Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Contemplating the colored girl video....
Today was difficult for me to concentrate on the discussion in class. I had a hard time remembering pieces of the video we watched on Monday. The effects of growing older that I have to live with on a daily basis. So anyway, after contemplating everything that was said in class today I have gathered my thoughts. I saw the ladies in the second video in a different light than maybe some of the class. I saw them as predators. They were disturbing to me. They exerted their power over the white man much like the way white men exerted their power over their ancestors. I have taken into consideration the date of the video but still did not see anything that empowered the women in the video. I saw the end of the video in terms of the ladies climbing up the ladder in their ragged clothes as something very opposite than their ascension to power. For me it was weird. I understand the premise of the video but maybe do not understand it in a deeper sense. Maybe my head just wasn't in the right place today. I don't know. Just wanting to share my thoughts. Thanks for listening.
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Hi Michele,
ReplyDeleteI think your observations and critique are valid, in fact, the issues of 'power' and 'power over' circulate and saturate the film, and I believe that is intentional on the part of the filmmaker.
"Structural oppressors" is a great framework for describing the engulfing and entrenched aspects of how interlocking colonizer-colonized become in cycles of exploitation and becoming the exploited.
I also agree that the troubling aspects of 'up close' provide a dose of reality that are often veneered, glazed over, and censored from romanticized/beautified historical accounts (U.S. History, Western Civilization) constructed for U.S./Western students, consumers about the realities of conquest on the colonized.
The critique of predation is a powerful one, and I hope you will continue to explore this theme, whereby gender power and sexuality have been key factors in colonization/retaliation methods--both with destructive implications for future generations of white males and indigenous women.
--Margo Tamez