Re-thinking the Character of Sarah Jane Johnson

I have seen Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959) several times. I always saw the character of Sarah Jane Johnson as an angry snotty young girl. She took her anger out on her mother Annie Johnson. I never thought of her as a very likeable character. That is until a recent discussion of Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959) when I started questioning why the young girl was so full of anger. Is it her fault that she is angry? I realized that I have been looking at her through the eyes of someone living in 2007. You have a whole different perspective if you think about how life would have been in 1959 America or 1947 America for a young African-American girl who looked white.

Richard Dyer in his chapter “Stars as Signs” talks about the character in the cinema. He states one of the qualities a character should have is the illusion of ‘life’ that the character should ‘escape’ the constructing activity of authors. (Dyer, p.105) Bernard J. Paris in his A Psychological Approach to Fiction says, “The central characters of realistic fiction should be like real people, that they should have a life of their own beyond the control of their author.” (Paris, p.9) Sarah Jane Johnson as a character does have the illusion of ‘life’ and in that life is a real world with a real history.
I am discussing how that real world, which for the purpose of this paper I am assuming is the real life world of 1947-1959 America, effects Sarah Jane Johnson’s behavior. The world of Sarah Jane Johnson is one full of racism. There is segregation and discrimination against people of color. This is not a world where a person of color can expect to achieve “The American Dream” but can expect to deal with hardship and hatred.
At the beginning of Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959) we see two little ‘white’ girls playing on the beach while an older African-American woman brings them hot dogs. We learn one of the little girls is named Sarah Jane. The other girl is Susie. We later learn she is the daughter of Lora Meredith. The African-American woman name is Annie Johnson. Annie Johnson and Lora Meredith talk while the children play. Annie tells Lora that she is available to work for her as a live in maid. The conversation continues as follows:
Lora: You mean you’d consider leaving that lovely little girl?
Annie: Oh, I wouldn’t be leaving her. My baby goes where I go.
Lora: Sarah Jane is your child?
Annie: Yes, ma’am. It surprises most people. Sarah Jane favors her daddy. He was
practically white. He left before she was born.

Sarah Jane is Annie’s daughter.

She is African-American not ‘white’. Her father left before she was born. We later learn that she is in fact homeless.

The first time viewers of Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959), unless having read the book by Fannie Hurst or had seen the 1934 version by John M Stahl, would not know from looking at Sarah Jane that she is the daughter of Annie Johnson. They could make the same assumption that Lora Meredith had made, that Annie was the maid or nanny of Sarah Jane. How can one blame Sarah Jane for something that she has no control over, her appearance. People assume from her appearance that she is ‘white’ and she lives in a world where your appearance matters. Why would Sarah Jane tell anyone that she is African-American if that fact hinders and may harm her?
Lora Meredith brings home Annie and Sarah Jane to stay with her for the night. Susie offers Sarah Jane her black doll but Sarah Jane says she wants the white doll.

She drops the black doll purposefully leaving it on the floor.


Sirk stays on the image of the black doll instead of following Annie and Sarah Jane. We see the image of the black doll for an extended period and then fade to black.


I always thought of this scene as Sarah Jane denouncing her blackness. I thought of Sarah Jane’s action as that of an individual girl and not a reflection of an entire race.
However, in my research on the Civil Rights movement I learned of a study done by psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark called ‘The Doll Experiments’. The Clarks experiment consisted of having a white doll and black doll on a table in front of an African-American child. They had the children then choose a doll. The majority of children picked the white doll over the black doll. When asked which doll is good or pretty the majority said it was the white doll. When asked which doll is bad or ugly the majority stated it was the black doll. The Clarks viewed this as evidence of internalized racism caused by stigmatization.
The Clarks were called as expert witnesses on the effect of segregation on black children in the famous Supreme Court case, BROWN VS. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (1954). [http://www.psychologymatters.org/clark.html] This was the court case that stated ‘separate but equal’ was not constitutional and that the public schools of the nation had to be desegregated. ‘The Doll Experiment’ was used as evidence in this case. Unfortunately, the results of ‘The Doll Experiment’ still holds true today among young African-American children. Kiri Davis, a teenage filmmaker, recreated ‘The Doll Experiment’ shockingly with similar results of the Clarks for her film, A Girl Like Me (2005). [A Girl Like Me (Kiri Davis, 2005) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fEy0q6yqc]
Annie Johnson goes to the school to bring Sarah Jane her boots.

She goes to room 3-B but the teacher says that Annie must be mistaken because she doesn’t have any colored children in her class. Annie spots Sarah Jane and goes over to her.

Sarah Jane leaves visibly upset, running out of the classroom.

The teacher just keeps repeating, “We didn’t know.” Annie is upset that Sarah Jane has been ‘passing’. Sarah Jane says, “They never asked.” Why would they ask Sarah Jane if she was African-American? She looks ‘white’ and they would assume she was ‘white’. If she were not ‘white’ why would she be there in the first place?
Many public schools in 1947 America were segregated. The aforementioned case, BROWN VS. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (1954), made segregation in public schools illegal. [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/347/483.html] However, even after the ruling by the Supreme Court many public schools remained segregated until the 1970’s. New York City did not have legalized segregation in its public schools but as was shown in Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959) the schools were still not totally integrated. Sarah Jane was the only African-American in her class. Her classmates and teacher did not even know that she was an African-American. It would not have been in Sarah Jane’s interest to tell her classmates or teachers that she was African-American. She would have been ostracized for her color by society.
The 18-year-old Sarah Jane sneaks out of the house to go to visit her boyfriend in the Village. Susie catches her coming back after seeing her boyfriend. They talk and Susie asks if he is a colored boy. She tells her he is white and he thinks she is white, too. She says if she has to be colored she would rather be dead. When Susie asks why she says, “I wanna have a chance in life. I don’t want to come through back doors, feel lower than other people, or apologize for my mother’s color. She can’t help her color but I can. And I will.”
This statement tells us a lot about Sarah Jane. She understands that being African-American in this time and place will not give her the opportunities that she wants for herself. She wants the opportunities that being a ‘white’ person will give her. She understands that her mother cannot change her color or her place in the world. Her mother will always be considered ‘black’ by others and will always be a domestic. Sarah Jane can ‘pass’ for being white and wants to take advantage of the opportunities being considered ‘white’ give her. No one can blame her for wanting to have a better life than her mother. To have the opportunities others of her race cannot have because of their appearance.
She talks to Susie about how the boyfriend thinks she is ‘white’. She will continue to let him believe that he is ‘white’. She says to Susie, “But how do you think he’d feel, or his folks, with a black in-law? What do you think people would say where we lived if they knew my mother-- They’d spit at me. And my children.” Sarah Jane goes to see her boyfriend.


He asks her, “Is it true?” She does not know what he is asking her. He asks her if her mother is ‘black’ (not the word he uses). She says no but he says she is lying. He beats her and leaves her bleeding.




Everything she feared became true. He found out she was African-American and did not want anything to do with her. In 1958, miscegenation, race mixing, was illegal in half of the states (24/48 states) [http://www.lovingday.org/map.htm ] People were beaten or killed for being with someone of a different race. The intolerance towards Sarah Jane’s true race caused her pain and humiliation once again.
The world that Sarah Jane lived in was one of discrimination and segregation. The United States Armed Forces did not become desegregated until 1948. The schools were segregated and it would not become illegal to segregate them until 1954. Miscegenation, race mixing, did not become legal in all states until 1967. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally made it legal for people of color to vote. The world of African-Americans was a world invisible in the ‘white’ world of America of 1947 -1959. Lora Meredith was shocked when Annie Johnson told her that she had many friends. Annie’s world was invisible to Lora Meredith. The only African-Americans seen in Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959) were domestics with exception being Annie’s doctor and Reverend. It is understandable in a world like this that Sarah Jane would want to ‘pass’ for ‘white’.