Representing Blackness: Instrumentalizing Race and Gender in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun

The Marriage of Maria Braun uses race and gender to highlight certain aspects of West German post-World War II cultural identity and to critique West Germany's failure to effect social and political change in the postwar years. Analyzing three pivotal sequences from the film, the essay discusses the ways in which Fassbinder stages Maria's collaboration with white male power at the expense of the two African-American characters. The essay ends by asking whether Fassbinder's portrayal (and, perhaps, reproduction) of racialist and sexist practices have the potential to result in a socially transformative cinematic praxis. (IMOS)