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The Watermelon Woman
1996 film by Cheryl Dunye
The Watermelon Woman
The Watermelon Woman is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film written, directed, and edited by Cheryl Dunye. The first feature film directed by a Black lesbian, it stars Dunye as Cheryl, a young Black lesbian working a day job in a video store while trying to make a film about Fae Richards, a Black actress from the 1930s known for playing the stereotypical "mammy" roles to which Black actresses were relegated during the period. The Watermelon Woman was produced on a budget of $300,000, financed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), as well as a fundraiser, and donations from friends of Dunye. The film was partly inspired by and dedicated to the memory of such Black actresses as Louise Beavers, Hattie McDaniel, and Butterfly McQueen. Fae Richards is a fictional character created by Dunye for the film as both an amalgam of and a stand-in for Black actresses sidelined or forgotten in film history, and as a result of the film's budget being unable to afford archive...
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