Black Women Provide Divergent Representations of Blackness in Buster Keaton’s Silent Pictures

The unique subject position that Black women assume in selected Buster Keaton productions – productions that were designed to provoke humor, force us to re-examine how race in constructed on screen in his works particularly since they frequently include Black characters. The essay developed explores specific Keaton pictures which feature Black women who become a prism through which we can view diverse representations of blackness or at least observe Black women characters who attempt to achieve some degree of agency and who (sometimes) function in the same manner as white characters in these comic settings.