Watermelon Man - Film Still

Throughout much of the first half of the film, Watermelon Man’s main character, Jeff Gerber, struggles to deal with his new transformation from white to black. Two scenes are of particular importance, as they demonstrate Gerber’s attempts to change his skin back to its white color and draw from the histories of skin bleaching/whitening as well as the social ideal of whiteness as the standard of beauty. In the first scene, Gerber sits in his bathroom with his face covered in a sort of white plaster mold, which he keeps on for a whole night. The next day, his wife comes in to help him take off the mask and see what effect it has made. His wife reluctantly tells him that nothing has changed, that he is still “dark white”, which sends Gerber into a frenzy. He runs through the house screaming, “I’m black! I’m black! I’m a nigger! …I want my whiteness back!” To calm him down, his wife splashes a carton of milk into Gerber’s face. “Oh, milk,” he says, “Oh, cleanse me, oh great milk. Oh, clean me, great milk. Make me free again.” 

 Later, the film shows Gerber sitting in his bathtub, which he has filled with milk. As his wife enters to check on him, he mockingly quotes voodoo chants from the book he has brought with him, Voodoo Without Killin Chickens. Gerber chants, “Ooga booga doo. I’m getting whiter and whiter.” This scene marks Gerber’s final attempt to change his skin before the story’s turning point. 

 While these scenes can easily be read by audiences as solely comedic entertainment, both draw from painful histories in black culture that in the end make for a bold social critique. Gerber’s attempts to whiten his skin reflect the histories of skin bleaching and whitening—in this case, particular to African-American communities. The history of racial discrimination, persecution, and segregation experienced by the black community exemplifies the power of white supremacy in relation to how these oppressive forces affected how blacks began to see themselves; this history directly correlates to the origins of skin whitening within the African-American culture. In her essay on global white supremacy and skin bleaching, Dr. Yaba Blay writes, “Within the context of global white supremacy, skin color communicates one’s position to and within the dominant power structure” (“Skin Bleaching and Whitening” 3).  As white culture has historically been the dominant culture, blacks have used skin bleaching as a way to “approximate the white ideal and consequently gain access to both the humanity and social status historically reserved for whites” (5). The “humanity” aspect of this context is especially important in reading this scene. Historically, whiteness has been portrayed as the link to humanity, what grants one the privilege of being human. Moreover, blackness has been portrayed as the polar opposite, as blackness signifies deviance and otherness. Gerber’s desperate attempts to whiten his skin further this notion to paint blackness not only as other, but as evil. As he begs for his milk bath to “cleanse” him from his blackness, and performs voodoo spells to hurry the process, Gerber’s effort to restore his skin highlights the social ideal of whiteness as the standard of beauty, of purity, and of humanity. 

 Melvin Van Peebles’s decision to present his main character as a black man in whiteface allows these scenes in Watermelon Man to go beyond a simple allusion to the histories of white supremacy and skin bleaching. Representations of black in films during the early 20th century many times featured white actors depicting black characters while dressed in blackface. This performance had been practiced long before the introduction of film, and heightened in popularity in film’s early stages. Given the prevalence of whiteface, Van Peebles’s directorial decision to mask his main character in whiteface was groundbreaking in its deviance and innovation. This choice in performance and presentation drastically negated the racist Hollywood-promoted performances of the past and simultaneously criticized the social norm that casts blacks as other. In this way, whiteface furthers the social commentary presented in Jeff Gerber’s skin bleaching performance by challenging and critiquing the socially normative ideal of whiteness.   

Blay, Yaba A., Ph.D. "Skin Bleaching and White Supremacy." The Journal of Pan African Studies 4.4 (2011): n. pag. JPanAfrican.com. JPAS. Web. 2 May 2015.