Identity politics is the political foothold for black women, as it gives black women the power to resist oppression. Especially when it comes to black lesbians, a marginalized group, where identity politics becomes more important so that it is worth discovering. Based on the queer theory and female gaze, this essay intends to discuss and explore the issues related to the identity politics of black lesbians with The Watermelon Woman (1996) as an example, including gender, class, and race issues among black lesbians who lived as marginalized groups in America in the last century.

The Watermelon Woman (1996) is a mockumentary with two storylines intertwining with each other, one is the daily life of the main character, Cheryl (Cheryl Dunye), and the other is her documentary filming process as a filmmaker. In the film, Cheryl is attracted by the watermelon woman (Lisa Marie Bronson), an actress in a plantation film, and she believes there is something special about the actress, so she determines to discover the watermelon woman and film the journey as her documentary. The film focuses on the black lesbian, a marginalized group, in which Cheryl and her friend, Tamara (Valarie Walker), are both black lesbians (reflecting 1990), and Fae, the watermelon woman (reflecting 1920-1930), is also a black lesbian. It also needs to be mentioned that Cheryl Dunye is also the director of The Watermelon Woman, which is with certainty says that this film aims to reveal the life of black women, especially the black lesbian in American society.

In the meantime, another aim of Dunye, choosing to apply the modes of documentary, is to encourage the viewers to develop reflexivity. Schäfer argues that The Watermelon Woman can “provoke its viewers to review the film as well as their own assumptions and viewing habits in light of the film’s status as mockumentary” (Schäfer, 2013, p. 201). Schäfer strongly points out that the main characteristic of the mockumentary is to develop reflexivity based on the given text. It is also agreed by Hight, who claims that “mockumentary discourse deliberately engages with documentary’s rhetorical address to its audience, incorporating this within particularly the novelty, promotional, dramatic and comedic agendas” (Hight, 2008, p. 7). Height effectively stresses that the aim of mockumentaries is to enable the audience to develop reflexive thinking on the issues mentioned in the given text. In this case, Dunye successfully allows the film to develop its reflexivity on this marginalized group.

The opening sequence uses the documentary mode, a talking-head, to give the audience the information and context. Cheryl (Fig. 1) introduces her motivation, which is that black women have long been neglected in American society. Based on this, the audience is stimulated to discover more about Watermelon Woman after Cheryl shows images of Watermelon Woman, which is clearly to be a fake name. Looking straight at the camera, Dunye enables the audience to be aware of the existence of the camera and, more importantly, she successfully “blurs line between fact and fiction” (Richardson, 2001, p. 102-103) by putting “Cheryl’s positions as producer and spectator, subject and object, as well as her tentative trajectory into film authorship” (Zimmer, 2008, p. 48). They strongly emphasize the function of the two storylines is to reinforce the engagement of the audience, which eventually develops reflexivity.