Lizdst’s Weblog

Ange-Marie Hancock constantly defines what it means for one to carry a “public identity” in her book, The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen. She describes this term to be a preconceived notion(s) of a person or group of people (more specifically the African American female welfare recipient) from the viewpoint of society. However, Hancock also clarifies that the idea of public identity goes beyond stereotypes because when a group of people is thought to have developed a public identity, they have been generalized beyond the point that the public is conscious of. Public identity is more than just stereotyping, but an institutionalized concept in which the target group is unable to escape. This idea is manifested in two particular films, “Bush Mama” and “Dreamgirls.” I found it interesting that while these films were created by different writers and producers and created at two different times (the 1970’s and the 2000’s) it is not difficult to find a correlation between the main characters in these films.

The public identity of the welfare recipient has a few distinct characteristics: African American, female, single mother, poor, and uneducated/unskilled therefore limiting their employment opportunities, if they work at all. Effie, one of the main characters in Dreamgirls, and Dorothy, the welfare mother in Bush Mama both share these characteristics. However, although Effie and Dorothy are so similar, they also embody the public identity of both the welfare queen and the black woman in two completely different manners. The Bush Mama character, Dorothy is in some aspects portrayed as a jezebel. Dorothy illustrates this figure because she is a single mother who is dependent on male companionship, which is lacking at the time. Furthermore, Dorothy is portrayed as a neglectful mother because she is constantly away from her home and her daughter. In fact, she has her daughter taken by social services as a result of her getting pregnant again, which illustrates an image of hyper sexuality and hyper fertility, both characteristics of the jezebel. However, Dorothy does work daily in the film and therefore is not portrayed as completely lazy and unemployed as many jezebel figures are.

     On the other hand, Effie, the group member who was rejected in the film Dreamgirls, portrays more of an “overly aggressive black woman” or mammy stereotype within her role. Like Dorothy, Effie is reduced into a poor, unemployed single mother who must resort to welfare to support herself and her daughter. However, Effie’s role differs simply because of her strong, overtly aggressive and sometimes stubborn attitude. She carries the attitude that states, “I don’t need anybody but myself to succeed” which re-enforces the image of the mammy. Furthermore, Effie is dropped into the mammy role due to Deena, the light-skinned, thinner, character played by Beyonce. Because of Deena’s character, Effie is labeled as ugly because of her more typical African American features and overweight, another characteristic of the mammy character.

     I feel as though both characters were portrayed in stereotypical manners, which reiterated the idea of the public identity of the welfare recipient. Dorothy was a single black mother, waiting on her man to come home from jail, so the can finally live without the burden of financial strife…also known as, the welfare queen. Furthermore, Effie was transformed from a talented, rising star to a poor, single mother who was tragically the cause of the demise of her success. In other words, if Effie hadn’t been so strong willed and stuck on her principles, she would have succeeded…although different from Dorothy, Effie is also the welfare queen. Although these images are not unrealistic, they are all too often displayed as African American women. Unfortunately, the images displayed in these films are not merely stereotypes of welfare recipients; they are images that have been internalized by society as well as the individual group they target…thus, the public identity of the welfare queen lives on.