Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 44

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Popular Culture Review

things to do about it: Make the criminals pay for it—
you don’t want to do that; pay the people enough to
live decently-you ain't going to do that; so all that's
left is let 'em eat one another up. (14)
Although Himes portrayed Graver Digger Jones as more than a
stereotypical hard-edged detective, Himes's female characters in
Cotton Comes to Harlem are primarily one dimensional. Himes does
not offer any introspective analysis of African-American women but
paints them as stereotypes who are defined by physical attributes
and, in certain cases, base motives. Iris is a seducer whose sexuality is
used to create one of the most satirically humorous scenes of the novel.
Iris’s seduction of the white policeman who is supposed to guard her
but instead is "entranced by the curves of her body beneath the blue
negligee" (44). Later in the novel, when Iris is captured by
O'Malley’s adversaries, her terror is translated into sexual terms, her
fear causing her to have an orgasm (142). Another of Himes's female
characters. Mammy Louise, the restaurant owner, is "shaped like a
weather balloon on two feet with a pilot balloon serving as a head"
(102). Mabel Hill, one of Deke O'Malley’s converts, is "a really
beautiful woman with a smooth brown oval face topped by black curly
hair that came in natural ringlets" (42). When Stella, the wife of
Grave Digger, is presented briefly, she is viewed as dutiful and
"disappjearing into the kitchen" to prepare breakfast (118).
It might be argued that Himes's female characters are not
developed because they serve limited functions as whole women and
are presented as merely elements of the plot or to serve as indicators
of male attitudes. Within the context of the novel. Iris becomes a
center for the display of Johnson and Jones's rage, which is directed
against "criminals" and is also a reaction to the social predicament of
the larger Harlem conununity. However, the purely functional nature
of Iris and other female characters does not overshadow the obvious
limitations in their portrayals.
Five years after its publication as a novel. Cotton Comes to
Harlem was brought out in 1970 as a feature film. Directed by Ossie
Davis, the film version appeared during the height of the Black
Exploitation genre which included such Gordon Parks films as Shaft
(1971), also about a black detective, and Superfly (1972), which
recounted the exploits of a black cocaine dealer. "The United Artists