Sarah Smith Blog 5: Scandalous Women

It's a familiar refrain that most of our history has been written by men. Speaking as a woman, it is a shame. Speaking as a realist, it's just the way things were. Women were rarely the major players in history, so it makes sense that they don't play into history to the extent that men do. For Anderson, women take a backseat role in the formation of a nation. Anderson mentions the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew, and it's important to note that women are in fact included in this genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah's wife (Bathsheba), and Mary. It is primarily men, but five women are a part of this history. They are often forgotten in the midst of all of the men--and that is true in history across the board. The women who do make it into the genealogy of Jesus are notable: Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and tricked her father-in-law into having sex with her after her husband died, Rahab was a prostitute, Ruth was a widow whose story is shrouded in mystery and sexual euphemism, Bathsheba was an adulteress, and Mary claimed to be a virgin despite giving birth to a son. They made history because their stories were exceptional--or, a better word: scandalous.

For all people, but particularly for women, scandal sells. Women make history because they broke out of gender norms, or norms of proper decorum. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (and later Marilyn Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt) said, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." As I considered the role of women in the films we've watched, I saw truth in this. Several of my classmates have already mentioned the woman with the egg in Colored Museum as well as Diouanna in Black Girl. In both cases, there was scandal. The girl with the egg professes to her mother shutting her up in a dark room for her pregnancy, hiding some dark secret. Diouanna goes to France in hope of luxury and glamour, and ends up slitting her own throat in the bathtub as a final attempt to let the subaltern speak. These women stand out because they are scandalous, they oppose the norm. They are not "well-behaved" as the saying goes.

I wanted to focus, too, on women who did not break out of norms. For me, the woman who I was most moved by, challenged by, and who most penetrated my thoughts was in fact Diouanna's mistress. She is by no means the subaltern speaking, but there was something about her that struck me. Perhaps it was the fact that she is oppressed in being the oppressor: to maintain her social standing she oppresses Diouanna. She is not happy, though. Her dissatisfaction is very different from Diouanna's, and I think it is because, at its heart, her dissatisfaction is self-imposed. Diounna needs to work. She needs a job. We know from the many maids waiting on the corner that jobs were hard to come by. For Diouanna, work meant necessary oppression. Her only other option was the uncertainty of hoping for a better job and facing unemployment. Diouanna's mistress, on the other hand, does not have to be the oppressor. Her livelihood does not depend on oppressing Diouanna. She doesn't have to oppress Diouanna. The mistress is in effect choosing to be oppressed by being Diouanna's oppressor. What a mess. It makes me very sad for the mistress, who is so blinded by her vision of what success ought to look like that she chooses misery over joy, and in the process makes others miserable. In the end, though, history paints her as the oppressor. Her own oppression is nothing compared to that of Diouanna, and history, as always, favors the scandal: Diouanna's scandal is the heart of the story, and the woman is painted as little more than selfish and cold. If Diouanna had not killed herself, but returned to Dakar, who would I feel worse for? That is the question I'm left with. The woman has created her own state of misery, and I don't envy that.

In the creation of a nation, women have typically played a small role. In the films we have watched, it is the women tied to scandal whose stories are printed most firmly in our memories. I think of Vincent Chin's mother, and the sadness I felt as I watched her sob at her son's grave. Perhaps the general role of women in the creation of nation has been to stir men's hearts to action: the death of Diouanna calls the master of the house to recognize his failings; Vincent Chin's mother pulls on the heartstrings of racial activists; the flight attendant in Colored Museum gave me the chills as she walked through African American history. It will be interesting to watch and see whether this role shifts as women continue to strive toward a world status equivalent to that of men.

Jessie Ede Blog 5

I have been looking forward to discussing gender and gender representation in this class because I was naive enough to believe when registering that the "sex" in the course title simply referred to gender. Anderson's brief references to women tie both meanings of the word together in his discussion of sexual politics and arranged marriages as a means for power preservation. While not explicitly stated, women have commonly been used as a vehicle for diplomacy in the basest form possible. Anderson's discussion of nation-building up to this point has not focused on the role of women at all and has largely used masculine pronouns. I do not think this connotes disrespect, but I think it is easy for those writing and theorizing about the history of nation-building to focus almost exclusively on men since they hold hegemony in the global system.
In La Noire de..., the title character is female. She is treated extremely poorly, however, and is a silenced woman. I disagree with Mayssa's assertion that Diouana's suicide represents her as weak and vulnerable, however. I think her suicide instead shows not only an extension of the effects of subjugation and colonialism on a person (as Diouana could be a symbol for colonized Africa), but also strength and a commitment to her own conception of herself. By rebraiding her hair and giving back the money because she cannot be bought, Diouana is asserting her own identity in her death even though suicide silences her. She dies herself.
Who Killed Vincent Chin? contains interview pieces with many different women from a variety of walks of life. I find it incredibly interesting that the filmmakers, both female, kept the bits featuring sexism (ex.: the scene where the workers are picking up lunch and sexually harass the waitress; frankness about the strip club after work culture pervading the area) without any commentary - showing those parts is enough to set the scene and also make the viewer just a little bit uncomfortable with what they are hearing and witnessing. The film also juxtaposed Lily Chin and Helen Zia, two Asian females, with Roger Ebens and Michael Nitz or the prosecutor, all white males. Mrs. Chin's grief is palpable, and Ms. Zia comes across as incredibly intelligent and articulate. I think this film does more to place them in a position of power or positive light than it does with either of the dancers interviewed or Mrs. Ebens. Mrs. Ebens is very quiet most of the time, and does seem pained by what happened but still sticks by her husband's story. The dancers provide stories that are somewhat contradictory, but I do not think the film did anything to make them appear less credible due to their profession. I also think it is interesting that the jury that convicted Mr. Ebens and Mr. Nitz was majority female, and the jury that overturned the conviction was majority male - I hope someone in the class has read more about jury trends than I have and perhaps some connection between gender makeup of juries and sentencing exists. I think Who Killed Vincent Chin? portrayed a spectrum of women, though I am at more of a loss to argue for its portrayal of womanhood. Our class should have a discussion about not the facts of the case or where justice derailed, but the representations present of different people whose lives intersected.

Matt Raimondo, Blog #5

In Anderson's Imagined Communities, Anderson seems to rarely touch upon the subject of women or what constitutes womanhood.  He does mention the scenario of women in a political role, such as ruling monarchs taking foreign princesses for political ties, but Anderson says little beyond that.  I know that this has been touched upon by bloggers below this post, but it is interesting to think that a book about nationhood seems to have such little substance on women or womanhood.  I do think that the films we have seen recently address this topic better than Anderson does.  

Over the past few weeks, we have started to explore the concept of women and womanhood through our film experiences as well as our discussions.  I think that the films we have seen have really allowed us to remove ourselves from sitting in a classroom and place us right in the film on the projector.  For example, in La Noire de (Black Girl) we witness interactions between French citizens and a Senegalese woman named Diounna.  We see how these African women lined up in the streets for a simple maid job, and we also see how poorly Diounna was treated by her mistress.  To me, this ties us back into the previous film Roots, where we see how poorly white Americans treated African slaves, particularly in the scene where Kunta Kite is whipped; this scene screams of de-humanization.  I see the same thing when Diounna is serving the mistress and her guests - they speak of Diounna as if she is some sort of animal or exotic import.  I think that this dehumanization not only speaks of racial attitudes present in France in the 1950s, but also of a thinly-veiled lower status reserved for women as well.

Conversely, I feel that women actually play a more prominent role in the documentary Who Killed Vincent Chinn, in part because the directors of the film are women.  I also feel that Chinn's mother plays a huge role, namely because she is featured throughout the film after her son's death.  She serves as a strong contrast to Vincent Chinn's alleged killers, who seem to have little sympathy or remorse for the loss of Ms Chinn's son.  Despite only speaking broken English, I feel that Ms Chinn represents a strong depiction of a woman, especially when viewed in context with the circumstances surrounding the Chinn family.  Ms Chinn came here for a better life with her son, yet she loses him in an act unbefitting of her new home; she is often seen asking, "what's wrong with this country?".  The Chinn family was living in a city hostile towards Asian Americans, particularly with the success of Japanese cars in the American markets; despite being Chinese, disgruntled Americans simply grouped all Asians into this "Japanese" category.  Ms Chinn is also a single mother in a foreign country, vesting all of her hopes on moving in with her son and his fiance which, of course, never occurs.  Yet despite all this, Ms Chinn still asked the tough questions, namely posing a what-if scenario if two Chinese men beat a white man to death.  Ms Chinn basically says, "this happened to my son because he is Chinese", which would not have been easy to say in 1980s America.

It seems that the trending topic so far on this blog post regards stereotyping women, and in some films that may be the case.  Mayssa's piece referencing the disturbing nature of the woman laying the egg is on point: it does seem that women are being painted as reproductive beings above all else.  Perhaps the director is trying to tell us something here, that women are being portrayed in this negative, stereotypical light, and that we should be disturbed by it.  Maybe we are supposed to have this negative reaction to these stereotypical scenes, and in-turn we are better at recognizing stereotypes in our future life interactions.  

John Wang Blog 5

In Anderson’s work women are curiously absent from the formation of nations. Traditionally this may very well have been true. Men made the decisions and carried out the actions. Women served in a support role providing cooking, comfort, and children. This can be seen in Black Girl. Duana is portrayed in a very helpless light. Seemingly strong-willed, she still gave up on life when it was clear there was no shame of taking the money she earned to go back home and try to change things. Instead, she did not see that she could change the situation and committed suicide. Her decision definitely came through years of imprinting that she as a woman could do little to change the way things were.

More recently, women have been shown as able to impact nations. In Who Killed Vincent Chin? although the mother is not well spoken she will not take no for an answer and through her persistence, she started a large Asian American movement that stood together for their rights.

What I believe about women in nations is this: they have always been important, but it is only now they are starting to take the spotlight. Behind every great man, there was probably a loving woman or a complete bitch that broke his heart. Now in our consumerist society, women have gained and will continue to gain more and more power and eventually, women may try to be in total control, but it probably won’t work.

Ashley Murphy, Blog 5

After reading Mayssa's post, I would like to respond to her questions at the end of her blog and raise some of my own, in addition to adding my own personal take on the works we have studied thus far. 

To begin, Anderson's mentioning, or lack thereof, of women fewer times than I can count on one hand demonstrates that even as late as 1983,conclusions could not be drawn pertaining to the role of women in the formation of nations. Like Mayssa mentioned, it seems that women may have the utmost responsibility of producing children, and even better if she can produce a male. But women do so much more than just make babies! Some women don't even have children so does this render them useless? Absolutely not! As I embark on my own journey as a woman to find a career, I am experiencing firsthand how the playing field isn't necessarily level, especially since my major, government, is male-dominated. 

In the montage of skits in The Colored Museum, women did play stereotypical roles. Why not have a women as a doctor or a lawyer, instead of a flight attendant, or some ambivalent young woman getting ready for a date? Why was there not a woman in a role of power? Is it to further demonstrate the lack of control of the colored race during the pieces? Perhaps. 

As I was reading the interview that Sembene, the filmmaker who crafted the first African film, La Noire de..., I was struck by a particular comment.
"There are many such instances [of improvisation on location] with women in my films, and it's often with women that I find myself doing the most improvisation. I usually give them more freedom than I give the guys."
I wondered, could scenes from Black Girl have been improvised? This quote interested me because it seemed to counter what I expected - I would have thought he would give men more leeway in their performances on the screen. Something that I particularly noticed throughout the film was the black and white imagery. Of course the film was in black and white, but many of the textures and backdrops were in these binary colors. For instances, the dress that Diouana wears for most of the film is black and white. I recall a particular scene of a close up of the floor, and the tiles were black and white. Further, there was the color of Diouana's skin compared to her superiors. These contrasts showed how there was and perhaps still is a primary system of thinking. Either you are or you aren't. Black or white. Rich or poor. 

When I think about Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak?, my answer is no. If a subaltern commits an action or says something, and no one pays attention or notices, were the actions worth it? Was Diouana right to have killed herself? Does that matter? I guess my question is, "So what?" If the subaltern can't really speak, even if dramatic actions are taken and no one listens, what is accomplished  Who cares? If the peers of the subaltern don't do anything, then what can be done? 

Mayssa Chehata, Blog #5: (The deterioration of ) Women in Anderson and our Films thus far

** Sorry in advance for how long this post is

What is woman’s role in forming a nation? I think we can all agree that women do not come up often in Imagined Communities. Some might say this is because Anderson speaks of humanity generally, or that the times when he refers to “man” he is speaking of mankind, but I don’t agree that this is the case. If you look through the book, you find many instances where men are distinguished from women, referring to men in certain professions (“military men” (50), “men of the market” (79)), as well as instances where the term “men” is used in lieu of “man,” clearly marking the difference between referring to all of mankind versus gender. For example, Anderson writes, “These days it appears difficult to put oneself empathetically into a world in which the dynastic realm appeared for most men as the only imagined ‘political’ system,” (19) “unification meant internal interchangeability of men,” (57) or “young men eager to learn,” (81). All of the author’s examples and anecdotes have a man at the focal point, except one which speaks of a man’s wife and his mistress (25).

The word woman/women is only mention twice; once in the sentence, “The coalition between Protestantism and print-capitalism, exploiting cheap popular editions, quickly created large new reading publics – not least among merchants and women, who typically knew little or no Latin – and simultaneously mobilized them for politico-religious purposes,” (42) and again speaking of how only men are mentioned in the Gospel of St. Matthew in the sequence of about 30 men successively begetting one another leading up to the birth of Jesus, and no women are included in this. What I find interesting here is each time Anderson makes a brief comment or insight about women, but it is quickly brushed off. In the first case, he mentions that women typically knew little Latin, but doesn’t explain why this was or the significance of that information. In addition, he mentions that once women could access print they were mobilized for politico-religious purposes, which is an important point and I’d be interested to learn more about their role in this mobilization, but Anderson stops at that. In the second instance, he notes that women are not included in the sequence of lineage from the Patriarch Abraham to Jesus, but again does not go into significance, which is very important since he does decide to mention that no women are mentioned.

However, another important aspect of Anderson’s writing should be mentioned. In three instances, gender is referenced as an entity similar to or in congruence with the nation/nation-ness. The first is, “…in the modern world everyone can, should, will ‘have’ a nationality, as he or she ‘has’ a gender…” (5) Then later he writes, “We are all aware of the contingency and ineluctability or our particular genetic heritage, our gender, our life-era, our physical capabilities, our mother-tongue, and so forth,” (10) and later, in the chapter “Patriotism and Racism,” he writes, “Something of the nature of this political love can be deciphered from [two idioms]. Both idioms denote something to which one is naturally tied. As we have seen earlier, in everything ‘natural’ there is always something unchosen. In this way, nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage, and birth-era – all those things one cannot help.” (147)

So what is the significance of all this? I think it is clear that Anderson is not unintentionally excluding women, in that the way he writes about man and men denoting a clear distinction from “mankind” or from “women.” However, I think the exclusion may be subconscious, due to the era he was writing in, the early 1980s. But really, the early 80s is not an ancient time, and many women’s rights movements had taken place, so it is still noteworthy and somewhat disturbing that women are excluded from this seminal work, especially considering their role in society. Women bring life to the world, so it would seem natural that they would be included in a book about the birth of nations. They also play and have played significant roles in the functioning of societies, political systems (as Queens, royal matriarchs, chiefs, etc.), religion, economies, and thus their significant role in nations.

I am really curious as to why people think Anderson made this exclusion, and if people agree with me at all that the exclusion seems intentional as opposed to unintended. Furthermore, on the subject of gender as a distinction for nations, do people think that Anderson refers to gender to try to signify that gender can be a unifier of a nation (that there is a male nation and a female nation), or rather that he mentions gender to give an example of something we are born with, such as skin color or parentage. I am not sure, and am interested to hear what others think.

The question about what is the state of women in some of the films we’ve seen thus far really struck me. I tried to think back on significant female characters, and honestly I don’t think there have been many besides in “La Noire de…” and even then I’m not sure if the film-maker was seeking to make a point about the state of womanhood so much as making a point about race and the homeland vs. the foreign land. I think that a man could have been interchanged for Diouana’s character and the story would have been similar. If anything using a woman for the role may even have been done to make the story more believable in that woman are maybe seen as weaker, more silent, and therefore it makes the idea of someone killing themselves without a word more believable to put a woman in that role. Maybe a man would have been expected to be more vocal or fight back to the mistress.

The next piece then that would come to mind is The Colored Museum in terms of having female roles, but again, and I didn’t notice or think about this at the time but in reflection I think they are all sort of demeaning. We see women in five pieces, six if you include Ms. Roj the drag queen. I will list them:

1. The giddy, Barbie-esc flight attendant is preparing slaves on a “slave flight” for their journey to North America. She is out of touch, working on “Celebrity Slave Ship,” and is obsessed by the sound of drums playing. She is annoying.
2. The girl (and man) who “live inside Ebony magazine.” They live there to avoid feeling pain by escaping reality.
3. Ms. Roj is an alcoholic drag queen who although she starts out on a lighthearted note, she ends on a very dark and serious one, talking about the deterioration of society and her personal problems with family and drinking.
4. The hairpiece, in which a spoiled looking girl is shocked to find that her wigs are speaking to one another. The piece centers on “natural” versus “unnatural,” i.e. an afro wig versus a relaxed wig. The woman choosing between the wigs could be considered obsessed with appearances.
5. In Permutations, we meet the “girl that laid an egg,” after having “sexual relations with the garbage man.”
6. And finally, in Mama-on-the-couch, we see what seems like a criticism of some form of black expression which are considered exploitative, such as minstrelsy and blackface. However, when considering the characters of the man’s wife and the sister, they are both extreme characters.

After thinking through the pieces, my conclusion was that the women throughout The Colored Museam all seem ridiculous. None of them are—nor should they be based on their behavior—taken seriously, as opposed to the soldier or the business man in other scenes. I realize this is partly attributed to comedy or at least maybe the irony of comedy, but I also find it confusing why there are basically no serious women in this 90 minute performance.

Particularly disturbing to me is the Permutations piece, and especially where she says something like, “I laid an egg, and that makes me special.” This makes me think about women’s role in society, and how women are often viewed as vehicles for reproduction and nothing more. I really got the sense from this piece that this girl, who seemed really lackadaisical and frankly quite dumb, had absolutely nothing else going for her, and it was almost like, “thank God she laid this egg, at least she has that,” or “thank God she has this baby, what else would she have done with her life.”

I wonder if people agree with me about the role of women in the films we’ve watched thus far being quite insignificant and where they did have a presence it was generally filling some type of stereotype (mostly negative) or adhering to a gender role in which women have been placed but that we are maybe strived to be taken out of (e.g. being obsessed with beauty, needing to have children to be “special,” being weak and vulnerable in the case of Diouana and her suicide, etc.). I’m really interested in other people’s thoughts on this, and how everyone has viewed women’s roles thus far in the films as well as in Anderson’s book.

The State of Woman and Womanhood by Matt Antezana

The state of women and womanhood is a central theme in  Ousmane Sembene's film "La Noire De," which translates to Black Girl. In the film a Senegalese woman named Diouana from the village Dakar moves to Antibes, France to work for an affluent couple. Things take a turn for the worse for Diouana who commits suicide by the end of the film because of the hopelessness caused by the harsh and slave like treatment coming from the couple. Throughout the film Diouana performs tasks that are stereotypically associated with women instead of men. She performed various house chores and this creates the image of the stay at home wife. This image has led to several negative beliefs, such as that women should stay at home and care for the family, that have plagued the womanhood and equal rights for women. This portrayal of woman in film is detrimental to the desire of women to have a role in society outside that of the housewife. The film also presents Diouana as a submissive figure who must obey all of the commands of her employer. This fits into the gender stereotype that women should assume a submissive role. The portrayal of womanhood in "Black Girl" puts woman back into the stay at home role that has plagued them for generations and that continues to plague them even as Women have greater opportunities in society.

While watching "The Colored Museum" I realized that aside from a various issues relating to race, the role of the woman was also a key issue. The particular scene that centered around womanhood is the scene in which the young African American woman gives birth to a giant egg. This scene displays one of the most prominent roles that women are known for, that of being a mother. The role of being a mother has long been associated with being one of the most important aspects of being a women and has even been used as a way to put women down in the past by some who believe that it should be their only role. Also the circumstances surrounding the woman entrance to motherhood can also be viewed as negative or positive by different societies, in our society specifically believe have negative beliefs towards women who have children at a young age. In the scene the woman is obviously young and appears to be foolish to the audience especially in terms of the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. She fits into the typical young teenage/adult mother who became a mother because of her carelessness. However she is also displayed as being highly protective of the giant egg thus assuming the natural motherly tendencies.

While woman and womanhood have played major roles in "Black Girl" and "The Colored Museum," so far in Imagined Communities women have not played any specific essential roles. However this does not mean that they play no role in the formation of a nation. In his book Benedict Anderson does not specifically state that his theory only applies to men but instead it applies to all of humanity as a whole. He writes "Human lives are full of such combinations of necessity and chance. We are all aware of the contingency and ineluctability of our particular genetic heritage, our gender" (Anderson, 10). Anderson is informing the reader that he is well aware of the various factors such as gender that affect our lives in the community. Anderson's theory applies to all humans regardless of gender because they are still able to form communities based on nationalistic values and at various times he refers to inhabitants of communities not by a particular gender but as "members".

The State of Woman and Womanhood by Matt Antezana

The state of women and womanhood is a central theme in  Ousmane Sembene's film "La Noire De," which translates to Black Girl. In the film a Senegalese woman named Diouana from the village Dakar moves to Antibes, France to work for an affluent couple. Things take a turn for the worse for Diouana who commits suicide by the end of the film because of the hopelessness caused by the harsh and slave like treatment coming from the couple. Throughout the film Diouana performs tasks that are stereotypically associated with women instead of men. She performed various house chores and this creates the image of the stay at home wife. This image has led to several negative beliefs, such as that women should stay at home and care for the family, that have plagued the womanhood and equal rights for women. This portrayal of woman in film is detrimental to the desire of women to have a role in society outside that of the housewife. The film also presents Diouana as a submissive figure who must obey all of the commands of her employer. This fits into the gender stereotype that women should assume a submissive role. The portrayal of womanhood in "Black Girl" puts woman back into the stay at home role that has plagued them for generations and that continues to plague them even as Women have greater opportunities in society.

While watching "The Colored Museum" I realized that aside from a various issues relating to race, the role of the woman was also a key issue. The particular scene that centered around womanhood is the scene in which the young African American woman gives birth to a giant egg. This scene displays one of the most prominent roles that women are known for, that of being a mother. The role of being a mother has long been associated with being one of the most important aspects of being a women and has even been used as a way to put women down in the past by some who believe that it should be their only role. Also the circumstances surrounding the woman entrance to motherhood can also be viewed as negative or positive by different societies, in our society specifically believe have negative beliefs towards women who have children at a young age. In the scene the woman is obviously young and appears to be foolish to the audience especially in terms of the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. She fits into the typical young teenage/adult mother who became a mother because of her carelessness. However she is also displayed as being highly protective of the giant egg thus assuming the natural motherly tendencies.

While woman and womanhood have played major roles in "Black Girl" and "The Colored Museum," so far in Imagined Communities women have not played any specific essential roles. However this does not mean that they play no role in the formation of a nation. In his book Benedict Anderson does not specifically state that his theory only applies to men but instead it applies to all of humanity as a whole. He writes "Human lives are full of such combinations of necessity and chance. We are all aware of the contingency and ineluctability of our particular genetic heritage, our gender" (Anderson, 10). Anderson is informing the reader that he is well aware of the various factors such as gender that affect our lives in the community. Anderson's theory applies to all humans regardless of gender because they are still able to form communities based on nationalistic values and at various times he refers to inhabitants of communities not by a particular gender but as "members".

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.

Blog #5 Tonisha Spratte

The State of Womanhood; Esp. Minority Womanhood

Womanhood.  What is this word?  What does it mean to be a woman?  It seems that women have always come after men.  From the workforce to voting, women have been historically seen as weaker, mostly fit for domestic jobs and most importantly taking care of the home and children.  In the past women, especially minority women, have been viewed as property, something to rule over and use as you please.  This is definitely seen in the movie La Noire de… by Ousmane Sembene.  In fact the title of this move does not translate perfectly into English; translated literally it says “the black of/from”, which is definitely an example of women as the ostracized and oppressed.  Even feminism, being a response to marginalization of women in a patriarchal society, is strained and made complicated by race issues between the women.  In Chakraborty’s article “Waving it all away: Producing Subject and Knowledge in Feminisms of Colours” she elaborates on these racial challenges within feminism. 

In the English translation of “La Noire de…” the “de” gets left out in translation, (as do the ellipses).  I believe this can be quite important in the exegesis of the movie/title.  “De” can mean either from or of depending on the context.  If it means from then it could mean ‘The black girl from…’ and the ellipses leave the phrase purposely incomplete.  In doing so, it signifies that the place where the girl is from is unimportant because she is unimportant.  If it were to mean ‘The black girl of…’ this would imply possession, meaning that someone owned or had the potential to own her.  Which I believe was a common thing in Senegal at that time, to have a ‘maid’, to practically own some poor African woman because there were no other jobs for her to be able to do in those times.  Ousmane Sembene wanted to show the conditions that the women of his day had to endure.  He wanted to show how they were being treated and that they are people too. 

Chakraborty’s ariticle highlights the racial tensions within feminism.  As noble of a cause as feminism is, it cannot continue to grow and build on such a fractured foundation.  White privilege is still in effect and the colored woman is constantly “hotfooting” from all of the various roles she is expected to fill.  “…whereby the feminist of colour hotfoots between being and not-being the race-maid in the academic kitchen, between trying to negotiate her newly acquired job profile and, at the same time, self-reflexively, interrogating the conditions of possibilities that make her presence viable.”  Therefore, the colored woman is still trying to prove herself within the feminist community, which seems counterintuitive because the feminist movement was supposed to be one that uplifts women.  Even in 'The Colored Museum' the bald woman felt that she had to choose just the right hair in order to prove her worth to the man she was about to break up with. Why didn't she feel that she could be just as empowered as she was?  Why was her as herself not good enough?  This seems to be the common theme for the woman.  Constantly trying to prove herself and demonstrate her value to the skeptics, the doubters, and deriders.

Ousmane Sembene wanted to show the difficulties and distressed situation of the Senegalese woman and Chakraborty wanted to emphasize the racial tension between women within the feminist movement.  Both people wanted to highlight the difficulties of the colored woman and the fact that, even within feminism these women still feel the need to prove themselves to other women.  If the women are constantly bumping heads with each other then how can they pull themselves together in order to further the goal of feminism?

Jessie Dzura, Blog #5: Third Cinema and Versions of Silence

The short film "La Noire de..." distinctly reminded me of an article for my Gender and Violence in the Middle East class, discussing different kinds of silence: an oppressed silence and an active silence. For me, "La Noire de..." depicts both kinds of silence and raises the question "Is silence oppression?". As I mentioned in class, I do not think that silence is necessarily an acceptance of oppression. However, Diouana both accepts oppression and fights against it.

Diouana is a symbol of the oppression of colonial powers on their colonies. Her body and mind (culture and society) are brought down by her colonial rulers. She is constantly slaving away for passionateness masters with material concerns. She finds freedom in suicide, which is both an active and passive act.

I mostly find Diouana's acts to be a form of fighting against the system. She is heard in her acts, although not in a larger context. By committing suicide, she takes back her voice and her ability to make her own decisions. No longer can her masters enforce their colonialism on her body. Her act of decolonization (taking something back from the oppressors) carries over to her Senegalese community. In silence, her mother refuses to take the pay-off of the white employers, refuses to wash away their guilt by accepting the fruits of her daughter's body.

This reminds me of an essential concept of the class. Participation-- I think that a choice of silence in this class is not a form of intimidation or colonialization. While participation is mandatory, I think some of the more important concepts of the class are best processed and portrayed in our blogs. Through our writing we can reclaim our thoughts, rather than waiting in a line to comment. Through our blogs, and not necessarily in class participation, we are allowed the freedom to interact with the class materials (without the influence of societal judgement). We become free, in this way, because we have no barrier to our voice.

For me, colonialism and silence are best represented in the monotony of our society.
When you listen to this song, you feel the loss of identity that colonized people feel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zXWh0N-ZSE