Watermelon Man (film)

Watermelon Man (film)

Watermelon Man is a 1970 American comedy-drama film directed by Melvin Van Peebles. Written by Herman Raucher, it tells the story of an extremely bigoted 1960's white insurance salesman named Jeff Gerber who wakes up one morning to find that he has become black. The premise for the film was inspired by Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and John Howard Griffin's autobiographical Black Like Me.

Van Peebles' only studio film, Watermelon Man was a financial success, but Van Peebles did not accept Columbia Pictures' three-picture contract, instead developing the independent film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The music for Watermelon Man, written and performed by Van Peebles, was released on a soundtrack album, which spawned the single "Love, that's America". In 2011, that single received much mainstream attention when videos set to the song and featuring footage of Occupy Wall Street became viral.