The Watermelon Woman (1996)

Camille Paglia: Camille Page

Quotes 

• Camille Page : The watermelon, seems to me, another image that has been misinterpreted by a lot of black commentary. The great extended family, Italian get togethers that I remember as a child, ended with the men bringing out a watermelon and ritualistically cutting it and distributing the pieces to everyone. Almost like the commune service. And I really dislike this kind of reductionism of a picture like, say, of a small black boy with a watermelon, him smiling broadly over it. Looking at that as negative. Why is that not instead a symbol of joy and pleasure and fruitfulness? And, after all, a piece of watermelon has the colors of the Italian flag: red or white or green. So, I'm biased to that extent. But, I think that some - if the watermelon symbolizes African-American culture, rightly so, because look what white middle class feminism stands for: anorexia and bulimia.

• Camille Page : The idea of any kind of inter racial relationship, at this time, it's mind boggling. Because, we can see as decades after World War II in "Look" - "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", you can see how charged the question of any sort of inter racial relationship was.

• Camille Page : Well, actually the Mammy figure is a great favorite of mine, particularly Hattie McDaniels brilliant performance in "Gone With The Wind". I really am distressed with a lot of the tone of recent African-American scholarship. It tries to say about the Mammy that her large figure is desexualizing, degrading, dehumanizing. And this seems to me, so utterly wrong. Where the large woman is a symbol of abundance and fertility - is a kind of goddess figure. Even the presence of the Mammy in the kitchen, seems to me, has been misinterpreted. Oh, the woman in the kitchen is a slave, a servant, a subordinate. Well, my Grandmothers, my Italian Grandmothers, never left the kitchen. In fact, this is why I dedicate my first book to them. And Hattie McDaniel in "Gone With The Wind" is a spitting image of my Grandmother, in her style, her attitude, her veracity, and so on. It brings tears to my eyes.