Salamishah Tillet has written an exquisite piece over on TheRoot.com about the history of Black Queer Cinema's golden age - roughly between 1991-1996 - that helped set the stage for Pariah's triumphant success. The film which stars Kim Wayans (yes, their sister) and Adepero Oduye in the title role of a young, black teenage girl simultaneously coming out and coming-of-age is only the latest in a string of little-known films outside of what most would consider the mainstream audience.
"In 1993 filmmaker Michelle Parkerson wrote about the birth of a "new generation" of gay and lesbian filmmakers of color whose work challenged stereotypes and stigmas about black lesbian and gay lives on the big screen. Filmmaker Yvonne Welbon, founder and director of Sisters in Cinema and curator of the "Sisters in the Life" black lesbian transmedia project, calls 1991-1996 the "golden age" of a black queer cinema. "That was the period of time when we had the most women producing the widest variety of work," Welbon said in an email interview. "Approximately 50 percent of all work produced was made during that five-year time period. Very little work is being produced today by out black lesbian media makers. So maybe Dee Rees is part of the trend of the mainstreaming of niche content that we see happening across all media platforms.""
Film's like Michelle Parkerson's Storme: The Lady of the Jewel Box and A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (co-directed by Ada Gay Griffin), Cheryl Dunaye's The Watermelon Woman, and the many documentaries of that period - Shahidah Simmons' coming-out short films In My Father's House and Silence ... Broken and Jocelyn Taylor's Like a Prayer, Looking for LaBelle and Bodily Functions - were set among a generation raised on 60s and 70s self-awareness but within the confines of their own identity politics.
A must read for anyone interest in the Black Queer Experience.
(Adepero Oduye appearing in Pariah.)
© 2012, Victor Hoff. All rights reserved. Menofcolor.blogs.com
I saw a clip of this movie. Definitely want to see it. To learn more about the lesbian culture
Posted by: Twan | January 27, 2012 at 02:15 AM