PAFF 2012: DARK GIRLS



On the "set" of Dark Girls.

In the b(l)ackground

By Ed Rampell

Bill Duke is best known to audiences for appearing in highly commercial  action pix, such as Ah-nold Schwarzenegger's two 1980s hits, Commando and Predator, plus Action Jackson, as well as in 1970s TV crime fighting series like Kojak, Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch. The 6'4" shaved head African-American actor is less known as one of Hollywood's working directors, not only of many television programs, but of features, such as the Whoopi Goldberg Sister Act sequel, the made-for-TV movie about the Black Panthers' forerunners, Deacons For Defense, plus 1993's The Cemetery Club. In the latter, Duke raised eyebrows by breaking the mold and directing a mostly Caucasian and female cast led by Olympia Dukakis and Ellen Burstyn.

Now the surprisingly soft spoken Duke is shattering celluloid stereotypes again by co-directing the hard hitting, eye opening documentary Dark Girls, about "colorism" -- not only within the African-American community, but among non-blacks here and peoples around the world. Colorism is a sort of preferential judgment system based solely on skin color and tone, the caliber of hair (how straight is it?) and eye color -- as opposed to assessing individuals on what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the contents of one’s character.”

In particular, as the title suggests, Duke's doc looks at how this phenomenon affects females of color, although it is the first in a trilogy to include Yellow Brick Road (about the "high yellow"/"mulatto" phenomenon of the perception of lighter skinned people) and What is a Man. Dark Girls' interviewees include a number of extremely insightful psychologists, as well as children, teens, adults and elders impacted by colorism, such as African-American women are the least married demographic in the USA by far. Most of the documentary’s subjects are black; many of the onscreen victims of colorism are full of anguish, especially as this form of racism often comes from others of African ancestry. Comic Michael Coylar scores some pithy points about the color barrier couched in wit, while The Help actress Viola Davis insists upon not remaining helpless while racial scorn is heaped upon her.

One of the recurring interviewees is a lighter skinned mom who frets over having a darker daughter who denies her own Negritude and refuses to identify as being black. However, this mother seems completely oblivious to what appears to be her own hair straightening and dying blonde of her locks -- what message does this send to her little girl?

Like Bed Stuy-born Chris Rock’s 2009 directorial debut, Good Hair, Duke fearlessly takes on sensitive subject matter -- call him the “Duke of Curl.” When asked why Duke was "airing blacks' dirty laundry" he replied: "Because it's stinking up the house." Along with co-director D. Channsin Berry, Duke belies cultural cliches and goes where angels fear to tread, by tackling a touchy subject few would deal with (although Spike Lee boldly did in his controversial 1988 musical School Daze). Duke’s well-made nonfiction film anticipates and deals with a lot of my “what about” thoughts, such as, for example, the fact that while Thailand is full of dark skinned people, only the lighter skinned Asians appear on television.

However, I would have liked a brief look at Frantz Fanon’s groundbreaking book about the psychopathology of colonialism, Black Skins, White Masks – especially since Fanon himself was a psychiatrist, as are many of this film’s talking heads. Plus, the doc is totally devoid of any sort of class analysis of colorism -- just as plantation masters benefited by perceived divisions between house and field hands, today’s divided working class profits our corporate overlords. Ever since the Roman Empire, divide and conquer has been the name of the oppression game. Nevertheless, Dark Girls is a major, must see work.

The screening of Dark Girls I attended was completely sold out, and was followed by an extremely lively Q&A with Duke in person.