John Muller Blog #5 Womanhood in "Black Girl"

In the film “Black girl,” the state of womanhood starkly contrasted when looking at the two main female characters. On one hand we have Diouana, the protagonist, and the other hand we have Madame who plays the main antagonist in the film. These two female roles portray their characters as complete opposites which offer us a glimpse at the state of womanhood. Madame does not have many characteristics of a traditional woman, she smokes, drinks, and is very abrasive. Diouana, on the other hand, cleans, is courteous, and takes care of the children, the duty of a traditional woman.

 When viewing the two female characters in “Black Girl” it seems Madame has traditionally viewed masculine traits while Diouana has feminine ones. When looking at where the two are in society, Madame living in luxury while Diouana is almost enslaved, it raises many questions about womanhood and gender biases. The film intentionally puts a female with masculine traits in charge of Diouana to emphasize the enslavement of women when following their traditional societal role. Diouana cleans all day and is looked down upon much like women were in the past. Eventually, Diouana rebels against her employers and eventually takes her life. Diouana was stripped of everything about her and forced to be put into a cast of societal norms, this ultimately lead to her death.

One of the biggest question I have from watching the film is how do we change the status quo and upset the norms. How can women, who feel helpless like Diouana, fight for change when nobody will listen. It is a complicated question and a harder solution, especially when normalcy is so hard thing to fight.