Sapphire is a 1959 British crime drama. The film is regarding a pregnant girl found stabbed. Even though Sapphire appears to be white, her brother arrives at the police station to give evidence and he is black. It then becomes evident to the police officers that this girl has been 'passing for white'. This film reveals the underlying insecurities and fears of ordinary people that exist towards another race.
Generally, in the film black people are portrayed negatively and are perceived as beings that obtain negative attributes. Throughout, the film there is a constant reference to the word 'coloured' to describe black individuals. This suggests to me that a majority of black individuals were seen as somewhat 'alien' like individuals and that if you are black you are strangely different. The detective says towards the beginning of the film that 'I think she died because she was coloured'. This reflects the racist attitudes during that time and portrays how negative it was to be a different colour (black). For example, when Sapphire's brother comes in to the detective's office the music changes to 'du, du, du', which suggests a sense of shock linking to the detective's feelings at that moment because he is surprised to see that Sapphire's brother is black as he asks him 'Are you Sapphire's half-brother?'.
Even due to the fact that Sapphire used a different identity by 'passing for white' shows that she herself was ashamed of her colour or knew that there were negative stereotypes attached to her race. The film implies that it was a huge shame/disgrace to be associated with a 'coloured' person because it is a negative thing to be black and they are much different from white individuals solely because of the colour of their skin.
The quotes below from the film emphasise the racist attitudes during that era/the negativity attached to being black.
When the old woman, Mrs Harris sees Johnny (Sapphire's brother), when he knocks on her door she says 'I'm full..I only take white students'. Here, her attitude towards Johnny was rude and negative only because he was 'coloured'.
'Nice enough girl considering she was coloured' (cannot exactly remember who said this in the film), but it represents coloured people as horrible and malicious.
'Don't call her auntie! She was nothing to us and never was'. I believe Sapphire's ex boyfriend's sister said this to her children. It suggests how after realising that Sapphire was actually black she does not want her or her daughters to have any association with her, even though she is dead.
Get out N****!...Dirty black B******!' This was what Johnny was called when he went into the white club venue. This makes me to empathise with black individuals at the time as they suffered a tremendous amount of verbal abuse, particularly from white individuals.Thus, representing black people as victims, due to the abuse they constantly suffer.
'We wouldn't be in half this bother if they weren't here'. The inspectors from this film said this and it seems as if they are insinuating that black people are responsible for trouble and in a sense they are scapegoating them. So, here they are representing black individuals as a source of Britain's problems.
When the Inspectors went into the 'Tulip's Club', one of the Inspectors bought a drink. However, he did not want to touch the black barman so he dropped the money on the bar table for him and told the barman to 'keep the change'.
There was almost an outrage at the thought of white individuals marrying someone from another culture due to the amount of negativity attached to it. Therefore, this set a boundary to love during that era as it was almost 'impossible' to be in love with an individual that was a different race/colour from you.
-Throughout the film the police's main focus was mainly towards black individuals not Mr. Harris, even though he seemed guilty due to his change in story.
-The presentation of the area where many of the black individuals live was like the 'slums'; whereas the white individuals seemed to live in a totally diverse environment as it featured big buildings with pleasant surroundings.
Overall, the film makes me to empathise with black individuals at that time because they suffered so much abuse compared to nowadays. Also, they were represented as inferior as it was as if their rights were stripped away from them because they could not really go where white people were; hence they were segregated and each had there specific clubs suitable to their race.
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