- Irene Dunye: I'm having a hard time deciding. What do you think? "Cleopatra Jones", "Jason's Lyric", or "Personal Best"?
- Cheryl: Hmm. Well, "Cleopatra Jones" is really fun. Why don't you do "Cleopatra Jones" and - "Carrie". I think the two go really well together.
- Irene Dunye: I know, but, "Carrie"? I hate Sissy Spacek. She's all weird and pale and thin and anorexic in this movie. I kinda like my girls with meat on the bones, you know what I mean? Anyway, I just saw it.
- Cheryl: Well, there's always some sci-fi like "Aliens" or, how about, "Repulsion" with Catherine Deneuve. She goes nuts in her apartment one night.
- Irene Dunye: I just moved into a new apartment. I don't think I need that.
- Cheryl: What's up with you and Stacey?
- Tamara: Nothing. I mean, she's gone frigid on me. Zelch!
- Cheryl: Well, don't you think that Stacey...
- Tamara: I don't know what to think.
- Cheryl: I mean, listen to me for a second. Don't you think Stacey is: A. going to school, B. working all the time, and C. you know, it might just be stressed out. I mean, what do you expect?
- Tamara: A little nookie once in awhile.
- June Walker: She did so much, Cheryl. That's what you have to speak about. She paved the way for kids like you to run around makin' movies about the past and how we lived then. Please, Cheryl, make our history before we are all dead and gone. But, if you are really in the family, you better understand that our family will always only have each other.
- Cheryl: I know she meant the world to you. But, she also meant the world to me. And - those worlds are different.
- Cheryl: I'm gonna be the one who says: I am a black lesbian filmmaker, who's just beginning; but, I'm going to say a lot more and have a lot more work to do.
- Cheryl: What she means to *me* - a 25 year old black woman, means something else. It means hope. It means inspiration. It means possibility. It means history!
- Tamara: I can barely stand the stuff that Hollywood puts out now, let alone, that nigger mammy shit from the 30s.
- Cheryl: The problem is I don't know what I want to make a film on. I know it has to be about black women; because, our stories have never been told. So, I've been renting movies for - no, I haven't been "renting" movies - but, I get movies from the video store that I work at. And I've taken all these films out from the 30s and 40s with black actresses in them. Like, Hattie McDaniel and Louise Beavers. And in these films, in some of the films, the black actresses aren't even listed in the credits. I know, I was just totally shocked by that.
- Cheryl: Her name: The Watermelon Woman. That's right. Watermelon Woman. Is Watermelon Woman her first name, her last name, or is it her whole name? I don't know; but, girlfriend has it goin' on.
- Sorry Rosie 2: Isn't that Rosie?
- Sorry Rosie 1: It was not Rosie! She was from - this lady is from back in the 40s and 50s.
- Sorry Rosie 2: Oh, well, it coulda been Rosie. She look like she was in the 40s and 50s.
- Sorry Rosie 1: Oh, Rosie gonna kill you.
- Sorry Rosie 1: Isn't she the lady that wore the fruit cocktail on her head?
- Sorry Rosie 2: No, that's Rosie Perez..
- Stacey: It was our Freshman year at college and it was rumored that Spike Lee was gonna be on campus recruiting for his new film on black schools. Anyway, our little black group on campus decides to throw a party in the hopes that Spike will come and discover us.
- Cheryl: Can you tell me, do you know who the Watermelon Woman is?
- Black Banker on the Street: Watermelon Woman? Yeah, she's the one who originated what we call Aunt Jemima - like on the syrup bottles.
- Cheryl: I'm looking for information on the Watermelon Woman. She was a black actress in the 1930s. I seem to be having a bit of trouble.
- Librarian: Nothing comes up. Check the Black section in the Reference Library.
- Cheryl: Well, how 'bout Martha Page, she was a *white* - woman director in the 1930s.
- Librarian: All this information is referenced in the Reference Section. Have you checked - the Reference Section of the Library, Miss?
- Diana: I studied film. I studied art. I studied art history. I studied law. And, then I just...
- Cheryl: You just gave up, right?
- Diana: Right. I needed to figure some shit out before I wasted more time in school.
- Cheryl: What shit is that?
- Diana: Like what I want to do with my life. You know, I want to do it all.
- Tamara: We have to go. Okay? I promised Stacey that I'd meet her at her house and I want to get there a little bit early. You know, give us some wine, some flowers. I'm tryin' to get some tonight.
- Shirley Hamilton: Watermelon Woman? Oh, you mean Fae. Fae Richards.
- Cheryl: I thought her name was the Watermelon Woman?
- Shirley Hamilton: Watermelon Woman? I don't know where you got that mess from. Probably from when she was makin' those movies. But, her name was Fae Richards.
- Shirley Hamilton: She used to sing for all of us stone butches. We used to stand in front of the stage and fight for position so she would look at us.
- Shirley Hamilton: The clubs were mixed. You know, the white folks owned 'em. The black folks attended. And the ofays came to socialize.
- Camille Page: The watermelon, seems to me, another image that has been misinterpreted by a lot of black commentary. The great extended family, Italian get togethers that I remember as a child, ended with the men bringing out a watermelon and ritualistically cutting it and distributing the pieces to everyone. Almost like the commune service. And I really dislike this kind of reductionism of a picture like, say, of a small black boy with a watermelon, him smiling broadly over it. Looking at that as negative. Why is that not instead a symbol of joy and pleasure and fruitfulness? And, after all, a piece of watermelon has the colors of the Italian flag: red or white or green. So, I'm biased to that extent. But, I think that some - if the watermelon symbolizes African-American culture, rightly so, because look what white middle class feminism stands for: anorexia and bulimia.
- Camille Page: The idea of any kind of inter racial relationship, at this time, it's mind boggling. Because, we can see as decades after World War II in "Look" - "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", you can see how charged the question of any sort of inter racial relationship was.
- Camille Page: Well, actually the Mammy figure is a great favorite of mine, particularly Hattie McDaniels brilliant performance in "Gone With The Wind". I really am distressed with a lot of the tone of recent African-American scholarship. It tries to say about the Mammy that her large figure is desexualizing, degrading, dehumanizing. And this seems to me, so utterly wrong. Where the large woman is a symbol of abundance and fertility - is a kind of goddess figure. Even the presence of the Mammy in the kitchen, seems to me, has been misinterpreted. Oh, the woman in the kitchen is a slave, a servant, a subordinate. Well, my Grandmothers, my Italian Grandmothers, never left the kitchen. In fact, this is why I dedicate my first book to them. And Hattie McDaniel in "Gone With The Wind" is a spitting image of my Grandmother, in her style, her attitude, her veracity, and so on. It brings tears to my eyes.
- Tamara: [sarcastically] You're so helpful Annie, I mean, you probably know a place to get a good clit piercing, don't you?
- Cheryl: The whole thing was quite disturbing. First, she started by describing Fae all wrong. She started talking shit about Fae and all those "coloreds" her sister employed.
- Tamara: I did not invite you over here to talk about your 'wanna be black' girlfriend.
- Cheryl: Tamara, Diana doesn't want to be black. I mean, I'm getting into her. Can't you see that?
- Tamara: All I see is once again you are going out with a white girl, acting like she wants to be black, and you are bein' a black girl acting like she wanna be white. I mean, what's up wit chu, Cheryl? You don't like the color of your skin nowadays?
- Cheryl: Tamara, I'm black. I mean, who's to say that dating somebody white doesn't make me black? I mean, who's to say anything about who I fuck in the goddamn first place. Okay?
- Tamara: Well, Stacey says she thinks Diana's into chocolate.