Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 83

Miss Em’s Voyeuristic Gaze of P in k y

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Regardless of the position one assumes, the striking parallelism in the charac
ters suggests the possibility that the two represent a merging of the self and Other,
which is particularly apparent in the bitterness they both express. Pinky, of course,
is bitter because she is mixed and thus is denied access and privilege to a life that
only whiteness affords. Forced to end her relationship with her white male lover,
she must accept her blackness and live for others, as opposed to living for herself.
This takes place as she complies with her grandmother’s wishes, remaining in the
South and opening a nursing school for African Americans. By so doing, she ac
cepts the marginalized status associated with being black. In her state of black
ness, at one point in the film she finds herself falsely accused of assault and is
carried off to jail. Such an incident, while not explicitly labeling blackness itself as
negative, nonetheless points up the negative connotations infused in blackness
rendering blackness as something from which she seeks to escape or flee.
Pinky’s perceived bitterness, as constructed by the film, evokes sympathy from
spectators and renders her a melodramatic and tragic character. In contrast. Miss
Em’s bitterness, evident in her harsh tone and fatalistic attitude, evokes a lack of
sympathy. Miss Em issues endless commands to Pinky in a tone suggesting that
their very utterance is exhausting of her time and intelligence, and when Pinky
assumes a defensive posture and responds to Miss Em’s callousness. Miss Em
simply reminds Pinky, “Don't be upset. I’ll be dead soon.’’ This call-up of the
death-image has multiple implications. First, Miss Em’s fatalistic attitude serves
to displace Pinky’s bitterness. Second, it reflects Miss Em’s despair and resent
ment at nearing life’s end. More deeply, however, it reflects on the transformation
of the two characters. Finally, it reflects on Pinky herself, who, because of her
mulatto status, becomes a signifier of death, as she must escape whiteness, specifi
cally, the two white males who attempt to assault her as she flees through a cem
etery (ironically, the home to the dead). The death of the self is inextricably inter
woven with the death of the Other. And because of the mulatto’s unique subject
position, the character lends itself to death and therefore, melodrama.
The two women’s bitterness, possessed and internalized, emerges in their con
versations. When Pinky asserts that she deserves respect, Miss Em responds that
Pinky does not deserve respect if she remains oblivious to and in denial of her
identity. This is another unsubtle attempt to re-invoke Miss Em’s own identity
struggles. Pinky then resorts to attacking whites, exposing their idiosyncrasies with
respect to race and accusing them of setting racial standards that devalue blacks
and reduce them to parodic constructions. As Pinky attempts to construct a white
Other by playing upon the loosely held beliefs of white designs to marginalize
blacks, she forces Miss Em to come to terms with her own racial beliefs — beliefs
Miss Em wants to escape, but that may be at the core of Miss Em's bitterness. Miss
Em, of course, displaces her bitterness back onto Pinky rather than acknowledging