Name: Simoné McGautha Date: 11/6/13 Video: Black Is, Black Ain’t Discussion Video WorksheetUse the Discussion Worksheet provided BELOW to organize your notes for class discussion of the videos. Respond briefly and succinctly to worksheet questions in the space provided. Make sure to cite page numbers or pertinent references to support your responses. You are required to submit this Video Worksheet to Dr. Langley via email ([email protected]) by 7:00am of the date we are scheduled to discuss the respective videos listed below. See Syllabus for dates and other pertinent submission information. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Author’s Thesis: What idea, concept, thought, or argument is the filmmaker of this video attempting to convey? Cite scenes from video (or comments from narrators) where the thesis can be found. This movie is visual testimony to the fact that African Americans are not, in Alexander’s exacting words, “one or ten or ten thousand things.” It identifies those forcesthat have attempted to reduce and contain the lives and experiences of African Americans.2. What’s at stake for the filmmaker? That is, what are the implications of the filmmaker’s thesis for our understanding of African American literature? Cite scenes from the video (or comments from narrators) that support your claims about what’s at stake. While this movie has in the many ideas of what black is, it also brings us the testimony ofindividuals who have felt uncomfortable and even ostracized because they don’t fit the mold. We hear from people whose behavior, speech, sexual orientation, class or complexion has somehow rendered them not black enough. These dilemmas are supposedto be suffered in silence no matter the pain they cause, and African Americans who call attention to them are often rejected for airing dirty laundry.3. How does the filmmaker support his or her claims? For example, to what texts, sources, research or other materials does the filmmaker refer, or use? What approach or strategy does the filmmaker use to support his or her claims? Cite scenes from video (or comments from narrators) to support your claims about the filmmaker’s methodology (way or approach to making his or her claims). It explores how racism, music, family, religion, sexual orientation, and intra-racial class, gender, and color castes have collectively shaped the experience and meaning of blackness in America. Riggs shows traditional narrative for representing the complexity of black identity. His camera travels across the country, from the rural South to middle class suburbs to the inner city bringing the viewer face to face with black folks young andold, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight. He mixes performances by gifted artists - such as choreographer Bill T. Jones and poet Essex Hemphill - with personal testimony, commentary.4. Describe your opinion by briefly and. Cite page scenes from video (or comments from narrator) for support for the reasons for your interpretation or point of view regarding thisfilm. I don’t like how his appearances in the documentary primarily take place from his hospital bed. He died before filming was complete, leaving his colleagues to finish the work.a) What is your opinion of this film’s argument? Hint: Try to locate at least one positive thing, and at least one aspect of the film that you would problematize. I really love how Riggs uses his grandmother's gumbo as a metaphor for the rich diversityof Black identities. Also, how many speakers tell of their pain at having been silenced or excluded because they were perceived as "not Black enough" or conversely "too Black."b) What have you learned from this video that you did not know before— any new information, knowledge, interpretations gained? I have learned that the same things we are currently going through, as far as labeling people as “not black enough” or “too black.” It makes me wonder if there will ever be a “good time” to be a black person.c) What aspects of this film have you found most useful for the African American literature we are reading this semester, and why?It takes me back to talking about how blacks were separated by hues. Lighter-skinned black people were separated and “better” than darker skinned. So it automatically makes us wonder, “what is
View Full Document
Unlocking...