MovieChat Forums > Ragtime (1981) Discussion > Woman of color?

Woman of color?

posted 18 years ago by Eva1-1
9 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this film for the first time since it premiered in 1981. While I still think it is an awesome film with fantastic performers, I just saw something that struck me as a bit ridiculous. In the scene where Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Howard Rollins) comes up to the house where Sarah (Debbie Allen) is staying, he asks for her by saying to James Olson's character "I'm looking for a woman of color." I believe the setting for this film is supposed to be 1906, the year of the infamous Stanford White murder. I don't think anyone in the United States had ever heard of the term "woman of color," let alone used it to refer to an African-American. I'm sure African-Americans didn't even use it to refer to themselves. I would guess the "nice" terms were "colored" or even "negro" and we all know what the pejoritive was. Why would this term be used in a film that took place in 1906?

As an African-American myself, I am in no way making a racist commentary here. I just think it was a silly and rather cowardly decision on Milos Forman's part (or perhaps on the part of one of the producers or writers) to allow Rollins' character to say "woman of color." Was the studio afraid to use the historically correct term here because it didn't want to be accused of being racist and/or making a polically incorrect word? There was other dialogue in the script that I thought was very offensive to African-Americans but nonetheless accurate for the early 1900's. Was this just a cop-out by the studio execs or what? Remember 1906 wasn't that long after the end of slavery in America. It would seem to me just as ridiculous for Robert Reed's character in "Roots" to refer to Kunta Kinte as "a man of color." If anyone knows why this dialogue decision was made, I'd be very interested to know the answer. I just love films and I hate to see a film where this is an obvious historical inaccuracy in the script or storyline, even if it's not PC.

[–] Brendan3 18 years ago

I don't think it was a cop out. As you mentioned, there's plenty of other offensively racist language in the film that's true to the period. I don't believe it was a "cowardly decision" on the part of the film makers to use the term "woman of color" instead of "negro" or "colored." I imagine the film makers just thought that that was proper dialogue for 1906 and were unaware the term wasn't being used yet. Film makers make historical mistakes. We see it all the time in movies, even well made ones.

[–] cc1001 17 years ago

The following link may shed some light on the issue:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=black&searchmode=none

Scroll down to "negro" and the more pejorative version of the n-word.

[–] wvanderburg 17 years ago

You're missing the point of the character. Coalhouse Walker is probably the only black man who did not see himself as black. His mannerisms, speech, lifestyle, dress, habits all equate the character to being white. Or at least not wanting to be black and seeing himself as just as good as a white man or better.

He also would be aware that to ask for "a white woman" would be something that a black man in the early 20th century would not do openly in public society. Even though he didn't perceive himself as black, he certainly knew that he was.

[–] khemet 17 years ago

Did not perceive himself as Black? What are you talking about? He was a proud Black man who demanded to be treated as an EQUAL to Whites. He played Ragtime piano, something most White musicians could not do.

The truth is spoken here.

[–] wvanderburg 15 years ago

There, my friend, you do not know of what you speak. I am a authority of the subject of Ragtime Piano, something that I have been doing since I was 6 years old. I am also a collector of antique Ragtime sheet music and folios. The most prominent black composers of ragtime were Scott Joplin, James Scott, Scott Hayden, Arthur Marshall, Tom Turpin, and later in the 20th Century, Eubie Blake.

There were, of course, others. But the fact remains, that there were just as many if not more White composers of ragtime. It wasn't an exclusive club. Joseph Lamb for instance, Percy Wenrich, Charles Hunter, May Aufterhide, John Stark's son, (can't remember his name). I probably have over 10,000 dollars of ragtime sheet music from all over the country and it's not evenly split between black and white, not even close.

Oh, by the way, I'm white.

[–] activista 10 years ago

@wvanderburg

Good on your knowledge of the ragtime genre---I've never seen this film, but I should, since I've always liked Scott Joplin's songs---one of the very first jazz tunes I ever learned to play on the piano was "The Entertainer", one of his best-known signature tunes, and the "Maple Leaf Rag"--both favorites of mine.) The point is to remember that even though there were white composers in the genre, It was still the black composers who created it (and often didn't get credit for it, which happened to black composers of any musical genre for most of popular music history.)

[–] sheilalougreene 14 years ago

His mannerisms, speech, lifestyle, dress, habits all equate the character to being white. Or at least not wanting to be black and seeing himself as just as good as a white man or better.

My eyes just rolled to the back of my head. Dressing or having certain mannerisms or speech hardly means that he didn't want to be black. It showed he was probably educated and a man of means (his car for example showed he had money). It doesn't mean he wanted to be white. How absolutely absurd.

Being an authority on Ragtime doesn't make you an authority on blackness or black people for that matter. Period.

[–] Petronius Arbiter II 10 years ago

Actually, the term "man of color" and its variants have been in use since the late 18th century, according to the OED:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/perso n-of-color

...But seldom, seldom used. Which fits the psychology of the scene: Coalhouse is putting forth an image of himself as being of equal elegance as this upper middle-class white guy to whom he is speaking. To put it in terms of somewhat later living archetypes, he's more of a Duke Ellington than a Louis Armstrong.

Also, he's probably quite aware that Sarah is considerably lighter in skin tone than he is, and has semi-Caucasian facial features that conceivably might cause Father to become confused if Coalhouse describes her as "negro" or "colored." But there's no way he would use the word "mulatto."

"I don't deduce, I observe."

[–] liscarkat (18977) 5 months ago

The term "woman of color" is accurate for the early 20th century.