I Passed for White

I Passed for White

I Passed for White is a low-budget Hollywood film based on the 1955 novel, I Passed For White, by Reba Lee “as told by” Mary Hastings Bradley. The 1960 film follows the fair-skinned Bernice Lee, played by Sonya Wilde. Unhappy with how people treat her once they find out she is a black, Lee moves to New York and lives as a white woman under the false name Lila Brownell. She marries a white man from a wealthy family without telling him that she is not white. The only people who know her true background are her friend and eventually her black maid. When Lila gets pregnant, she fears that the baby will have black features, which will reveal the lies she has been telling her husband and his family. The main conflict of the film comes when she gives birth to a stillborn child and accidentally blurts out “but the baby, is it black?” in front of her husband. He subsequently accuses her of sleeping with a black man. Lila denies this accusation but does not tell her husband the truth about her identity. At the end of the film, she returns home to her family.

I Passed for White sparked controversy because Sonya Wilde, a white woman, played the role of the fair-skinned black Bernice Lee. This choice angered many black Americans, especially in Hollywood, who wanted a black actress to portray Bernice. The Hollywood studio chose not to cast a black woman partly because many studios feared that white Americans would not want to see an on-screen relationship between a real black woman and white man. To avoid controversy, they cast a white actress instead of a fair-skinned black actress (BlackClassicMovies.com). Sonya Wilde’s whiteness, and the flexibility afforded to the film because of it, is apparent in the promotional materials for the film as well.

The newspaper advertisement above allows a critique of how passing is presented in the film. The advertisement shows three images of Wilde. The largest is a close-up in which only her face is visible. The second image shows Wilde with James Franciscus as her husband, Rick Leyton. The third and smallest image shows Wilde dancing with Franciscus as she faces away from the viewer. In the largest image, Wilde looks to the side with a preoccupied expression. Her features are cast in shadows, creating an air of mystery and mystique. The words of the film title, “I Passed for White,” stretch across her forehead and rest above the shadowed portion of Wilde’s face. She directs her gaze in the opposite direction of the words, creating an appearance of deceitfulness. This image appeals to a white audience who would view passing as a deviant act. On the other hand, Bernice’s black grandmother believes Bernice is committing a crime against herself by not expressing her true identity.

The advertisement appeals to white fears about passing. Following Wilde’s gaze, the text “Can I pass for white? …the mirror says ‘yes!’ What man knows the color of love?” appears in the upper left corner of the advertisement. This text more accurately reflects the passive way Bernice initially accepts the perception of her skin color. The mirror represents an internal, self-reflective conflict about her racial identity rather than “society” or “her husband” saying yes. The importance of Sonya Wilde’s whiteness becomes most obvious in the image below this text. In this image, Wilde lays suggestively on top of Franciscus with her back arched and hands clasped behind his head. The outline of her breasts, covered by her white dress, appears prominently against the darkness of Franciscus’ suit. Franciscus has his arms wrapped around Wilde, whose legs curl behind her as she gazes into Franciscus’ eyes. I Passed for White was released in 1964 during the Jim Crow era, and the image would not have been created or circulated if the actress were black or even appeared black. Only Wilde’s whiteness makes this image possible. The passing discourse agitates categorization of the visible body, and it challenges the meaning of race and racial belonging. However, it also challenges the possibility of accurate representation (Rooney). Nothing about the two images in which the viewer can see Wilde’s face suggests blackness. Not only does Wilde’s casting as Bernice/Lila take away opportunities for black actresses, but her representation makes blackness invisible from the advertisements in order to appeal to a white audience.

BlackClassicMovies.com,. 'I Passed For White Movie'. Blackclassicmovies.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 5 May 2015.

Robinson, Amy. “It Takes One to Know One: Passing and Communities of Common Interest.” Critical Inquiry (1994): 715–736. Print.

Rooney, Monique. “Grave Endings: The Representation of Passing.” Australian Humanities Review (2001): n. pag. Web.

Nerad, Julie, ed. Passing Interest: Racial Passing in US Novels, Memoirs, Television, and Film, 1990-2010. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014. Print. SUNY Series in Multiethnic Literature.