A GIRL LIKE ME

A GIRL LIKE ME
Directed by Kiri Davis, United States, 2005, approx. 7 minutes.

A Girl Like Me begins with a simple premise: the director seeks to recreate Dr. Kenneth Clark's famous 1940 doll experiment, in which black children were shown to prefer playing with white dolls. The experiment was a landmark study of the overwhelming effects of internalized racism, and were incorporated into the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.

But the director, a high school student named Kiri Davis who received funding from HBO to make the film via the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking Program in New York City, includes the doll experiment as part of a larger examination of beauty standards for black women in the United States. The film begins with a series of interviews with young black women discussing the stigmas surrounding everything from natural hair to darker skin. The interviews are shot as close-ups, which both increases the intimacy of the girls' stories as well as serving as a way of reminding the viewer of the racialization of beauty; when looking at each girl's face, the injustice of being deemed unattractive based on something as fundamental and immutable as skin color is painstakingly evident.

After her montage of interviews, Davis narrates the segment that recreates the doll experiment. Again, even though she's making a low-cost production on a handheld camera, her keen eye for perspective and portraiture in film comes through as she captures the reactions of the children in her study. She places the camera directly across the table from the children so that every nuance of their responses is captured. In a particularly tragic moment, a four-year-old girl is given two baby dolls, one black and one white, and is asked which is the "good" doll. In accordance with Dr. Clark's study, she picks the white doll, and designates the black doll as "bad." Then, Davis asks the child which doll looks like her, she pauses for a moment as if realizing the implications of her words, and then somberly picks up the black doll she had just referred to as "bad."

The film was debuted as part of the Media That Matters Film Festival, which highlights short films about issues of social, cultural, and political importance. I first came across it shortly after it was released in 2006, when it was discussed on Debunking White, a Livejournal commmunity that examines anti-racist activism and white privilege. Since then, it's been shown in two of my classes at AU, and my reaction is always somewhat paradoxical. On one hand, it's a great piece of documentary filmmaking, especially coming from a student filmmaker who had not yet graduated high school. At the same time, its subject matter is so disheartening that I find it difficult to watch, especially the segment involving the young children. But my guilt aside, I think it's an incredibly important issue, and I'm glad that Kiri Davis handled it so artfully. In fact, I hope to run into her sometime now that she's studying at Howard.

Niña Quebrada

NIÑA QUEBRADA
Written and Directed by Jen Kleiner, USA, 2007, 23 min
Source: DC Shorts Showcase 1

Afternoon, Mexico, somewhere near the US border; Lucena and her “loving and caring” boyfriend Tomas are planning to run away. Evening, Lucena on her way to out to meet Tomas has an argument with her dad because her clothes are inappropriate. Still evening, the couple meets Robert an American who has fake passports for them; the three cross the border. Morning, Lucena wakes up alone and naked in a dingy room, Tomas’ is nowhere to be found; instead Melinda her “owner” tells Lucena that she paid a lot for her, so she better get to work.

At first glance, the film is set to be yet another American Dream film, pretty-girl-and-loving-boyfriend-live-happily-ever-after-some-difficulties-in-USA. But, we start to get a different idea after Lucena argues with her dad. Things become a little more obvious through the cinematography and one shot specifically. When the trio is crossing the border, Lucena is sitting in the back seat, light is coming through the window-illuminating half of her face and shadows surround her. They get permission to pass and a few shots later we see Tomas gives her a pill. Next thing we know she’s been broken and the darkness that surrounded her in the car has completely fallen on her.

The scenes at the prostitution house/cock fighting range are indeed darker in mood and a little long. The short could, perhaps, be a little shorter and more poignant; maybe is just its theme makes us say here-we-go-again. While it does not give us a new and fresh view about child trafficking and prostitution; it does entice the audience visually and through less expected outcome and twists. Basically there are 3, first and least surprising twist, the already stated fact that Tomas used her. Second, when Lucena escapes from Melinda, she does not find a friendly Latin@ community and stays in the US. Third, she denounces Melinda, and we are left with the question of what would happen to her.

The last shot is of Lucena as she sits across the table from two detectives and the camera slowly zooms in to her. Fade to black, the credits begin to roll, and at the very end appears the AFI logo. Niña Quebrada is Kleiner’s graduate thesis film. It’s like that moment in the movie when Lucena asks a little girl at the prostitution house how is she and she responds 12. We as an audience want to know Lucena’s age but we don’t find that out until she’s at the police station. Personally, I think Niña Quebrada’s script is one of the few good ones in this showcase, and makes me wonder about the festival’s decision not to distinguish between the non-student films and the student ones.