Whiteness, femininity and voyeurism in Imitation of Life

Osucha notes that "white women are required to embody interiority for others” (97 ) and that "the technologized consumer gaze produced in the mass-mediated public sphere is characterized as an intrinsically pornographic one” (70). Given this how are we to read Lora in contrast with Sarah Jane? Lora is the idealized white and feminine subject, yet as a Broadway and film star, she is nonetheless the most public character in the film. Her character is financially successful (and happy) because she is the most readable—her body reifies the ‘truth’ of her subjecthood. As Osucha writes, Lora’s body is “the sign of a difference that exceeded the body, in that what is revealed as race on the surface was supposed to be the interior, the visually unavailable 'truth' of the subject'” (80).

Sarah Jane, meanwhile, stands in direct opposition. Her ‘truth’, (her black heritage) is disavowed by her surface. For this reason I found it striking that she found work as a burlesque dancer. She publicized her body in secret, so to speak, while Lora’s image circulated broadly. Furthermore, how does the spectator watching the film ‘consume’ the image of Sarah Jane in comparison with the spectator within the film (the spectator at the burlesque show)? There seems to be a double voyeurism at play. Part of the appeal of Sarah Jane’s performance stems from our knowledge that she is, secretly, black. (Though she is, in reality, of Czech and Mexican heritage.)

Lora is victimized in part because she wants to be taken seriously, against the wishes of her screenwriter. She wants to wear ‘low heels’. Yet Sarah Jane is portrayed relatively unsympathetically—is this the result of her ‘lying’ body? How do voyeurism and the problems of mediated, feminine (and racial) interiority via Osucha’s texts come into play for these two characters? What are the implications of these characters as meta-performers?