Critical Reflection Assignment 2: The Films Black Girl Directed By Ousmane Sembène

Critical Reflection Assignment 2
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Critical Reflection Assignment 2
The films Black Girl directed by Ousmane Sembène and I am not Your Negro directed by Raoul Peck gift one with 60 and 90 minutes of deeply researched and objectively presented social issues. One of the major issues that both movies present or touch is the growing and ever-present disparity between the blacks and whites. For instance, in the Black Girl, one gets to see a young girl whose relationship with her employers is suddenly changed simply because they have moved from Senegal to France. While in the midst of their fellow white men and women, her employers decide to assume their sole position on how they see and view Africans. Peck, on the other hand, is not shy to present Baldwin’s ideas and sentiments about the issue of race and white supremacy. He goes further into issues of civil rights and through Baldwin’s work mentions instances, such as the harassment of Dorothy Counts and the sight of southern boys taunting and screeching at a young woman. The films help to remind the viewer that issues of race are indeed here with us, but there is always a way regardless of the injustice.
A close examination of the films reveals their touch or focus on some of the controversial social, cultural, political, and historical issues. In the Black Girl film, one issue that is apparent is the need for the white man to be seen as the head. Before Diouana moved to France, she was considered a nursery maid, but the relationship with her employer changes after they move to France. People like her were considered primitive, and despite her employers’ previous stance when they were in Senegal, they opt to re-adopt the universal stance which seems to reiterate and reaffirm to Diouana that her kind comes secon...