What did you think about Sobaz Benjamin's presentation in class? How did he relate his filmmaking to Frantz Fanon's ideas?
I really enjoyed having Sobaz in the other week but I wish we could have spoke with him longer. I felt he had interesting opinions and the preview he showed of his other films looking cool too. I think a lot of people in Canada, or other places can relate to his story, but at the same time I think what he shared with us and in his movie is unique. I don’t think a lot of white people know that many black people struggle with themselves because of their race. Sometimes, like in the case of Sobaz, he felt he was to dark so he would try to lighten himself by using bleaching creams etc. He also mentioned that he was darker than both his parents which made him feel even stranger in his own skin, and that family relatives would comment on it. Other black people (or other races who typically have darker coloured skin) might not be as dark as their family or friends. This as well can make them feel uncomfortable or that they don’t fit in or belong. I think the part in the movie where Sobaz and the other man, Tim Dunn, pose naked for an art class with different masks is intriguing and also ironic in many ways. Each of them struggled growing up and finding themselves or ‘who’ they really were, and race was a big part of that for both of them. Sobaz talked about this part in class and really wanted to get our opinions on what we thought it meant and why we thought he did that. In my opinion it came down to really exposing themselves, all of them, and I don’t mean in the fact that they were naked, although that is a part of it. If a person has clothes on the way they dress can also be judged, but since they were both naked nothing can be judged except the colour of their skin, but again I don’t think that was exactly the point either. This is who they are and by doing this it’s revealing them as a person, with all their insecurities out there, because beside each other it was clearly obvious one was black and one was white. The point of the masks, (each having the opposing colour of their skin) was to put in to perspective the comparisons of the two races, along with maybe stereotypes that society has. I don’t know if I completely understand or get what Sobaz was trying to get across but that’s my interpretation of that scene.
There are obvious similarities between Sobaz’s way of thinking and the work that Fanon has done, especially Black Skin, White Mask. The name of Fanon’s piece is visibly a major theme in Sobaz film. I found Fanon’s reading to be sort of difficult and wasn’t quite sure if I was getting exactly what he was trying to say (kind of like some parts of Sobaz movie). One quote, “slave to my appearance, not to an idea”, I thought struck a chord. Sobaz and Fanon felt so judged by the colour of their skin and what people thought of them that it was overtaking their lives. And maybe that they were putting on a front (or a mask) for other people, mainly whites. Fanon talked a lot about black people trying to fit into the “white world” and acting how white people want them to act. He calls it a dialectical process, being for others and not for yourself. I think Fanon was kind of more direct and arrogant, but not in a bad way, just that he had more anger in it and Sobaz was more desperate and was trying to find a place or answer to a certain question.
No comments:
Post a Comment