“Y'all Wanna Hear A Story?...”

Zola is a glittering piece of postmodernism, filtering the infinite jest of touch screen technology through the medium of film. This is appropriate, considering its source material – a 148-Twitter thread from 2015. Narrated with lacerating wit by Aziah “Zola” King, the thread details the Detroit-based waitress’ wayward excursion to Tampa. Packed with suspenseful twists and turns, it's only natural that it eventually became a feature length film. After years of middling in development hell, Zola was eventually released in 2020. Directed with auteur sensibilities by Janicza Bravo, Zola uses a road-trip from hell to interrogate (or subvert) American race-relations, transaction and bodily autonomy. 

The plot unfolds on the heels of a newfound friendship. Zola (the magnetic Taylour Paige) meets Stefani (Riley Keough) at her waitressing job and the two strike up a bond. Both strippers on the side, they appear to be cut from the same cloth – funny, street-smart hustlers and practitioners of a particular brand of femininity. This femininity is one patterned off of Black womanhood and Stefani, who is white, is shameless in her racial posturing. With stray braids, slicked down baby hairs and the unmistakable accent of a white girl imitating Blackness, Stefani represents a post-racial spectacle of appropriation. Keough delivers a comic tour-de-force performance, ringing each AAVE-inflect line with the appropriate amount of misplaced conviction. That Keough is the granddaughter of Elvis is not really relevant, but it does add just a pinch of subversiveness to the proceedings. 

Shortly after they meet, Stefani invites Zola to strip with her in Tampa. Joining them are Stefani’s misbegotten beau (Nicholas Braun, giving a masterclass in patheticism) and her enigmatic, increasingly shady “roommate” (Colman Domingo). Zola comes to discover that she is in the throes of a trafficking scheme and that Stefani’s intentions may not be as innocent as she proclaims them to be. In her essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance,” author/academic bell hooks writes of cultural appropriation and its manifestation in the media at large. She writes that, “The overriding fear is that cultural, ethnic, and racial differences will be continually commodified and offered up as new dishes to enhance the white palate – that the Other will be eaten, consumed, and forgotten.”

In many ways, Zola functions as a story of otherness – specifically White consumption of the other. Stefani is the walking embodiment of white consumption and continual exploitation/coercion of Zola only emboldens this quality. Zola, on the other hand, is expected to look out for Stefani, opining at one point, “Who’s looking out for me?” This line is indicative of Zola’s compromised safety as a Black woman – a figure who is expected to take care of everyone but herself. When Stefani tells her pimp that, “Zola made me a whole new bitch,” she is literally referring to Zola’s help in increasing her net value in the realm of sex work, but more implicity speaking her debt to Black womanhood as a means of adornment. 

Zola and Stefani are depicted as mirror images of one another, both literally and figuratively. Bravo follows in the footsteps of many a psychodrama in her choice to present the two as spiritual twins. Walking down a hallway in corresponding outfits or gazing upon their reflections, they are both augmentations of one another and so completely diametrically opposed.

Elsewhere in her aforementioned essay, hooks states that, “Cultural appropriation of the Other assuages feelings of deprivation and lack that assault the psyches of radical white youth who choose to be disloyal to western civilization.” This feels like an appropriate diagnosis of Stefani, someone who exists outside of white parameters and thus adopts Blackness in relation to her perceived outsider status. 

Bravo has described her films as existing a step-away from reality. This is fitting for a film like Zola, which renders a stranger-than-fiction story into filmic material. In a profile of Bravo for The New York Times author Jenna Wortham wrote:

Her movies are reminiscent of being on psychedelics — the way even the most mundane interactions become revealing, exquisite and worthy of intense examination, and the way something humorous can seem sinister for a flicker of a second before shifting back into levity. Bravo specializes in exploring the way seeing clearly can happen in an instant and permanently alter your experience of yourself and your life.

Bravo walks a tonal tightrope, but through the imaginative force of her storytelling, manages to pull it off.

Shimmering in neons and buzzing like a smartphone, Zola occupies a distinctive sonic and visual landscape. There are qualities that seem like a callback to old Hollywood: orchestral swells and grandiose title cards. These stylistic nods come across a little cheeky, especially considering the ways in which Zola rejects the Hollywood formula. Aided by playwright provocateur Jeremey O. Harris (who co-wrote the screenplay), Bravo presents a narratively frenetic fever dream that sidesteps convention at every turn. Even though Zola is unequivocally the narrator, the nature of authorial authority is subverted in a sequence where Stefani speaks to the camera, telling her side of the story.   

In the Western sphere, stripping is one of the more fascinating, and literal, representations of our bodies’ entanglement with capitalism. The physicality, the need to appease and titilate, the showering of dollars. All of it seems like a particularly charged ritual of commerce. Zola does not incriminate the profession nor does it glorify it. For the titular character, the act of stripping has an autoerotic verve to it: through it she is able to explore the dimensionality of her selfhood. This is most evident in a sequence in which Zola envisions the different personas she can adopt before a performance. Repeating, “Who you gonna be tonight?,” she appears in multitudes, as if in an elaborate musical number (yet another moment that made me recall the stylistic grandeur of Old Hollywood).  

If this moment is any indication, Zola is a film in which pleasure and pain are offered up with equal aplomb. It is a disorienting and spellbinding exercise in absurdism, confounded by the fact that its story is ripped from the digital headlines.

Work Cited:

bell hooks, “Eating the other: Desire and resistance.” In Black Looks: Race and Representation, pp. 21–39. Boston: South End Press, 1992.

Wortham, Jenna. “How She Transformed a Viral Twitter Thread about Sex Work into a Sinister Comedy.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 16 June 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/magazine/how-she-transformed-a-viral-twitter-thread-about-sex-work-into-a-sinister-comedy.html.

Beans (2020), directed and co-written by Tracey Deer, is a semi-autobiographical film that follows Tekahentahkhwa (“Beans”) during the Oka Crisis (July through September of 1990). This violent conflict between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka in Quebec, Canada, in a way, began centuries before when the Mohawk (the most easterly section of the Iroquois Confederacy, located in southeast Canada and northern New York state) first settled in the area in the late 1660s1. However, this specific event arose because “The Pines” (indigenous land) and a nearby Mohawk cemetery were to be cleared to expand a golf course and build new condos. While not all residents of Oka supported the plan, the mayor refused to discuss and hear from the people. By the end, the crisis was successful in halting the development, but resulted in two killed and over one hundred wounded.

Tracey Deer, who was born and raised in Kahnawake (one of the Mohawk communities in the region of Oka), was 12 when she lived through this crisis. In the grand scheme of things, there are very few who could be entrusted to create a film on this specific event, and luckily, Deer is one of those. This won’t be a tale of the white savior entirely misunderstanding and misrepresenting colonization conflict! A nice change of pace.

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory is at the heart of this film. It’s centered around an undeniably racialized conflict: First-Nations (and their supporters) vs. Colonizers. But, as mentioned previously, this is co-written and directed by a Mohawk woman who grew up in this community and experienced this conflict first-hand (the other writer is Meredith Vuchnich and it seems as though she is not indigenous). As we all know, relations between indigenous populations and settlers around the world are violent and oppressive, to say the least. Speaking for myself, I am most familiar with the North American history and from what I know, it is relatively representative of global indigenous genocide. So, what is so special about this film is that it is a coming of age story that takes place during a widely unrelatable historic moment and proves that the fight for sovereignty is not over. We’ve all been Beans: should she go to the private school she was accepted to? Are her new friends good for her? But also will her community succeed in the protection of their land? Deer sets the story during a somewhat recent conflict, proving the battle for sovereignty is not over as some might like to believe. In their article “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation: An Introduction,” Stam and Spence write that “[a]n ethnocentric vision rooted in North American cultural patterns can lead, similarly, to the ‘racialising’, or the introjection of racial themes into, filmic situations”2. I would argue that Beans is a functional execution of this idea: Tekahentahkhwa is just a pre-teen coming into a difficult world as she witnesses Canadians and their government fight against her existence and right to save her land. Stam and Spence also write specifically about indigenous populations, arguing that the “attitude toward the Indian is premised on exteriority”2 and the “besieged wagon train or fort is the focus of our attention and sympathy, and from this center our familiars sally out against unknown attackers characterized by inexplicable customs and irrational hostility”2 (2009, 759). While this is true in wider film history, I would argue that it is only partially true in Beans because Deer brings us onto the reservation and into Beans’ family. We’re not viewing the Mohawk community from the outside and watch them be victimized by white Candians. The viewer does not pity them and is more familiar with the attackers. However, it is clear that the hostility of the Canadians is irrational and wildly disproportionate (considering there should not have been a conflict in the first place because they were proposing to steal even more Mohawk land). Deer deftly navigates a relatable coming of age 90s story and the experience of indigenous women and populations in modern history. 

Montage Theory

Another theoretical approach that this film utilizes is the montage. I love a good montage, especially if it makes use of archival footage of historical events, and Deer does this flawlessly in Beans. She intercuts the narrative with footage of the actual protests to provide context and transition during the film. If we follow Sergei Ėjzenštejn’s Soviet Montage Theory, I would argue that Deer employs a metric overtonal, not just tonal, montage, because “movement is perceived in a wider sense”3 and it’s “based on the characteristic emotional sound of the piece,”3 but “it is distinguishable from tonal montage by the collective calculation of all the piece’s appeals”3. Furthermore, these archival montages are “capable of impelling the spectator to reproduce the perceived action, outwardly,”3 meaning Deer is looking to evoke an emotional reaction as the viewer is confronted with undeniable, clear evidence of the vitriol and hatred of the white Canadians. Through it direct confrontation, Deer sets a emotional tone, lest the viewers forget that Beans is not simply a coming of age film: Tekahentahkhwa and her family are battling a centuries-long genocide, something that most pre-teens are unfamiliar with. The structuring and score of almost every single montage is identical, creating an overarching tone conveyed by her. Many of these montages are accompanied by the newscasters’ voiceovers and a tight, quick, string-heavy score, almost reminiscent of a horror film, which I believe sets the consummate haunting tone and reveals the “psychological turmoil of [the] characters”4.

Beans is an amazing movie about an event that I, hate to admit it, had never heard of. I loved how Deer balanced a coming of age story with a violent crisis that is simply one event in a long history of colonial oppression by white settlers. Viewing this film through the lenses of Critical Race theory and Soviet Montage theory enhances her storytelling abilities and allows the viewer to melt into Beans’ world.

Sources:

Ėjzenštejn, Sergei. “Methods of Montage.” In The Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, translated by Jay Leyda, 72-83. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949.

Melinda, Meng. “Bloody Blockades: The Legacy of the Oka Crisis.” Harvard International Review, 30 June 2020. https://hir.harvard.edu/bloody-blockades-the-legacy-of-the-oka-crisis/.

Pudovkin, Vsevolod. “From Film Technique [On Editing].” In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 7-12. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Stam, Robert, and Louise Spence. “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation: An Introduction.” In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 751–66. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 

Engaging with film and media gives the public an opportunity to get to know people, places, and identities that they wouldn’t necessarily encounter in their own lives. Because of this, there are great steaks in the way that we represent people, particularly those who have been oversimplified, minimized or left out of stories completely. There are hugely necessary conversations happening about representation in film, the goal being to humanize people and refrain from perpetuating negative stereotypes that hold back representational progress. But what do we mean when we say “positive representation” and “positive imagery”? Do stereotypes always equate to negative representation? Dee Lee’s 2011 film Pariah breaks down some of the rules we have created about representation and shows us characters that expand stereotypes rather than rejecting them completely. 

Pariah tells the story of 17 year old Alike coming to terms with her lesbian identity, navigating her queerness in the world of high school dating as well as in her religious and homophobic household. Alike’s best friend Laura – butch, sexy, confident, and much more romantically and sexually experienced than Alike – is attempting to help Alike break out of her shell and meet someone. Laura has not spoken to her mother in months and is living with her sister, working to support them, and attempting to get her GED so she can take on more responsibility. I find Laura’s story and her friendship with Alike to be really compelling and significant surrounding conversations of queer representation. Laura and Alike’s friendship is perfectly balanced with tenderness and tough love. When Alike decides that getting a strap-on would benefit her “image”, she goes to Laura and asks her to get one for her. Laura lovingly laughs at Alike and without question agrees to help. They stand together in the mirror as Alike reluctantly tries it on, Laura cheering her on and reassuring her that she looks good. There is something that is very sweet about this moment, evoking the innocence of a coming-of-age friendship, awkwardly helping each other navigate the constant newness and uncharted territory of their teenage lives. We continue to see moments like this where Laura and Alike, who are both forced to harden themselves to manage the intensity of their family lives, soften up with each other. When Alike starts having a romantic relationship with Bina, a neighborhood girl who her mom forces her to start hanging out with to keep her from Laura, Laura comes to Alike with concern about drifting apart. She tells Alike, “I just want to get this off my chest. I’m glad she makes you happy. I’m happy for you. Cause I love you.” You can tell on Alike’s face that she is shocked to hear this. You can see on Laura’s face that this kind of expression is difficult for her. The real turning point in our understanding of Laura is the first time we meet her mom. Laura comes to see her and nervously attempts to get everything out. She tells her she got her GED and that her and her sister are working hard and making her proud. Her mother says nothing before shutting the door and going back inside. This is a really significant moment for Laura because up until this point she has never seemed to care what anyone thought of her. We realize here that there is one person who she will always be trying to impress. She stands outside her mothers door panicked and in tears. All she wanted was her recognition and approval. 

I think a lot of concerns around queer representation frame the existence of stereotypes as inherently negative, fighting for queer characters who are doing something different. In his book, Female Masculinity, Jack Halberstam questions what we really want out of queer characters and what gets to be positive representation. “Positive images, we may note, too often depend on thoroughly ideological conceptions of positive (white, middle-class, clean, law-abiding, monogamous, coupled, etc.)” Laura’s character rejects the idea that positive representation of queerness has to be those things; representation of Black female masculinity is such an important subversion from the power and respect that is glued to images of white male masculinity. She holds with power and strength her identity as butch lesbian of color: she is tough, self-assured, popular with femmes, and uninterested in what anyone thinks about her. She is also not diminished to those qualities alone. She is sensitive, intelligent, complicated, she takes her life seriously and has a thoroughly explored, trusting and deep friendship with Alike.Without the moments of vulnerability and openness I described, Laura may have been passed off as a side character, and therefore reduced to some of her more surface level qualities. The times in which stereotypes are negative are when they are diminishing and when characters are not allowed real depth and character development. Halberstam explores the most common queer media stereotypes, “the butch” and “the queen,” pushing back on the assumption that when we encounter butches and queens we are encountering a homophobic narrative. “It is important to judge the work that the stereotype performs within any given visual context-accordingly, if the queen or the butch is used only as a sign of that character's failure to assimilate, then obviously the stereotype props up a dominant system of gender and sexuality. But often the butch or the queen exceeds the limits of representation imposed by the law of the stereotype and disrupts the dominant systems of representation that depend on negative queer images." Butchness, framed simply as a stereotype, denies it any validity as a true and authentic identity. 

Laura’s character is a strong example of positive queer representation because she owns her identity and breaks down walls that are so often formed around characters like her. Her character owns a stereotype without presenting it as a failure to be more. The problem with representation in film is that certain characters are not afforded the opportunity to display their “more”. Framing stereotypes as a form of negative representation can be a dangerous narrative. Leaving butchness out of queer stories to avoid stereotypicality depends on butch identity as a negative queer image. Instead of rejecting stereotypes wholly, we should be doing work to make sure we give our minority characters the opportunity to be known fully, to have flaws, and to still be cared about.

Works Cited:

Halberstam, Jack. Female masculinity. Durham (Grande-Bretagne): Duke University Press, 2018.

The film Whale Rider, by Niki Caro, explores the theme of tradition clashing with modernity through the experience of Paikea, a young Maori girl. Paikea is eager to learn Maori tradition yet is left out of a large part of it because she is a girl. Her innate curiosity to enact tradition is a disgrace to tradition itself according to her grandfather Koro. Despite her love and respect for him, Paikea struggles against his rigid adherence to tradition and his reluctance to recognize her potential simply becuase of her gender. The film highlights the evolving dynamics of the family structure as it grapples with generational differences and the desire for continuity. The conflicts in the film arise becuase of certain gender expectations being placed on each of the characters that they fail to meet. "Whale Rider" suggests that while tradition is essential for cultural identity and continuity, there is room for evolution and adaptation. It celebrates the idea that qualities of leadership and strength can be found in unexpected places, transcending gender norms and challenging established traditions. The movie encourages a more inclusive and open-minded approach to tradition that can involve every generation, preserving cultural heratige while also adapting and evolving.

In Whale Rider (2002), Paikea is a young Maori girl who has to fight to prove her ability when her twin brother, who has been selected to be the next chief of their New Zealand tribe, dies at birth. Paikea is a self-assured, confident, wise young girl who is determined to convince her grandfather to open his mind to the rigid, sexist customs he abides by. As Belinda du Plooy writes in her piece, "Anthropocene terror in two girl-centred narratives: The leitmotifs of mythological time, colonisation and monstrosity in the films Whale Rider and Moana," Paikea's gender and age place her as a symbol of hope and change in the film. Du Plooy describes film as a medium for "speaking and listening to the stories of others as part of both an ethical response to the narratives of the past and a moral responsibility to engage the present." I think more than ever, we see children as a necessary piece of the discourse surrounding the past and how we should be evolving and changing. They "embody the projected dreams, desires and commitment of a society's obligations to the future." I think that an important piece of Paikea's character, identity, and activism is her age. If her brother had been born, he would have been assumed as the next chief and he, nor anyone else, would have to question that. Because Paikea is a girl, she is forced to think about and challenge these things as a child. This is representative of how necessary it is that we listen to and take seriously the children who are going to break the boundaries of where they are traditionally and systematically placed in society, because they have no other choice but to resist. Paikea represents hope and demands she be listened to because if she doesn't, how is anyone to move forward?

I watched Sweet Bean for the first time a few years ago and thought I didn’t like it, but boy was I mistaken!! Something I was really taken aback by during this screening was the lighting – every scene was beautifully lit and perfectly set the tone. In particular, the scene where Tokue makes an in the shop for the first time. In his article “Art with the Right Ingredients: An and the Films of Naomi Kawase,” Anthony Carew writes that “the preparation of the red bean paste is lovingly shot, and given mythical credence,” which is emphasized by the lighting (50). As a borderline religious experience, when Tokue peeks into the pot or as Sentaro looks on, both are darkly lit for similar reasons: Tokue is communicating with the family of azuki beans while Sentaro is seeing Tokue in her mysterious, magical element of making perfect an. I believe that this scene is the beginning of bridging the generational gap that has been insurmountable for so many people in Tokue’s life. In a dark, private, beautifully revealing moment.

The scene of Tokue first teaching Sentaro how to properly make red bean paste is a wonderful depiction of traditions being lovingly passed down and connections being made. As Carew writes, “An is essentially a shrine to ‘slow food’, to time-won wisdoms, and to the traditions being lost to today’s hyper-capitalist, factory-model food industry” (3). Viewers are able to see how Tokue treats the adzuki beans with great care and as if they had a life of their own. Tokue’s long and enduring process pays off and proves that homemade goods made with love are much better than artificial bulk products. The labor put into the bean past is evident in its taste and the customers’ love of it. The red bean paste and the process done to make it connects Tokue and Sentaro, and later Wakana, together as they lovingly make dorayaki together and peacefully enjoy the small shop’s success. The act of making red bean paste serves as a healing process for the three and shows the multiple values of traditions.

Something I really loved about "35 Shots of Rum" was the use of transportation throughout the film. Lionel is a train conductor so we see him in scenes in the tracks or on the train a lot of the time, but also the use of seeing all the characters in buses and cars. While transportation moves people from one place to another, it is clear that a lot of these characters feel stuck. In James S. Williams' "Romancing the Father in Claire Denis's 35 Shots of Rum", he writes about "the poetic images of passage and transience." I think this is clear in the scene where Lionel and Rene are sitting on the bus after Rene's retirement party. Rene is very depressed and says that he can't believe he still has so much life to live. It is clear that he feels stuck. But, he is on the bus, surrounded by people from his now former job, on the way home. It is a powerful juxtaposition to feel stuck when on a bus and also when you were once a train conductor - one could argue you could go anywhere. But, the use of the public transportation in this film is not to show how characters could go anywhere, but how even with accessibility to the outside world, they choose to stay where they are, comfortable. This is also portrayed when the four characters start driving and the storm starts: when they try to break out of that comfort, they are faced with the reality that they are meant to stay stagnant.

"35 Shots of Rum" tells the intimate story of a father-daughter relationship strained by the daughters romantic involvement with a neighbor. The film's slow pacing and subtle drama creates an uncomfortable realness in the tension between characters. In "Romancing the Father in Claire Denis's 35 Shots of Rum" James T. Williams highlights the speed and swiftness with which the film moves through death, grief, change, and anger. The characters speak softly to one another, Lionel and Josephine, whose relationship is central to the narrative, often say nothing to each other at all. Their relationship is mostly narrated through their expressions, physical contact with one another, and their coexistence in mundane activities like cooking. As Josephine forms her relationship with Noé and decides that she wants to be with him, the space that her and her father occupy together changes. Although there is very little outright conflict or drama, we feel the weight of the shift in their relationship.

In Bend it Like Beckham, Jess is constantly having to fight against the assumptions that are being made about her based on her love for soccer. Her family fears that the fact that she wants to play soccer professionally means that she is less of a woman and means that she will have trouble finding a man to marry. They also see it as a rebellion generally and worry that it is the beginning of the end of Jess abiding by their rules and expectations. We see this kind of fear and judgement coming from Jules' family as well. Jules' mom says that boys won't like Jules because she dresses more masculine and accuses Jess and Jules of being in a romantic relationship. Whether or not there is a queer undertone to the film, the sheer fact that Jess and Jules want to play soccer is completely unrepresentative of their sexuality, gender expression, or ability to "find a man." Ultimately, Jess's parents see how happy it makes her and allows her to go with Jules to play soccer professionally in the US. This feels like such a freeing moment for Jess. She will be able to begin the process of finding herself when she is free from her parents expectations. That is why, to me, the ending being her kissing the coach for the first time was really disappointing. It felt like a step back towards the life she was living and the things that were holding her back. We see the coach playing with Jess's dad in the ending montage, suggesting that maybe he has found a place in her family and will be there for her when she gets back. Her relationship with the coach feels like a regression to the things that kept her silent and lying all the time. She had an opportunity to be completely free and start over with her best friend, but ultimately the movie had to end with her finally getting the man, rather than just living out her dreams.

Throughout Bend It Like Beckham, female soccer is not regarded as serious by men, limiting the ability for Jess and Jules to play. Even their coach says he applied for a promotion to be assistant coach on a mens team. While men who play soccer are seen as strong, women are regarded as too masculine, and therefore undesirable. Jess and Jules are assumed to be in a gay relationship twice, showing how the closeness of their friendship is regarded as homosexual. Because they play soccer, they are regarded as masculine and therefore gay. Jules mother even says that playing soccer turned Jules gay. This shows how gender expectations are associated with sexuality, pushing Jess and Jules to appear more feminine. Both Jess and Jules are impacted by their parents' perceptions of what girls should be acting like. They disapprove of their daughters playing soccer because they fear it will impede their social desirability and attractability to men. Jess’ parents assume that because they face prejudice, they need to protect their children and make sure they are afforded with the most opportunities possible. Once her father sees that she has a talent at soccer, he lets her pursue it, showing how this film is more than a reductive representation of Indian immigrants. Mary Chacko writes in her analysis of Bend It Like Beckham that the title of this film is a “ metaphor for the ways in which girls like Jess attempt to bend the rules prescribed by their cultural backgrounds to achieve their goal”. Jess is able to subvert cultural and gendered norms through her talent and dedication, showing she is more than a stereotype of girls or of Indians. She attends both her sisters wedding and her soccer final on the same day, representing her ability to fulfill her cultural expectations and also play soccer.