Laura Menzel Blog #5: A woman's touch

Although history books often focus on the contributions of men in the developing of a nation, women also played an important role.  As Anderson mentions, pre-bourgeois ruling classes generated their cohesions by making alliances through marriage (Anderson, 76).  The daughters of royalty were obviously just as important as sons when making such marriage alliances.  Women also played an important role when European settlers will colonizing the Americas.  After sending able-bodies men to establish a colony, the crown would then send a ship of eligible women to create a community of families.  Women made enormous contributions to the formation of nations, but because their sacrifices often went unrecognized, there was not a clear place for woman without man.

Today, women continue to search for their place in society and search for equality.  At one point, feminists called for androgyny as the ideal, "a social condition in which biological sex would have no implications for a person's life prospects, or the way people treated one another" (Young, 13).  Although no one calls for androgyny anymore, it is an interesting concept and one that Anna Deavere Smith utilized in Twilight: Los Angeles.  By portraying all the people she interviewed, both men and women, Smith made all of the characters equal.  Each character's identity was based solely on the story he or she told.

In both  Twilight and La Noire de a woman tells a story of the subaltern trying to speak.  Although both these films technically star a woman, both Smith and Diouanna are hidden.  Smith is hidden behind the characters she portrays and Diouanna never says more than "yes, madame" aloud.  Even so, the presence of these women is felt in both films.  Smith chose how to precisely portray each each character and which stories to juxtapose.  Diouanna, too, is in control of the story she tells.  Although she does not speak aloud, the entire movie is narrated by her inner thoughts.  Both of these films show how women, even when forced to the backdrop and not allowed to speak directly, still play a role in the outcome of history.