Diouana: Anti-Mammy

During the film Black Girl, I noticed significant features in the character of Diouana. She was almost the exact opposite of the stereotypical Mammy figure. She was unhappy while doing work for the family whereas the Mammy was always cheerful and even singing at times. Diouana was never caught singing or even being in a good mood unless she thought of people in Dakar. She was also given sexuality in the scene in which she changed to get ready to go to sleep. The Mammy had no sexuality at all; she was often large and had no positive attention drawn to her looks.

I also noticed the mise-en-scène while Diouana was in France. It seemed that everything was extremely white: the walls, bathroom, kitchen. Basically everything that she had to use or clean was white. She stood out against the background colors. One of the only things I noticed that was dark was her bed. It seemed this was put in to show where she belonged and wanted to be. She hated cooking in the kitchen and cleaning in the bathroom, but she could always get away when she was in her bedroom. I am sure there were more radical aspects of the film, but these were a couple that really stuck out to me.

Safety : Do gooders doing some good

After our screening of Black Girl on Monday we touched briefly the issues surrounding safety and I can't stop thinking about that concept. I remember listening to Portia speak a little about why Sembene might have chosen for the white people to talk about that during the dinner party scene. Since safety really depends a lot upon a person’s specific situation (race, class, age, political situation) I thought it interesting to think of Diouana's safety in relation to the people she worked for. I hadn't thought of how their (the employers) idea of a "safe" Senegal could be to the people of Senegal, a roadblock to further independence. Since there (or I'm guessing from the commentary during that dinner party) was still some kind of outside party "keeping the safety" that there was an occupying force on the other party (the people of Senegal) being "kept safe." There is a flip side to who is kept safe and who is doing the keeping. After hearing the issue of safety explained in these terms I appreciated how Sembene specifically chose to bring the issue up. In his choice to leave Diouana out of the conversation physically and politically, while the white folks talked about safety in the company of like-minded people, Sembene was indirectly and metaphorically commenting on the current politics of Senegal. Where does Diouana's safety come in? How about the safety of her family, her community?

A Mother's Letter

One of the most confusing thematic aspects of [i]Black Girl[/i] for me was the scene involving the letter from Diouana's mother. The letter, ridiculing Diouana for wasting her money and demanding money be sent home to aid her in illness, created a reaction from Diouana that was hard for me to swallow. Diouana tears up the letter, claiming that the letter was not her mother's. Seeing that her mother was supportive of her trip to France, I do no think this can be taken literally. So what was Diouana saying?

Perhaps she was saying that she no longer wanted to support economic dependence on the French and refused to send the money home for ideological reasons, thus relating her mother to her entire community as a whole. In any case, her mother later refuses to be paid in the film's final sequence. This leads a viewer to believe that Diouana's suicide prompted her mother to rethink her worldview.

Whether this turn of events is believable or not, there are deeper issues present here. Was Diouana's community right to reject French money if it meant being unable to help her mother's illness? If it was right, was Sembene communicating that certain sacrifices must be made in order to attain economic independence from the French?

In any case, I'm interested in what people have to say about the letter, because I have a feeling I could be missing the point completely and would like some insight from others who may have understood this aspect of the film more clearly.

Below are some links about Alain Locke, author of the essay "The New Negro":

Courtesy of the D.C. Library
http://dclibrary.org/blkren/bios/lockea.html


Alain Leroy Locke Society
http://www.alainlocke.com/

the ideas of being radical

I agree with the previous post as well. Even Micheaux not being radical with all of his concepts was still a radical thought. He could include the iconic sambo but still maintain a sense of independence and develop the other black characters in the movie. By overloading the sambo with ignorance this made room to develop the intelligent black lawyer and the sly witty black woman. This makes his film radical while still maintaining face in the 1930's.

Power of Images

It's amazing to watch Birth of a Nation and think that the following decades' black films were made in response to that one film. That really says something about the power of images. With improvements in technology and understanding of human perceptions and interactions (through psychology, sociology, etc.), film is an even more potent tool.

Birth of a Nation's propaganda offered a white supremacists' History of the Civil War and an amazing source of indoctrination and recruitment. Racial superiority can be shown in contrast between people of different skin color or in terms of strength. Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will offered amazing shots of the 1934 Nuremburg Rally and Wehrmacht troops marching through the streets. The Third Reich separated the "Aryan Race" and Jewish people in film. In 1940, the superiority of the "Aryan Race" was reinforced by the propagandist film The Eternal Jew.

Presently, films like Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will are discussed for their technical aspects or overall effects, but few people believe the premises of these films. That said, illogical and irrational stereotypes found in all three still exist, which means that these films have a powerful legacy. Higher education alone is unlikely to combat racism, therefore people have to take it upon themselves to challenge it in everyday life rather than allow the continuance of the "negative peace" Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of. One has to consider what the newer forms of Birth of a Nation are; what films are subtley reinforcing generations old propaganda?

Lem: The Smart Sambo

Murder in Harlem was a great step toward the realization of the true black character. I absolutely agree with Nick about Lem being a Sambo character to keep the film from being too radical. That and his alcoholism are the negative aspects of Lem's character. He also has positive aspects though. The way he thinks during his monologue shows his intellect. He knows that he needs to get to the door quickly without drawing attention to himself so that Brisbane will not change his mind and stop him. He also plays stupid while writing the notes to put next to the dead body. Showing intellect in a Sambo character was quite groundbreaking. He was the same old character that people were used to seeing, but he showed something that none of the previous Sambo characters showed; he had a brain. This was an important step toward showing the truth about blacks in film. Micheaux used the history of film to keep an audience, but added his own flavor to update to a more realistic view of black people.

Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Micheaux was a very talented independent film maker. He was very determined to get his work shown and did everything he could to make sure that would happen. He was responsible for writing, financing, producing, directing, and distributing all of his films. In order to finance his work he would sell his personal belongings and borrow money from friends who all loved his work. The film we watched from Oscar Micheaux was Murder in Harlem. This film was very controversial for its time because of the outcome it had. The story is based off a murder/rape that happens in the near by chemical plant. Brisbane the white male worker was the one who committed the crime and tried to frame others. During this time in history the truth was usually going to come from the white man. Not in this case though. With help from his love of booze and pretty girls Hawkins, the one getting paid to keep his mouth shut, told the truth of the murder to Claudia the sister of Arthur Vance who originally was being charged for the murder. I usually have not watched many black and white films or older films in general but this one kept me interested. Not only did it keep in wondering what the final verdict was going to be, but also if the love story between Henry Glory and Claudia Vance was going to bloom. The other films we watched before this were Birth of a Nation and Within are Gates. These films were both silent films which at first didn't interest me. After i took into consideration the direction of the film and camera placement they were both very well done. I also liked how the music would represent what was taking place in each scene.