By Princess WeekesJan 5th, 2021, 5:32 pm
Netflix’s
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an interesting film, based on the August Wilson play of the same name. Criticism of the movie has focused on how it is shot, but there is also a question of how women in the film are depicted.
There are only two women in
Ma Rainey, the titular blues singer played by Viola Davis and Taylour Paige as Dussie Mae, Ma’s young girlfriend. Paige’s Dussie Mae is a character we don’t really get a lot of in the film. She is a subject of desire for both Ma and Chadwick Boseman’s Levee Green.