Stephen Bourne looks at the `secret' history of black women in British cinema

One year after recieving Oscar and BAFTA nominations for SECRET AND LIES, we're already asking the question, whatever's happened to Marianne Jean Baptiste? Though the film careers of her white contempories, Emily Watson and Kate Winslet, have gone from strength to strength, we've yet to see Marianne in a new film or television role. This is yet another example of the black woman being made "invisible"

Though black women have been appearing in British films since the 1930's, only a handful have made an impact, and they are barely mentioned in any histories of British cinema.

Before the war, black American entertainers like Josephine Baker captured the continent with their songs, beauty, elegance and style. Some of them even starred in British films, including Nina Mae Mckinney and Elisabeth Welch. Since that time, though some black women have continued to find success and star status in the music world, few have been given opportunities to contribute to British films. For instance, in the 1960s, Shirley Bassey and Cleo Laine could be heard on the soundtracks of films, but not seen.

In 1986 Cathy Tyson won critical acclaim for her role as a prostitute in MONA LISA but, unlike her co-star, Bob Hoskins, she's still waiting for a good film script to come her way. Cathy said: " After MONA LISA, nearly all the parts I was offered involved me taking my clothes off." Since that time, Cathy has appeared in some popular television dramas, including two series of BAND OF GOLD - but she's still being cast as a prostitute.

BURNING AN ILLUSION (1981) was the first British film to give a black women a voice of any kind. Also, for the first time, black women began to work as film critics in this country. When Akua Rugg reviewed BURNING AN ILLUSION in Race Today, she said: "Underneath the lush, surface bloom of the film is a revealing account of the refusal of young blacks to be treated as victims in this society." In Caribbean Times, Isabel Appio described the excitement the film created at the Commonwealth Institute's Black Film Festival in 1982: "Females reacted openly, cheering Cassie McFarlane through her journey as he discovers a rewarding political identity. It was proved that night that there is a vast and receptive audience who at the moment is starved of films with subjects with which they can identify." For her outstanding performance, Cassie received the 1982 Evening Standard Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

Since the mid- 1980s, young black women filmmakers have worked in the independent sector, including Maureen Blackwood ( The PASSION Of REMEMBERANCE, 1986); Martina Attille (DREAMING RIVERS, 1988) and Ngozi Onwurah (WELCOME II The TERRORDOME, 1995). However, these films have coincided with some objectionable stereotypes in commercial cinema, including Alphonsia Emmanuel's over-sexed girlfriend of Tony Slattery in Kenneth Branagh's self-indulgent comedy PETER'S FRIENDS (1992), AMD Tamika Empson's over-sexed and crazy teenager in BEAUTIFUL THING (1996)

It's a sorry state of affairs when the only black movie star we can offer the world is Scary Spice in Spice Girls: THE MOVIE. We're further down the ladder than we think. Surely it would not take much for our film industry to produce a British WAITING TO EXHALE starring Cathy Tyson, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Llewella Gideon and Sandra Bee?