Night Catches US: Barbara Mickens-Alajiki

This film is very powerful and moving to me. It displays the anger left over in the late 1970′s in the Philadelphia black community after the fight for equality in the 60′s. Police brutality and reckless violence full of hate and displaced anger are major themes in this film. Most of the characters cannot let go of the past, therefore, they are hindering themselves from moving forward.Jimmy, a young black man and the cousin of Patricia (Kerry Washington) is full of hate and anger towards the white police officers of the city, eventually murdering one in cold blood towards the end of the film, which ends in the Jimmy’s own demise via Philly cops and their guns. Patricia ex-husband had been a panther that had let anger take over his mind and life and killed a cop…ending in his demise as well. I think Jimmy was a symbol of holding on to the past, just like Patricia does, making it impossible for the characters to move forward with their lives, and to not let race, violence and redemption be the only focuses of their lives. Unfortunately, the only character that understands that they have to let go of the past is Marcus. Marcus is an ex panther who is believed by the community to have snitched on Patricia’s ex-husband to the FBI resulting in his brutal death. However, it was Patricia that snitched in order to save her and her daughter. In the end, after Jimmy’s similar death to Neil’s, Marcus leaves town to move on while Patricia decides that she cannot leave her home and bring her daughter with her to leave with Marcus. Marcus’s character was very strong and led the film. He displays reason in the film and makes the right choice to leave the past behind him in the end.

Behn Zeitilin’s 2012 film Beast of the Southern Wild follows the lives of a Bayou community post Hurricane Katrina, the reality of their living conditions and the solidarity that underlines their sustainability and existence.  This narrative is depicted through the eyes of a child whose is coming of age in a space where dependency although a real aspect of life, alone is not a means of survival.  Hushpuppie’s character is maturated in a way that questions the way gender is correlated to strength within the context of poverty and father daughter relationships.

Early in the film we are to take notice to the physical absence of Hushpuppie’s mother and the physical presence of her father.  It is Wink, her father that raises her, teaches her the basic means of survival, cooking, lessons on nature, hunting as well as other recreational skills.  It is her school teacher that educates her on history, philosophy and self medicating.  Although the pedagogy used to educate Hushpuppie is arguably unorthodox, it is what shapes her perception of the world around her, what it means to be in this world and how to navigate within this space.  It is  these very lessons that insight her development and maturation, although she articulates her intellect in a very magical and fantastical way, her understanding is concrete.

Bell Hooks in her article, No Love In the Wild, argues Wink’s parenting of Hushpuppie perpetuates the stereotype that men posses strength and resilience more so than women therefore assuming some hierarchy over them.  Hooks supports this assertion by pointing to the “Beast It” scene where Wink along with the larger community encourages Hushpuppie to break a crab in half with her bare hands.  hooks argues that Hushpuppie’s temperament shifts to one of “fear and terror as she struggles to obey the commands of her father.”  Her attempt at breaking the crab is a success and she is congratulated as they chant “who’s the man,” and Hushpuppie responds claiming she is the man.  hook’s literary and stark interpretation of these scene is what she believes to validate her assertion that Wink and the community impose a masculine sensibility on Hushpuppie and furthermore claims the casting of her is as transgendered role.

As a feminist, one would assume that hook’s would certainly not correlate strength with masculinity because the subtext to that assumption would be that women cannot embody strength without taking on masculine energy, which we know to be false.  If it is the language and more so the pronoun usage in the phrase “I’m the man,” then we can deconstruct whether or not this is a direct informing of patriarchy or if this is an unintentional use of a colloquialism that is gender specific.  I would allude to the later being closest to a reasonable assertion.  Wink embraces Hushpuppies femininity through his separation of the trailer space, there is a place for girls and a black for boys.  He creates a space for her to express her femininity he doesn’t muffle it.

Furthermore I would argue that hook’s use of the term transgender as a reference to Hushpuppie’s characterization is insensitive to he politics of gender, specifically to those who are transgendered.  Hushpuppie identifies as a female is referred to a female and more over she has non undergone a sex change nor spoke of any desire to make that transformation.  This characterization of her as a transgendered is not validated by any textual information within the film work.

Hushpuppie’s maturation and upbringing is not gender specific or exclusive, and I would argue that it need not be.  If in fact it were, that would be a perpetuation of gender roles and informing of patriarchy.  Gender simply is not a factor in Hushpuppie’s maturation as far as survival is concerned.  Assigning specific means of survival for men and women assumes that there is no fluidity within living and surviving as a man and woman, one is constrained into roles of what one should be.

Tanya Hamilton’s 2010 film Night Catches Us, follows the narrative of ex panthers after the dissovle of the Black panther Party, some of which are working towards reestablishing their lives others who are still stagnated by their past but all of whom are grappling with the fact that all though strides were made by the BPP there was no resolve.  Racial tensions still persist, there is still a constant law enforcement presence that permeates the neighborhood reinforcing the same police brutality agendas of policing and harassing blacks. Each of the characters find their own ways of coping with the past and its permeation into the future. However it seems that Patricia and ex panther and wife of a slain panther, is the force that holds everyone together although they are very much divided.

Patricia all those she is the nucleus of this fallen BPP squadron she is more so an extension of these men and the cause than she is a leader.  Given the historical discourse of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Movement, women occupied the perimeter of these movements and were very much so marginalized within it.  We can contextually observe this narrative of gender discrimination within the fabric of this film.  Although Patricia is outspoken, respected and self-made the role she occupies in this film work is as an extension of the men that surround her past and present.  More specifically she is an extension of her deceased husband who’s memory manifests itself in her everyday life although she makes every effort not to discuss the past, her silence is loud.  Patricia dedicates her life to repairing and maintaining his legacy through her service to the community, even when it is at cost to herself.  She becomes a martyr, the death is of her life and identity outside of her affiliation with these men and this movement.  She constantly through the movie self medicates this loss with making the assertion that she owes her allegiance to these “last panthers,” sacrifices herself and latches on to another panther to medicate this loss of self all the while perpetuating the problem.

Tompkins in her essay me and my shadow address the issue of women being used as accessories, mirrors and extensions of men as a problematic placement, and a damaging image that only perpetuates the stereotype that women lack autonomy and must be validated by their attachment to a male figure.  I believe this assertion to be clearly illustrated in the film Night Catches Us.

The 2008 film, Rachel Getting Married starring Anne Hathaway does not fit your typical Hollywood movie mold. This was not a film that strictly followed the cultural subconscious of making a film through a patriarchal and masculine lens, always having the female character something that men can pine after or having the female character as passive or submissive.
Rachel, is a mid twenties girl recently out of re hab. She comes back home in the midst of her sister preparing for her wedding. She does what she wants, when she wants to do it, and she lets her emotions show on her sleeve. Rachel’s character is important because the entire plot is sort of based on Rachel’s mid twenties “coming of age” and her struggle to accept herself and have her family do the same. Usually in Hollywood films, pleasure is constructed around scocophillia, the pleasure of subjecting someone to one’s gaze. For example, in the movie The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, there are an abundance of scenes of Angelina Jolie dressed in beautiful satin dresses that showcase her body, bright red lipstick and heavy mascara that frame her as a beautiful, sexy woman. Most of these scenes had absolutely nothing to do with the plot, she did not have to be so extravagantly dressed and made up all the time, however this creates pleasure for the audience (especially males) because she becomes an object of desire.

In Rachel Getting Married, Rachel has very short hair and in most scenes in the film is dressed plainly with little make up and the film does not focus really on her outward femininity, but more on her characters struggle and story.

In Jonathan Demme’s 2008 film, “Rachel Getting Married, the women presented in the film are not portrayed as objects of pleasure. Laura Mulvey asserts in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, that there is an active male and passive female in cinema (Mulvey, p. 2186). However, the only two female characters who actually develop throughout the film, Rachel and Kim, are not passive in any kind of way. Kim, although a slave to her own psyche and guilt for past mistakes, unabashedly makes decisions for herself and does not acquiesce to what others propose that she do. Of course, Kim’s decisions for herself are self-destructive, but they are still of her own doing. Even during the scene when Kim has sex with Kieran, Sidney’s, who is her brother-in-law, best friend, Kim is not shown as passive. The subtle element of her keeping most of her clothes on and Kieran being completely naked shows her dominance in this particular situation. Rather than Kim being passive and an object of sexual desire for a man, she chooses to use him as an object of physical pleasure soon after meeting him. He does not attempt to woo her; it is almost as if she made the decision to have sex with Kieran as soon as she saw him. Perhaps, she simply needed to have intercourse to let out some negative feelings and relax. Rachel, who is completely opposite of Kim, is not portrayed as passive either. She has no issue with speaking her mind and showing her anger and disappointment throughout the film. She is shown differently from Kim and she is much more conservative, but that does not make her any less active. Rachel is a soon-to-be mother, a bride, a daughter, and a sister, but she is also the piece that holds her dysfunctional family together. She is the only individual who does not crumble over sadness due to the loss of her little brother, and she strives to keep her family together and in tact. Rachel is essentially the head of her family.

Another reason as to why the characters in “Rachel Getting Married” do not coincide with the typical female character in Hollywood cinema is due to their appearances. Laura Mulvey states, “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, p. 2186). This assertion rebutted by Kim for the particular film. Anne Hathaway, the actress who plays Kim, is a young and beautiful starlet of Hollywood. In her breakout film, “Princess Diaries”, she is a nerdy schoolgirl who is transformed into a stunning figure of royalty. In one of her more recent roles, she plays catwoman in “Dark Knight Rises”. Hathaway is shown in a skintight leather bodysuit and dark makeup, which displays overt sexuality. However, in “Rachel Getting Married” she is not depicted as stunning or sexy, she simply looks troubled and disheveled. Her damaged hair, makeup-less face, and clothing choices do not create an image of desire. Kim’s usual choice of clothing is something plain, loose-fitting, and dark. Her dress for the rehearsal dinner, although green, looks a bit too large for her and does not complement her shape. The only scene in which Kim is shown naked is when Rachel is washing her in a claw foot bathtub. Kim hugs her knees and appears as her sister washes her. The only nude scene in the whole film actually engenders an image of a child being washed by their mother rather than anything sexual. The appearance of women as objects of desire completely works against the film’s message. Although there are still many films that project women as objects of desire in Hollywood films, Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married, is not one of them.

In the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, the main character, a tenacious little girl named Hushpuppy, constantly reiterates her reverence for nature. Her community thrives off the land, or rather, the swamps. Through the devastation of hurricanes, they do not flee, they survive. Hushpuppy explains: “Everybody loses the thing that made them. It’s even how it’s supposed to be in nature. The brave men stay and watch it happen, they don’t run.” She is wise beyond her years, but in an innocent and influenced kind of way. She is greatly persuaded by her father, Wink, and anything that he says is to be valued.

As the camera spans the scenery, the scenery being the swamp land and the forests, the images are often accompanied by Hushpuppy enhancing the footage through her address. She will say something that is prophetic but in a very childlike way; such as: “The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece… the entire universe will get busted.” Is Hushpuppy referring to the melting ice caps? And global warming as a whole? If she is, then we can understand how the melting ice caps mean that the ocean will continue to encroach on her land. Even though the two areas are so far apart, they are inherently connected, as she explains.

The relevance of her attitude towards nature and the overall plot of the film, is that her people depend on the fruit of the land for their survival. So does the rest of the world, but we are not as connected to our resources as the people who live in the Bathtub. Hushpuppy talks about the swamp and the entire universe so frequently because her livelihood is so greatly affected by the changes in nature.

Hushpuppy is constantly connected with nature. She wants to feel the heartbeat of the animals that surround her. Like what David Denby said in his review for The New Yorker: “Again and again, Hushpuppy grabs an animal and listens to what’s beating inside-she gets right to the heart of things.” (Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2) In this film,we have a little girl who is acutely aware of how nature affects her, and will continue to affect her.

Hushpuppy is seeing the future of her community, and then the world, in her rhetoric about what nature will do in its continuing process of destruction. As a viewer, you naturally begin to empathize with her love of the Bathtub, and in the groups fight to stay there as long as they can. Her voice is meant to make the viewer appreciate the world she lives in, from the perspective of being one with nature. Being a lover of nature myself, I paid special attention to how nature was portrayed in this film. Hushpuppy is growing up in an environment where she is apart of nature, but she is also taught to be a steward of the land in a dominant sense. It is intended that the viewers are to be taken into her world of living off the land, and see what it means to her.

Works Cited

1.) Beasts of the Southern Wild. Dir. Benh Zeitlin. Perf. Quvenzhané Wallis. Cinireach, Court 13. 2012. DVD.

2.) Denby, David. “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” Rev. of Beasts of the Southern Wild. The New Yorker 29 June 2012:Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Ben Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) depicts the lives of several characters living in the “Bathtub,” a subaltern outside of the Louisiana bayou.  The “Bathtub” is a community where each individual survives off the land and each individual is able to contribute some skill or asset to the community as well as to one another.  Having multiple people within the “Bathtub” who are considered capable, Wink, a single father, teaches Hushpuppy to be strong and rely on no one.  As a result, the audience empathizes with Hushpuppy as she longs for her mother and her childhood seems to be limited due to the nature of her situation.

Wink, is hard on Hushpuppy but for reasons that he believes are valid and through his teachings to her, he hopes she will eventually understand.  Being left behind to care for his only daughter, Wink did the best he could with what he had.  He was teaching her to survive in a world that may turn its back on her and if that should happen she has the skills to fend for herself.  Ultimately, the life Wink and Hushpuppy leads force her to grow up fast.  Having to mature in this manner, Hushpuppy uses her imagination in ways that does preserve her childhood.

Although the mother is not a prevalent visual character in the film, her presence is felt.  Throughout the film Hushpuppy’s longing for her mother is seen through her crying out for her mom and the conversations she has with the lighthouse.  In her house, at the dinner table there are stuffed animals and a drawing of a female character on the wall with a basketball jersey pinned to it.  That image represents what Hushpuppy believes to be her mother but because of the masculinity that Wink has instilled in her, we get the basketball jersey as a way of saying I miss my mommy but I am strong.

Hushpuppy’s childhood may seem limited and through these aspects the audience is able to see her childhood at work through her imagination.  This film uses the concept of mythical creatures and imagination to draw the viewer into the mind of a child.  It is Hushpuppy’s imagination as well as a feeling of neglect that prompts her to seek her mother.  In the scene where the girls all swim to the boat and find themselves at the brothel, we see her imagination consume her.

This scene not only gives us the childhood images of Hushpuppy but the little girls who are with her.  Throughout the film these children are not seen with any parental figure so maybe they too are longing for their mother and/or father as well.  After they have entered the brothel the girls are each shown slow dancing with the ladies who work there, all hugging and heads buried in the chest of these ladies.  This close up depicts the drams of little girls coming true and finally getting what they have been longing for.  As the girls are dancing Hushpuppy meets the woman who she has been daydreaming about.  Living out her dreams, Hushpuppy is dancing and is picked up by the waitress as the two engage in conversation.  Although the waitress informs Hushpuppy that she is not her mother, Hushpuppy’s imagination is still hard at work.

“Beasts Of The Southern Wild” was about a little girl named Hushpuppy who was being raised by her father named Wink on a bayou known as The bathtub. Hushpuppy’s mother passed away leaving her with her father. Hushpuppy was being taught how to survive through intense circumstances.Hushpuppy’s father is teaching her how to survive on her own because her mother is already deceased and he knows that his time is limited as well. Hushpuppy had to grow up extremely fast. Hushpuppy and her father were living in two seperate homes. One day Hushpuppy’s father went missing for a couple of days. Hushpuppy had to take care of her self. She eventually found dad and when she found him he was in a hospital gown. Hushpuppy’s father did not want her to know where he was and why he was in the hospital. Hushpuppy felt as if she was not getting any attention from her father so she turned the fire up high on the stove where she was warming dog food and blew the house up. This led to Hushpuppy having to go stay with her father.

A scene that stood out to me was when Hushpuppy, her father, and the other storm survivors had a crab feast. One of the survivors tried to teach Hushpuppy how to open a crab and eat it because she was not familiar with a crab. Hushpuppy’s father intervened immediately, he wanted to teach Hushpuppy how to open and eat the crab properly because he had been teaching her everything she needed to know. Hushpuppy raised her guns (arms) and knew she mastered one of the things her father wanted her to master. From that point, Hushpuppy started stepping up and doing everything her father needed her to do. If anything was to happen he taught her how to survive on her own, how to travel, and who to trust if he was to ever leave her.

It was amazing how smart Hushpuppy was. She was far from a fool. When her father was hospitalized he broke out and tried to send Hushpuppy on a bus and she had a fit and made them stop them bus and she ran off yelling to her father, ”You tryna get rid of Me.” He told her that he was not but he could no longer take care of her because he was dying. In this film Hushpuppy was taught the means for survival, even things that were not a form of femininity. She had to participate in a lot of things which involved masculinity. Hushpuppy gender stood out to be African-American by her skin complexion and nappy hair standing on top of her hair. Hushpuppy was so brave and bold and was not intimidated by anything. When her father passed, she made sure she put him in a boat and burnt him up as he commanded.

The 2012 film, Beasts of the Southern Wild centers around the survival of a six year old girl named Hushpuppy, her father and other members of a self-made community in the bayous of the Gulf of Mexico named the Bathtub.We are introduced to Hushpuppy as a “wildchild” left under the supervision of her father after he mother dies. Hushpuppy emobodies the image of a “wildchild” in both her appearance and behavior.

As a child, Hushpuppy wanders in the wilderness on her own, in one instance she is left alone and forced to fend for herself while he father is in the hospital. She is very unkempt in her physical appearance; her hair is never combed as the audience sees, she wears the same underclothes for multiple days, and we never see her bath or perform any other hygenic tasks such as brushing her teeth. However, based on bell hook’s writings, her physical appearance can be contributed to the absence of her mother or as hooks puts it, Hushpuppy being “without healthy parenting” to offer her “object constancy”.

In some scenes of the movie we see Hushpuppy parading around in her white undershirt, orange underwear, and a pair of white rain boots. This is the case in one of the first scenes we see towards the beginning of the movie. Hushpuppy is playing in what I understood to be her front or backyard jumping in between tires in this same ensemble. As a female who grew up in the 21st century, I understand the severity of always being appropriately dressed when I am in public; meaning, that I understand the importance of always covering my private areas when I leave my home. This is a point I think bell hooks attempts to communicate in her criticism however, she cites Hushpuppy’s ensemble as “pornographic”. hooks continues to assert that the camaera’s focus on Hushpuppy’s behind in just her underwear helps to communicate this as a pornographic image.

However, based on our class discussion as well as hook’s writings we fully understand that Hushpuppy is motherless and seeks to fill that void in many different ways. One of her most common practices is to talk to wher mother who is not physically there. Hushpuppy talks to her mom and imagines the words spoken back to her. We do not really hear her mother’s voice but rather we are hearing Hushpuppy’s imagination’s projection of her mother’s voice.

Because of the absence of her mother who would also serve as a protector, the angle of the camera filming the back of her serves as a make believe protector; the camera follows behind her the same way a parent would while their child is playing outside. As a child, I can remember my mom and other adults who fulfilled protector roles following up behind me while I was playing around to make sure I didn’t hurt myself. Even now, as an older person who must protect children when they are in my care, always close behind. As my nieces and nephews run around in the family room, I am never treading to far behind to ensure their safety. So, perhaps bell hooks should re-evaluate her assertion that these are pornographic images and further analyze the techniques used throughout the film.

Beast of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin was a good movie that takes place deep in the South. Hushpuppy is a little girl, who is very independent but has to act in a very masculine way to be a little girl. She is raised by her father, in a rural land that gets destroyed by a big storm, she lives on her own and she learns to take care of herself day by day. Hushpuppy is raised based on the rules of survival and she is forced to grow up faster than what she needs to, because her father is dying. He teaches Hushpuppy to show no emotion in order to keep her from being too sensitive as a person.

A scene that took place at the end of the movie displayed how strong Hushpuppy was at the age that she is. Throughout the movie we see about four or five beast roaming through their land looking for food and shelter. Hushpuppy narrates to us a in ways that she see’s these beasts and nobody else does, but they give her strength in a way. When the storm hit their land Hushpuppy started to learn how to fish, crab and help build a home. Hushpuppy shows that age has nothing to do with inner strength and how even when she knew her dad was sick, she wasn’t going to let him leave her side. We se at the end of the movie that Hushpuppy is confronted by the beast and she never backs down. That scene depicts strength and that she can stand her grown, it also showed her dad that when he dies she is going to be fine. Nobody can see these beast in the beginning but Hushpuppy, but as her dad begins to take his last breaths he too begins to see them.

In contrast many people argue the negligence Hushpuppy’s dad has towards her, but in reality men weren’t built to nurture, but to protect and provide. When he realized his condition was getting worst he had to teach Hushpuppy the correct survival skills in order for her to live and if she was scared all the time, she wouldn’t be strong enough to survive. This is where I don’t agree with Bell Hooks statement “all the vibrancy in this film is generated by a crude pornography of violence.” Throughout the movie I see nothing that displayed any type of pornography on any level. Especially “violating physical and emotional”, I don’t believe Bell Hooks even saw the movie to its entirety because I never seen or even picked up on this type of behavior. As far as her considering Hushpuppy a “transgender” is extremely rude and I don’t believe that’s her gender at all, I believe she has too be tough because her father can’t take her being emotional and soft. In one scene he yells out “Beast It” and “you’re the man”, this showed a sign of strength and independency. Hushpuppy’s dad didn’t want her learning anything from anybody, especially when he taught her how to do things on her own.

In conclusion Bell hooks gave a whole new outlook of Behn Zeitlins film. I did not agree with any of the things that she mentioned, I felt like she put a twist on everything making it bigger than what it was. But I enjoyed how the director filmed the movie from the narration to the camera aspects. This movie showed how people come together and remain strong for one another