Dark Girls (2011)

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Dark Girls was released on November 17, 2011, in the USA. The American documentary film was produced by Duke Media. The movie was directed by D. Channsin Berry and Bill Duke. The documentary explains how skin color affects African American women from the 17th century up till now[1].

Plot

Tsehaie Kidane in Dark Girls [2]

At first, slaves are brought from Africa to the United States. Within the slaves, their status is divided based on their skin color. If the slaves have a lighter dark skin color, they would have worked within the house such as chores, mopping, and cleaning. As for the slaves who have darker skin color, they would do the labor field job such as producing crops. In this century, prejudice still exists that African American women who have dark skin are uglier, more stupid, and do not have manners compared to the women who have a light skin color. The documentary then shows how lack of self-esteem occurs to African American women due to racism. Then, interviews with African American women are displayed as they explain how they see themselves and their feelings. In the end, the documentary recommends that distinguishing racism can be done by teaching kids to be proud of their skin and never let the skin color define who they are [3].

Controversy

It can be seen that how bad racism during the 17th century. We can see that even within African Americans, each person has a different status and jobs based on her skin color. The movie portrayed how a 4-year old African American girl believes that she is more beautiful and smarter if she has lighter skin. Even more, there was a scene that an African American girl wanted to use bleach for her skin so her skin color could be lighter. At last, the scene also shows that racism is actually taught to kids unintentionally such as most kids believe that the white dolls are much prettier than the black dolls[4].

References