A Response to Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life

Though all the female characters in Douglas Sirk's adaptation of Imitation of Life bring an individual and necessary component to the plot,none are as fascinating as the portrayal of Sarah Jane Johnson (Susan Kohner).The viewer watches as Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) rises to stardom without sacrificing her morals;as Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) works hard and cheerfully as a domestic,and,despite certain family difficulties,dies peacefully; as Susie (Sandra Dee) avoids many teenage temptations to eventually graduate and go to college;and as Sarah Jane -- makes poor decisions about work and men while acting egotistically and attempting to pass as white.

Sarah Jane's character is given a remarkably unfair treatment in this film. From the moment she receives the black doll as a gift from Susie,and then responds ungratefully, you get the impression that you are not supposed to like her character.In that scene, she does not care that she's hurt Susie's feelings. In many scenes further she does not change her behavior despite hurting her mother.She even purposely embarrasses Lora in front of guests in one instance.It is as if the film wants viewers to believe that her major problem in life is not that she wants to attain something beyond the limitations of an African American at that time; she's just very selfish.

Selfishness is not Sarah Jane's only problem.While everyone else is working hard and living a morally decent life,Sarah Jane is sneaking around with her boyfriend,turning her nose up at hard working African Americans,making rude comments, and constantly lying.Her attempts at passing for white in this film are not portrayed as Sarah Jane working toward a better life. They are instead seen as a way for her to further indulge her immoral tendencies. The movie does not show a Sarah Jane "passing" to get into a good college.It does not show her trying to gain stardom without sacrificing her morals (which would have been a more accurate imitation of Lora).Instead Sarah Jane gets a job as a show girl in a dirty club and eventually works in Hollywood as one of several chorus line girls.

While it may not have been the intention, the film gives the false moral lesson that Sarah Jane would have been better off had she just accepted her place in society, married the son of a chauffeur, worked in a library and gave up the whole "passing" thing early on. Though her skin color was just as light as Lora's and Susie's, something about her hindered her ability to function as a non-obscene white person, and so she should not have even tried for doing so would surely end in disaster. This probably made the movie sit better with a white audience in 1959, though it was also likely generalized in their minds.

Sarah Jane was bad, and, in Hollywood, the bad need to be disciplined. While Sarah Jane misses out on the many awards the other characters are granted, she gets an abundance of punishments. The most obvious punishment is the scene where her white boyfriend beats her up after discovering her race.

The viewer finds Sarah Jane and her boyfriend at night in an alley. He's a tough-looking, Jame's Dean type of character; not a nice, clean kind of boy you'd expect a good girl to date in the 50's. He demands the truth about her race from Sarah Jane, and then proceeds to beat her to the ground while yelling "You're lying" repeatedly. Though clearly the boy is upset about her race, the dialogue still focused on the lying over the issue of her being black. It's not his fault for being a racist; this is her fault for being a liar.

In this scene, while viewers are likely supposed to feel sympathy for Sarah Jane, they are not sympathetic because black people are mistreated in the society. They are sympathetic that she's hurt, but this is all still blamed on her. As stated before, the film's moral is if she had maintained the societal role in which she was born, none of this would have happened. Doing anything else leads to situations like this one.

This scene, and later on where Sarah Jane is not present as her loving mother dies, gives a message that whiteness is not about skin color and that only "real" white people can achieve it; "Passing" is a lie that will come to light in the end; and a person should just be content to achieve the best their situation allows. These messages hurt struggles for equality because they claim that people are different and should be treated differently, and that the basis is somehow not solely on skin color.

The film could have went in a better direction with a portrayal of Sarah Jane as less of a selfish, pleasure-seeking brat, and as more of a person who really had ambitions; who did not hate her race, but still understood her unique opportunity to "make it" in ways others cannot; and who was grateful for her mother and life. Imitation of Life makes a huge mistake of taking the easier route and making Sarah Jane the bad guy.In the end, it is incredibly disappointing.

More from Z.J. Ascensio:

Dark Musicals: Harsh Sacrifices for Personal Gains

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