Watermelon Contest (1896)

Two men have a contest to see which one can be the first to eat a large slice of watermelon.

Director:

James H. White

Storyline

Two men have a contest to see which one can be the first to eat a large slice of watermelon.

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Plot Keywords:

watermelon | contest | racial stereotype | 

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Genres:

Short | Comedy

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Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

1 January 1896 (USA)

Also Known As:

Watermelon Eating Contest

Company Credits

Production Co:

Edison Manufacturing Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

1 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Connections

Remade as Watermelon Contest (1900)

User Reviews

Its Popularity In Its Time Could Be A Caution For Later Generations

This simple movie relies completely on a racial stereotype that today would be considered in very bad taste, at the least. Moreover, the footage contains little of interest in itself. Yet it was quite popular in its time, so much so that the original negatives wore out, and in 1900 a movie with very similar footage (also called "Watermelon Contest") was filmed so that audiences could continue to see it. The success of a movie like this is rather a caution, in its illustration that short-term popularity can blind audiences to stereotypes and other such problems.

There is not much to this, just a scene of two African-American men competing with each other, as described by the title. It seems mystifying, at least now, why anyone would ever have found it particularly entertaining. Certainly, there was no intention on the part of the film-makers to be mean-spirited or harmful; they were simply oblivious to the message that it could contain. But for that reason, it provides a useful caution as to how differently a later generation might view something commonly condoned or accepted at present.

There were quite a few features in the early years of cinema that resembled this one, and it is easy to confuse them with one another. This is one of at least three such surviving features made by the Edison Company. On Kino's recent collection of Edison features, there is some good commentary by Michele Wallace (it accompanies the longer 1905 feature "Watermelon Patch") in which she explains the origins of this and similar stereotypes, and indicates some of the lessons involved.