody stereotypes (albeit looks or the roles they obtain).

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Contemporary Black Hollywood


In the film it is important to note the linguistic nature of the songs are changed to appeal to an African-American audience, in regard to singing, I also recognized found out that the voices of Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte (two talented singers) were dubbed over. It is also surmised that the environment seems to be southern, rural and on a segregated military base (post-integration however) which is probably not the most accurate environment for Black society. However, since the environmental context is being examined with a 2010 perspective, it must be mentioned that the film itself was very progressive for its time.