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    27 Thoughts I Had While Watching "Imitation Of Life" For The First Time As An Adult

    "How do you explain to your child she was born to be hurt?"

    I remember watching Imitation of Life (1959) as a child, but this was my first time watching as an adult.

    Universal via Everett Collection

    Sarah Jane despises her identity because she's a Black girl who can pass as white. She spends the entire movie rejecting her mother's love.

    Overall, my perspective on Sarah Jane is what changed the most after rewatching Imitation of Life many decades later. Here are 27 things that I noticed from an adult point of view.

    Universal Pictures

    1. Annie wasted no time shooting her shot at employment as she could tell Lora clearly needed the help after losing her child at Coney Island. But it bothered me that Annie was the stereotype of a "mammy" in that time.

    Universal Pictures

    In this scene she said, "a maid to live in, someone to take care of your little girl, a strong, healthy, settled down woman who eats like a bird and doesn't care if she gets no time off and will work real cheap."

    2. I didn't realize Annie and her daughter were homeless.

    Universal Pictures

    I'd hoped for a little more backstory, but the size of it I guess, is that Annie has trouble finding a job in which her child can accompany her. She will do anything to have her child by her side, and her perseverance is admirable.

    3. Sarah Jane throwing the Black doll to the ground represents the Brown Vs. Board "Doll Test" conducted in the 1940s.

    Universal Pictures

    The children in the study were asked to identify the race of each doll they were presented and choose the one they prefer. This "Doll Test" was conducted to demonstrate the racial perceptions of children, in which most, like Sarah Jane, preferred the white doll. Sarah Jane could see that not all people were treated equally, which is why she did not want the Black doll. She associated it with inferiority. We know this when she says, "why do we always have to live in the back?"

    4. Annie basically finessed her way into the job that Lora swore she wasn't offering. She voluntarily did the laundry, cooked, cared for the children, and answered the phone even though she was supposedly only spending one night at their residence.

    Universal Pictures

    When Lora got a call about a modeling gig and asked Annie to care for her child in her absence, my first thought was, "ummmm, STRANGER DANGER!" These people don't know each other at all and now one is living with the other and caring for her child while she's working. Now I realize that both mothers were really in a desperate place and needed each other. 

    5. Lora is completely oblivious to the struggles Annie and Sarah Jane face and when Annie says, "we just come from a place where my color deviled my baby," that's her attempt to illustrate that their worlds are very different. But in reality, Lora will never understand.

    Universal Pictures

    6. Putting a can on a fat man's stomach and laughing while it moves up and down? When Annie saw the picture and said, "all I gotta say is lucky I didn't catch Sarah Jane doing a such thing," I noticed Lora's response was waaaaay different.

    Universal Pictures

    Here's another attempt to show how differently Sarah Jane and Susie are raised.

    7. Lora actually demonstrates entitlement, walking into the agency with a non-existent appointment and a made up connection with a Robert Hayes of Hollywood.

    Universal Pictures

    With half entitlement and half acting, she secured an appointment based on a lie and her ability to make Allen Loomis believe her. But his inappropriate behavior during the office visit was also representative of the times saying things like "you have long, silky legs" and "if the dramatists club wants to eat and sleep with you, you'll eat and sleep with them."

    8. There was no man that scooped these two up and solved all their problems. These women empowered each other through hard times as they both remained single mothers throughout the film. They leaned on each other, instead of relying on a man, which was against the tradition in that time period.

    Universal Pictures

    9. This child would rather die than be Black. She really needed therapy. Sarah Jane is able to see how Black people are treated, and even at a young age, she strongly feels like her life would be better and easier if she was white.

    Universal Pictures

    When Annie brought Sarah Jane's rain boots to her school, she was so embarrassed that she ran out in distress claiming that she wanted to die and said, "Why do you have to be my mother, why?"