The Watermelon Woman Looks at the Complexities of the Past in a Fascinating Manner

Headlines were made this summer when it was revealed that Rocketman would be the first major Hollywood production to feature an on-screen sex scene between two men. It was astonishing to imagine that high-profile American cinema had been produced for over a century and never, not even once, had such a scene transpired, but so is the sad state of LGBTQA+ representation in American cinema. Heck, it's not just films from major American movie studios that suffer from this problem, the indie American cinema took ages for proper representation even when it comes to individuals behind the camera. Just look at how it took until 1996s The Watermelon Woman for American cinema, indie or otherwise, to see its first film directed by a black Lesbian, in this case acclaimed director Cheryl Dunye.


Dunye also stars in The Watermelon Woman as a version of herself spending her days working at a video store and working on a documentary covering a golden age movie star that has captured her imagination. Who is this movie star? Well, it's a fictitious black actress only credited in her works as The Watermelon Woman. This figures distinctively forceful performances have captured the imagination of Dunye and she sets out to use a documentary to find out more about this performer. All the while, Cheryl Dunye also strikes up a romantic relationship with Diana (Guinevere Turner), a development that earns the disapproval of her best friend, Tamara (Valarie Walker).

It's fascinating how fast-and-loose Watermelon Woman plays with its format of storytelling, it doesn't adhere strictly to just one style of filmmaking, rather, it alternates based on what works best for its story. Sometimes, the movie is told through the perspective of being a mockumentary that Cheryl Dinye is simultaneously directing and interviewing people for while other segments, like scenes set at Cheryl and Tamara's workplace, are filmed like a traditional narrative comedy film. Alternating between these two formats allows for a sense of visual variety in The Watermelon Woman that gives it a far more distinct personality than many traditional far more expensive 1990s Hollywood comedies.

Also lending the proceeding a unique perspective is hinging so much of the story on Cheryl Dunye's fixation on the rare figure of classic cinema that she can identify directly with. In one of the most fascinating parts of Dunye's script, The Watermelon Woman's protagonist eventually finds out that the classic actor (whose name was Fae Edwards) she's enamored with was also a Lesbian, just like her. The fact that she's able to pinpoint in those classic movies she loves so much exactly like her is an immensely exciting development for Cheryl and for good reason. However, as the story progresses, it turns out the life of Fae Edwards was a touch more complex than Cheryl initially thought.

The Watermelon Woman already works exceedingly well when it's functioning as a story about a woman undertaking a quest to uncover the truth about a figure from the past she identifies with, especially since it's rife with humorous sequences like an extended trip to a museum that sees Cheryl struggling to film historical documents without getting caught. But Dunye's script takes an already entertaining film and wraps it up in another fascinating layer of depth by turning it into a story about the importance of coming to terms with and relaying the messier more complex elements of the past. The life of Fae Edwards isn't quite what Cheryl originally thought it was, but that doesn't mean it isn't a life worth chronicling, quite the opposite in fact.

The difficulty with which people have in coming to terms with the reality of the past is reinforced in mockumentary interviews in the feature, such as a film professor admitting "women [filmmakers] are not my specialty", a reflection of how supposed experts on an artform can minimize the accomplishments of women in that realm. Similarly, a cringe-inducing segment in which a white woman excuses racist elements of classic films by invoking her Italian heritage similarly reinforces how difficult it can be to look at the past and those who inhabited it as they actually were. The Watermelon Woman, as a film, on the other hand, has no trouble looking at the past with opened eyes and it's one of this insightful and humorous features absolute best traits.