ABSTRACT
Representations of black female bodies in contemporary popular culture rarely subvert or critique images of black female sexuality which were part of the cultural apparatus of 19th-century racism and shape perceptions today. Popular culture provides countless examples of black female appropriation and exploitation of 'negative stereotypes' to either assert control over the representation or at least reap the benefits of it. Appropriating the wild woman pornographic myth of black female sexuality created by men in a white supremacist patriarchy, turner exploits it for her own ends to achieve economic self-sufficiency. There are few films that explore issues of black female sexuality in ways that intervene and disrupt conventional representations. The short film Dreaming Rivers, by the British black film collective Sankofa, juxtaposes the idealized representation of black woman as mother with that of sexual subject, showing adult children facing their narrow notions of black female identity. Films by African American women filmmakers offer the oppositional images of black female sexuality.
