More than just the Mammy

The below essay was written by Morgan B Lee for NFDS 3615 - Food and Film

Morgan Lee

NFDS 3615

Prof Ashna Ali

14 December 2016

Word Count: 2660

More that just the Mammy:

Exploring the function of Sipsy and Minnie in Fried Green Tomatoes and The Help.

The figure of the Mammy is a main stay in American historical discourse, as well as in

modern times. This well known caricature is a representation that directly links black women to

housework, to loyal servitude and most significantly in this discussion, to food. In Jon Avnet’s

Fried Green Tomatoes and in Tate Taylor’s The Help these Mammy qualities are found within

several characters, however Sipsy and Minnie are the most notable respectively. Despite both

films being notably progressive (Fried Green Tomatoes with its homoerotic plot, The Help with

its plethora of strong black female roles) both include clear ties to this harmful stereotype. These

connections, however, are doing more than just promoting the Mammy. Both Sipsy and Minnie

feature as a Mammy figure in their films, however their experience and their roles in the films

are more than one-dimensional. As trusted members of a household they are able to subvert the

authority that subjugates them by betraying the oppressor through feeding them grotesque food,

which in turn, changes the way they are perceived within the narrative, and outside of it.

The Mammy figure is a U.S. trope that has endured throughout American entertainment,

from minstrel shows to current television and films. The Mammy is known as the “faithful

slave,” (McElya 4) and is a figure that traditionally has a one-dimensional personality; she is a

voluptuous, smiling, nurturing, feeding, and loyal servant who has no known ambitions or sexual desire. She exists only to serve the family. The history of this caricature is found in works from

Hattie McDaniel’s performance in Gone With The Wind to Quaker’s Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima

is one of the most prolific and mainstream versions of this character. As Doris Witt discuses in

“Black Hunger: Food and the politics of U.S. identity” the ties between Aunt Jemima as the

Mammy figure and food are apparent. She asserts that through the brand not only is the Mammy

figure associated with food, but that “Aunt Jemima prepares and is food (23).” This is

unsurprising, however, considering the historical context, as relating black women to food

directly ties back to black female roles during slavery. We see this in bell hooks’ “Ain’t I a

Woman”. She recounts the history of black women as slaves, illustrating that they were seen as

valuable by the slaver because of their ability to work in the fields as well as in the home.

Physically, they were not seen as a threat, compared to black male slaves (hooks 17). Their

ability to work in the house of their white master was directly related to the reasoning behind

their capture. In addition, the abuses that these slave women endured were also connected to

their potential to work within the house.

“Since the slaver regarded the black women as a marketable cook, wet nurse,

housekeeper, it was crucial that she be so thoroughly terrorized that she would submit

passively to the will of the white master (hooks 20)”

These tasks of housekeeper and cook, the tasks we see represented in the Mammy, are directly

linked to the painful existence that slave women endured. However, in contrast to the cruel

reality that these slave women lived, the Mammy is depicted simply as a good friend of the

family. The characteristics of Mammy (her faithfulness to the family she works for, her grin, her

boisterous happiness) all negate the pain and suffering experienced by slaves. It is no

coincidence that this character, popularized in minstrel shows (where white men would perform

in black face and drag) seeks to disavow the atrocities that were suffered during slavery. In

essence, the Mammy character is a white justification that attempts to negate the horrifying truth

of the black female experience (McElya 8). This caricature is one-dimensional and completely

erases the hardships that black women faced. Mammy traits are not only found in past depictions

or old brand names, they are still relevant in current depictions of black women. Witt suggests

the association between black women and food is “fundamental to the ongoing production of

U.S. subjectives and U.S. national culture (23).” It is unsurprising then, that we see these traits

reproduced in modern films, even films that are interpreted as progressive, such as Fried Green

Tomatoes and The Help.

Sipsy in Fried Green Tomatoes and Minny Jackson in The Help depict some of the

tropes of the Mammy figure. Sipsy is loyal, loving, nurturing and of course, she cooks. She takes

care of Idgy when they live together earlier in the film, she takes care of baby Buddy and she

takes care of dying Ruth. She exists only to serve Idgy and Ruth and has no explicit hopes,

dreams or desires of her own. She never betrays Idgy or Ruth, even when it means she has to kill

to protect them. This overtly depicts the one of the qualities that is most associated with the

Mammy; being part of the family, without having any of the same rights as the family you serve.

It is clear in the film that Sipsy does not have the same rights as Idgy or Ruth. This is most

apparent after Sipsy kills Frank Bennet. They can’t say what really happened, because even

though the act was in self-defense, as a black woman Sipsy would be put to death for killing a

white man. In addition, it is interesting to note that Sipsy kills Frank with a heavy cast iron

skillet. Her means of weaponry is a repurposed kitchen tool. It is clear that Sipsy, despite having

some edgier qualities (such as the ability to kill) is acting as a Mammy for this family, and she

only has agency within this realm.

Minny on the other hand is a more multi-dimensional character than Sipsy, as she has a

larger role in her film; however, she still exhibits tropes from the Mammy caricature. She is very

loyal to Missus Walters, whom she worked for before her current boss Hilly Halbrook (Missus

Walters’ daughter). She has a big smile, voluptuous frame and is the “best cook in Mississippi”.

She is not strictly loyal to Hilly, however, and gets dismissed for using the restroom in the house,

showing she does have some agency. Yet, after she is dismissed from working for Hilly, she

again is very loyal to her next employer, Celia Foote. She agrees to keep secret from Mr. Foote

the fact that she has been hired, even though this clearly is risky for her, as we see in her first

encounter with him. He drives up the driveway to his home where she is walking, and when she

sees him she throws her groceries, starts screaming at the top of her lungs and runs for her life

towards the house. She clearly knew that in this time a black person could be severely harmed or

killed if found walking unbeknownst on a white persons property. Nonetheless, she continued to

work there every day despite this danger. As Witt notes the idea of who a black woman is within

the current discourse is so strongly tied to food and the Mammy figure, it is difficult to escape.

Critics may site the historical nature of these films as an explanation as to why these women

feature Mammy-like characteristics; that the women are simply acting in a housekeeper/cook

role that was common for black women in these periods (the 1920s and the 1960s). However,

these traits were specifically chosen for these characters. As the films progress, each woman

clearly illustrates that they are more than just the Mammy.

It is not interesting in itself that these films depict women who have the traits of a

mammy; it is how they deviate from this trope that is fascinating. Both women use their roles as

the food giver to empower themselves and take power away from their oppressors. In Fried

Green Tomatoes Sipsy defends Idgy and Ruth by laying the blow that kills Frank Bennet, but she

is also instrumental in destroying the evidence. She feeds the barbecued body of Frank to

Sherriff Curtis Smoote, the investigator looking into Frank’s disappearance. Other than Frank,

who terrorized Ruth and The Whistle Stop Café multiple times, the only other threat to Sipsy’s

relatively peaceful way of life was Smoote. She is demonstrable in destroying the evidence, by

delivering it to the man who wishes to oppress her. By feeding one oppressor to the next, she

effectively negates these tyrannical forces, while also giving Smoote exactly what he asks for.

Sipsy is also careful to not feed the human remains to anyone other than Smoote, she shoos away

another potential customer from the back door. It is through her limited role as Mammy that she

is able to have some of her own agency in the film. It is clear that neither Idgy nor Ruth knew

that Sipsy was about to serve Frank to Smoote, evidenced by the cut to Idgy’s shocked face when

Sipsy serves him his plate. Sipsy uses this act as both a personal revenge act, and also as a way to

dispose of evidence. Because Smoote never finds out that he was eating a human, this act was

clearly for personal satisfaction: an act that Sipsy did purely for herself. Because she is seen as a

trusted Mammy figure, she is able to successfully dispose of both her oppressors through food

while giving herself a bit of (albeit sick) amusement.

Minny also uses her cooking ability, and Mamminess to overcome her persecutor. After

she is let go by the evil Hilly for using the toilet inside the house, she decides to bake her a

chocolate pie that is filled with her own excrement. Like Sipsy, Minny is also careful about who

eats the pie. She refuses to give any to Hilly’s mother Missus Walters, who was always kind to

her. The pie is guised as an apology, but is obviously revenge for the way Hilly treated Minny.

Originally, this act of defiance was intended only as such, and Minny did not plan to tell Hilly

about the contents of the pie. Even so, her temper got the best of her and she revealed her secret,

first by murmuring, then by clearly telling Hilly to, “eat my shit!” after Hilly had eaten two

pieces of pie. Unlike Sipsy, whose plan would be foiled if Smoote knew, and only revealed her

secret to Idgy; Minnie’s agency lies in the fact that she told Hilly. This later becomes a way for

Minnie to control her abusers through blackmail. Because of this incident, the black women who

contributed to the book The Help within the narrative were safe and free to tell their stories. The

inclusion of the poo pie story quieted Hilly who would dissuade her friends that the stories were

about their town, for fear of humiliation. Minny’s act allowed the black women in the story to

speak out anonymously at a time where speaking out against the current laws or policies was

very dangerous for black people. Both women, through their breech of the loyalty and

trustworthiness associated with a Mammy, negate the traits that link them with this caricature.

They use food, one of the pillars of the Mammy image, to serve themselves and their own wants

and needs. Because both women are seen as so dedicated, moral and trustworthy, it is even more

shocking when they commit these duplicitous acts. After the years of torment that both

characters have clearly endured, these characters use the realm of the kitchen, service and food to

gain power over their subjugators, as well as give agency to the one-dimensional experience-

negating Mammy figure.

The greatest significance lies not in the insidious acts themselves, but that these acts

involve the grotesque. Though these duplicitous moves by Sipsy and Minnie show agency they

have greater implications. Ruth Perlmitter, in her work “The Cinema of the Grotesque” outlines

the features of the grotesque as, “excessive expressions of unspeakable human acts,” such as

incest, voyeurism, cannibalism and anality: the latter two are clearly depicted in both Fried

Green Tomatoes and The Help. The idea of feeding someone another human or feeding someone

human excrement is grotesque. The focus of the grotesque in these films, works on several

levels, one being shock. It causes shock within the narrative, but more importantly causes shock

within the audience of the film. The once trusted character has now been shown to be capable of

doing something abhorrent and revolting. According to Perlmitter, this shock felt by the audience

immediately leads to questioning (168). The grotesque draws attention to the taboos themselves

but also questions ”both causal relationships and our conception of ‘natural’,” thereby forcing the

audience to not only question the act itself, but the situation that lead to said act (Perlmitter 168).

As such, the audience then is not critical of the characters who commit the heinous acts, but

actually becomes critical of the people or situations that cause this act to happen; in this case,

Hilly Halbrook and Sheriff Smoote or on a larger scale the oppressive laws and societal norms

that these characters are made to live in. Trustworthy Mammy figures performing such

disgusting acts are disturbing for an audience who has been primed by U.S narratives to expect

certain traits. The grotesque “unbalances the stability of our structured lives,” while also

demanding a restructuring of what is accepted as normal (Perlmitter 193); this reassessment

extends to the horribly violent and demeaning social contexts that led to the grotesque incidents.

Perlmitter argues that viewing the grotesque itself is the first step in the process of change (193).

The characters of Sipsy and Minny, through their intensely repugnant acts, not only disrupt

oppression in their own narrative, but also draw attention to the disgusting, horrible atrocities

that black women faced both in the 1920s and in the 1960s. Through their actions, they move

from characters that resemble the one-dimensional Mammy to characters that demand a re-

assessment of their circumstances, both within the narrative and outside it. Both women use the

attributes associated with Mammy to disarm their oppressors within the film through their

defiant acts, while in addition, using these acts to highlight the horrible circumstances that led

them there.

Sipsy and Minnie actively change the way that the audience thinks about each of their

lived experience. They accomplished this through the use of their mammy-like qualities. These

qualities allow them to give their oppressors the devious and grotesque meals without question.

It also allows them to shock the audience with an act that is the opposite of the caricature that the

audience has been conditioned to accept. All in all, these characters end up illustrating more than

they originally seem to represent, calling into question the oppression and hardships that they

faced, while also negating the perceived reality of the Mammy figure and her perpetual joy.

Though there may be some problems with the way these characters are depicted, they are deftly

using the stereotype of the Mammy against itself. Ideally characters like these women, who turn

stereotypes over and use them for empowerment, will continue to flourish in our current

discourse and the horrible Mammy stereotype will die and disappear faster than you can say

Frank Bennet barbecue.

Works Cited

hooks, bell. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1981.

Print.

McElya, Micki. Clinging to Mammy : The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America.

Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 December

2016.

Perlmutter, Ruth. “The Cinema of the Grotesque.” The Georgia Review, vol. 33, no. 1, 1979, pp.

168–193. www.jstor.org/stable/41397699.

Witt, Doris. Black Hunger : Food and the Politics of U.S. Identity. Cary, US: Oxford University

Press (US), 1999. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 December 2016.