Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI

Johnnie Mae Gibson: F.B.I., is a 1986 CBS television fact based movie that starred accomplished, diversified film, stage and television actress Lynn Whitfield. Whitfield plays the title role of Johnnie Mae Gibson, who become the first African American female F.B.I. agent. In this film we see her trials, tribulations, and eventual triumphs. This movie was my introduction into the extraordinary talents of Ms. Whitfield, who later starred in such classics as Josephine Baker and Eve's Bayou.

Johnnie Mae Gibson: F.B.I. also starred Howard Rollins Jr., William Allen Young. They both had appeared in the blockbuster movie A Soldier's Story a couple years before. This movie also starred Richard Lawson who would later appear in Dynasty and All My Children. When t.v. movies of the week dominated television in the 70's and 80's, networks like CBS would seek out character film actors and cast them in routine movies of the week.

I feel this was a balancing process by the networks, accomplished actors + routine stories= good melodramas. I give this movie ***1/2, above average. It is on video. Watch it.

Well, I was looking for the movie "As Summers Die" with Jamie Lee Curtis. Somehow that search yielded this movie on YouTube. Ah well! I'm already here, may as well watch it.

The movie is about Johnnie Mae Gibson (played by Lynn Whitfield), a Black woman born and raised in the South who becomes an F. B. I. Agent. There was a lot going on with that and a lot to consider. A Black woman, in the South, in the mid-70's or so. She was facing an uphill battle no matter what she chose to do, but like her husband said to her: "Are you driving the truck or are you being driven?"

She had a family in Albany, Georgia before being recruited by the FBI. Taking the FBI job would require pretty much abandoning her family for weeks in order to complete her training, then moving her family at the whim of the FBI, and further abandoning her family whenever she was on an undercover assignment. Understandably, her husband wasn't too keen on the whole idea.

Now, depending upon where you fall on the religious, social, and even political scale, you either saw Gibson as a champion or a failure. She was a champion for women in general and Black women in particular. But, it can also be said that she failed her family.

The movie was decent. We got to see Gibson's struggle with her decisions and some Miami Vice style FBI work. I have my opinion on the matter but I'll save it.