I felt very depressing after watching the movie "Imitation of Life." The movie tells the sorrowful stories about four women. The four women have different identities and they have different troubles to face. Lora, a beautiful and smart woman, devotes herself to her career and becomes a famous actress. However, after being famous, she loses herself and even doesn't know what she really want. Susie, Lora's daughter, lives a rich and envied life. However, Lora is always away from home for work. Susie spends most of her time with her maid. She gets money and protect from her mother but doesn't get accompany. At the end, Susie falls in love with her mother's fiance and has to leave home for peace. Annie, a homeless black widow, finally becomes the maid of Lora's. She has a daughter with light skin, who is called Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane is shame of her black mother and pretends herself as a white. She leaves New York City for Los Angeles trying to escape from Annie. Eventually, Annie is dead for sad and Sarah Jane finally realizes that she loses the one who loves her most. People say that "Imitation of Life provides a unique intersection of feminist film theory and black female spectatorship" (Thaggert, 2009).
The story about Annie and Sarah Jane makes me sad. Annie is a kind and laborious woman. She doesn't feel self-contemptuous because of her skin. She loves Sarah Jane even though Sarah does a lot of things to hurt her. For example, Sarah once says to her " I don't want you to be my mother, why you are my mother." However, Annie never stops loving her daughter and tries to tell Sarah that even though she is black, she will not be treated differently. Finally, Sarah Jane still leaves Annie and works for a club in LA as a dancing girl. Annie finds her daughter furtively in the club for fear that people know the relationship between Sarah and her. In the motel, when facing Sarah's friend, Annie just pretends herself as Sarah's maid because she doesn't want her daughter to be looked down by her friends and she doesn't want to be the shame of her daughter.
