Cheryl Dunye
Cheryl Dunye (born May 13, 1966, Monrovia, Liberia) is a Liberian American director, actor, and filmmaker whose movies and TV episodes depicting Black lesbian and LGBTQ lives and experiences have solidified her as a trailblazer within an industry largely dominated by straight white men. The Watermelon Woman (1996), her debut feature, earned her the title of the first out Black lesbian to direct a narrative feature-length film.
Early life and career
Dunye is the daughter of Edith Irene Hamilton Dunye, an African American school teacher from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and George Kekura Dunye, a Liberian bank employee. Her parents met in the late 1950s when he was studying in the United States for his business degree. They had a son, in Philadelphia, then moved to Liberia soon afterward. Six years later, Dunye was born. When Dunye was very young, her father was in a car accident, which prompted the family’s return to Philadelphia about 1969. Dunye, her mom, and her brother visited Liberia during the 1970s and ’80s, before civil war broke out.
“I’m an Audre Lordean, and reading a lot of Black lesbian literature and activism and art and poetry and those of queer people of color at the time definitely had an influence in shaping the voice that I wanted to lead.” —Cheryl Dunye
Dunye grew up in Philly and graduated from Merion Mercy Academy, a private Roman Catholic high school for girls. In an interview with Encyclopædia Britannica in 2024, Dunye remarked that her parents didn’t push her into any one job or career path, so she took an interest in political science, especially as she got more politically involved in Philadelphia. She initially attended Michigan State University for its political theory course. After she fell out of love and interest with the program, however, she returned home to Philadelphia and transferred to Temple University.
While she was at Temple, during the Ronald Reagan administration, Philadelphia city police bombed the headquarters of MOVE, a Black liberation and green anarchism organization, killing 11 people and destroying dozens of homes. That came at a time when Dunye was becoming more radicalized in her identity as a Black lesbian and more involved in activist and political movements. How she saw the media covering what she was experiencing made her consider filmmaking as a tool for self-expression, artistry, and political thought.
Dunye earned a B.A. degree in Film and Media Arts at Temple University (1990) and an M.A. degree from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts two years later. Her first movies, a series of six short experimental films and documentaries made between 1990 and 1995, were compiled as The Early Works of Cheryl Dunye. Each of them expresses who she is as an artist: someone who wants to “put young, Black, lesbian life on the map,” as she explained to Britannica. Her feature film debut in 1996, The Watermelon Woman, is what put her as a filmmaker into the mainstream.
The Watermelon Woman
First shown in February 1996 at the Berlin International Film Festival, The Watermelon Woman stars Dunye as Cheryl, a Black lesbian video store worker who’s making a documentary about an unnamed Black actress credited only as “the Watermelon Woman.” Produced on a budget of $300,000—with funding received from the National Endowment for the Arts, a fundraiser, and donations from friends—the film explores Black lesbian life, archival work, the erasure of Black actresses during the early 1900s by Hollywood and academia, and the dynamics of interracial relationships. While much of Dunye’s character is autobiographical, the Watermelon Woman, named Fae Richards in the movie, is revealed to be an amalgamation of the many Black actresses who have been sidelined or forgotten within film history.
The Watermelon Woman granted Dunye the claim of being the first out Black lesbian to direct a feature-length narrative movie. The movie earned widespread critical acclaim, winning the Teddy Award at Berlin as the festival’s best feature film and the outstanding narrative feature award at the L.A. Outfest. In 2021 The Watermelon Woman was inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry, and it was further recognized with the Cinema Eye Honors Legacy Award in 2022.
However, the movie wasn’t without controversy at the time of its release. In 1997 a dispute during a U.S. House debate over The Watermelon Woman led the National Endowment for the Arts to restructure itself and change its grant process, shifting from broader funding to awarding grants for specific projects chosen by the NEA.
The Watermelon Woman serves as a powerful and authentic example of Black lesbian life during the 1990s, while also showcasing the importance of documenting the lives and experiences of underrepresented communities. Dunye’s unique style of blending fiction and artistic expression in her documentaries has given rise to the term dunyementaries.
Later career and personal life
After The Watermelon Woman Dunye continued to direct feature-length films that center on the lives of Black lesbians and LGBTQ characters. (The critically panned My Baby’s Daddy [2004] was an exception.) In an interview with W magazine in 2021, Dunye said that she began directing for television after she met filmmaker Ava DuVernay during a screening of the documentary 13th. DuVernay offered Dunye the opportunity to direct two episodes of her drama series Queen Sugar during its second season, which was released in 2017.
“Every film that I personally make—in the sense of writing, producing, directing—always is about some sort of queer content history. And I see that through that lens, the lens of myself. White folks make films about themselves and white people, so I’m making films about my people.” —Cheryl Dunye
Since then, Dunye has directed episodes for The Umbrella Academy, Lovecraft Country, Bridgerton, and other TV shows. When discussing the difference between film and television directing in an interview with Britannica, Dunye noted that creative control differs from show to show. The show that offered her the most creative liberty, she said, was Lovecraft Country, where she directed an episode that features one of the characters taking a potion that transforms her into a white woman, granting her increased economic opportunities.
Dunye, along with University of San Francisco associate professor Karina Hodoyán, formed the Oakland-based film company Jingletown Films, which aims to be a “platform for diverse storytellers and filmmakers whose work has been underrepresented in the film world.” Soon afterward, in 2018, Dunye married Hodoyán. When reflecting on her legacy as a writer, director, producer and actor, Dunye told Britannica, “as a filmmaker who’s…making sure my voice is out there, I think everyone should figure out their own voice and their own lifestyle and whatever they do, and make sure it stays around.”
Dunye has two adult children, and she lives in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland.