Ruby Dee gives women under pressure a life beyond their troubles. We value her authority within an ensemble, though the habit of casting her as a mother or wise elder sometimes left too little room for anything else.
Fi1m perspective
In Do the Right Thing (1989), Ruby Dee’s Mother Sister gives the neighbourhood an elder whose authority needs little explanation. She holds her place in Spike Lee’s ensemble without making the other people seem incidental. We laughed at the neighbours’ quarrel over photographs on a pizzeria wall because Lee makes their stubbornness so recognisable. Dee’s presence helps these neighbours feel like people accustomed to living alongside one another, however little they agree about. We recommend the film without reservation, allowing for a few conversations that run long.
There had not always been so much room for a person inside the part. Dee’s early roles often required her to be a long-suffering wife, leaving little to do except be hurt. She originated Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun on stage in 1959 and reprised the role in the 1961 film. Here, her ability to make a woman under pressure feel fully lived in had a better use. That is the quality worth looking for in the later mothers and elders, too: the sense that being dependable takes effort.
Lee makes good use of her authority, but the wise elder is a part with limits. It can ask an actor to supply good sense while everyone else gets the more interesting business of making mistakes. The humour and arguments surrounding Mother Sister keep Do the Right Thing from becoming too solemn about its community figures. Ossie Davis appears alongside Dee, one of their many collaborations across stage and screen. Lee cast her again as Lucinda Purify in Jungle Fever (1991).
The later credits include Mama Lucas in American Gangster (2007), another maternal role in a career repeatedly drawn towards them. That repetition makes the writing worth attending to: how much does the woman get to want for herself? We value Dee most when endurance is one part of the character, not her entire purpose. Start with Do the Right Thing, then make time for A Raisin in the Sun.
Biography
Ruby Dee was an American actress. She originated the role of Ruth Younger in the 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and reprised it in the 1961 film adaptation.
Her film roles include Mother Sister in Do the Right Thing (1989), Lucinda Purify in Jungle Fever (1991) and Mama Lucas in American Gangster (2007), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in The Stand (1994) as Mother Abagail Freemantle. Dee was additionally a poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist.
