General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Watermelon Woman

The Watermelon Woman is a 1996 American comedy-drama written, directed, and co-starring Cheryl Dunye, in which a young Black lesbian filmmaker in Philadelphia researches a forgotten 1930s Black actress credited only as "the Watermelon Woman." It is widely identified as the first US feature directed by an out Black lesbian, and it became a landmark of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	Premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1996; US theatrical release March 5, 1996, distributed by First Run Features³^•⁴
Distinction	First theatrically released feature directed by an out Black lesbian filmmaker; first African American lesbian feature released theatrically in the US, a distinction it held until Pariah (2011)⁵^•²
Award	Teddy Award for Best LGBT Film at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival²
Budget	$300,000, partly financed by a National Endowment for the Arts grant and private donations⁵
Setting	Philadelphia, in the mid-1990s video-store and lesbian-community world⁶
Title source	A reference to Melvin Van Peebles's 1970 comedy Watermelon Man⁵
Restoration	Restored in 2K HD by the UCLA Film & Television Archive for the film's 20th anniversary⁷^•⁶

Spoilers

Plot and form

Cheryl, played by Dunye as a fictionalized version of herself, works as a video store clerk and wants to make a film about Black women, "because our stories have never been told."⁸ Her subject is an obscure Black actress of the 1930s and 1940s who appears in the fictional film Plantation Memories playing a "mammy" role and is billed only as "the Watermelon Woman." As Cheryl researches, she discovers the actress had a name, Fae Richards, and a life the credits erased, including a long-term relationship with her white female director, Martha Page.⁸^•⁹

The film deliberately blurs documentary, fiction, and autobiography. Dunye interweaves direct-to-camera storytelling, improvised interviews with Philadelphians, and faux-archival footage, a style she has called the "Dunye-mentary."² Alongside the research plot runs a romantic comedy: Cheryl is courted by Diana (Guinevere Turner), a white customer at the video store, a relationship that echoes the one Cheryl uncovers between Richards and Page.⁸^•¹ The closing credits state the film's thesis plainly: "Sometimes you have to create your own history."⁹

The invented archive

Because the Watermelon Woman is fictional, Dunye and the New York artist Zoe Leonard had to manufacture the historical record the story requires. Together they created a convincing Fae Richards archive of movie stills, glamour shots, film clips, and newsreel footage.¹⁰ Leonard exhibited the collection at the Whitney Museum Biennial in 1997 and published the stills in a book.⁵

The fabrication had a practical origin. When Dunye researched Black film history at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and the Library of Congress, she found she could not afford to license relevant documents for the film, so she invented the lineage the archives lacked.³^•¹¹ Dunye has said the character "came from the real lack of any information about the lesbian and film history of African-American women."⁶ The confusion the film produces was part of its point: at early screenings, some audiences believed the fake documentary was a real account of an actress called the Watermelon Woman.¹²

The film's account of the research process is also a critique of archives. Cheryl's efforts are frustrated by a series of white gatekeepers: a librarian who assumes she cannot read, a white lesbian community archive that mishandles its rare Black lesbian materials, and police who profile her in the street.¹

The NEA controversy

The film's lesbian love scene drew national political attention. After its premiere, a Washington Times op-ed by Julia Duin objected to federal funding for a film that a Philadelphia City Paper review had praised for containing "the hottest dyke sex scene ever recorded on celluloid."³ Citing that article, Republican representative Peter Hoekstra called for the National Endowment for the Arts budget to be cut by the exact amount of the film's grant, $31,500, accusing the film of depicting graphic sexual and illegal acts. Democratic representative Sheila Jackson Lee defended the film on the House floor, and Hoekstra eventually withdrew his amendment, but the episode contributed to major cuts to the NEA.³ Frameline's program notes record that the film was debated in Congress and drew the opposition of Senator Jesse Helms, as Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied had before it.² AFI notes that the controversy resulted in a restructuring of the NEA.⁵

Reception and legacy

Critics received the film well on its wide release in 1997. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 92% critics score from 66 reviews, with a critics' consensus calling it "an auspicious debut for writer-director Cheryl Dunye" that "tells a fresh story in wittily irreverent style."⁴ Metacritic records a Metascore of 74.¹³ Its US box office gross was about $1,500.⁴

Its standing has grown with time. The film is part of the Museum of Modern Art's film collection, was screened there in 2025, and in 2021 received the Legacy Award at the Cinema Eye Honors.¹⁴^•³ The UCLA restoration brought anniversary screenings at venues including the Hammer Museum and BFI Southbank, and the film is now regularly taught and screened in repertory.¹¹^•⁷^•³ Director Janicza Bravo, selecting it for a Time list of essential Black cinema, called it "required viewing" for film schools.¹⁵ Dunye's own summary of the film's message, three decades on: "You have to make your own history."¹⁶

Reported running times differ across sources: 81 minutes (Rotten Tomatoes), 84 minutes (MoMA), 85 minutes (BFI), and 90 minutes (Frameline).⁴^•¹⁴^•⁷^•²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026