Kaitlyn Bavuso Annotated Bib #5

Black Girl Inference:


After watching the movie Black Girl, it speaks to the audience as way to show the difficulties the African community faces under colonization.  When the main character, Diouana was introduced, she was dressed in European fashion. She was wearing a white and black polka dot dress with black high heels, but when she arrived her first employers home, she was immediately put to work, as a domestic maid.This reminds me of Gordon Park’s photograph, “American Gothic”. Parks would take pictures of low-income African American citizens in Chicago. Similarly done in Black Girl, it depicts the struggle of working a low-income job as a maid. What also was a striking comparison is how in both texts, they were dressed in very nice apparel, yet had cleaning supplies on hand. It too coincidentally, accurately  portrayed the dismal attitudes of both women during these oppressive times. What was constant theme throughout the entire movie was colonization. It was not only her attire that sparked the reminder, but the way in which she was represented. She felt as an outsider, in the home of both employers. They would treat her as if she was a foreign object to speculate on. In one of the scenes during a dinner party, one of the people there had said “ I’ve never kissed a black woman before”(Black Girl Sembene).   This triggered the memory of the African postcards, in that their portray produced a spectacle of their culture. Another scene in which imperialism was present, was when she received a letter from her mother, asking her employer to please respond back for her, as Diouana cannot. In the article, Language of African Literature, the author describes situations of using their native African tongue in public causes much disappointment and is frowned upon. On page 18 it describes the notion of using your native tongue “Where is own native languages were associated in his impressionable mind with low status, humiliation, corporal punishment, slow-footed intelligence and downright stupidity” (Thiong’o’s 18).  What was the biggest reinforcement of European imposition, was the scene in which Diouana and her second employer fight over the mask. They are both spinning rapidly in circle clinging onto the mask. This scene is symbolically speaking to how Diouana and the African community as whole  still tried to cling onto their heritage, yet were easily influenced by European customs and traditions.