Piotr Szyja Black IsBlack Aint viewing questions 1.

Make a list of topics addressed by Marlon Riggs and think about ways these topics have been addressed by other films and texts we have read? There film addresses a large number of issues: Historical development of black identities and confusion black people have with who they really are being negro, then colored, then black. Sexuality of black people, particularly of black men, which is connected with their selfidentification. Sexuality is a symbolic sphere, a sphere where a man has to be brutal and tough to prove himself. Black masculinity, black male sexism and black patriarchate. Black is beautiful means black man is beautiful. Black man take revenge for being Sambos in the past. Now they are in the position of absolute power and dominance (especially over women) Black oppressed femininity. The oppression within the oppressed. A fight for black woman is not important, other issues demand attention. Black homosexuality and AIDS. Black means straight. One cannot be black, especially a black man, and be homosexual. Homosexuality a crime against owns race. The role of Africa in the construction of modern black identity. What Africa really means for black people in nowadays America. Do black people need mythology and at which point this gets out of hand. The role of tradition and its conflict with modernity in the black identity. Should we move to the future with the luggage of history, or start with a black page. The existence of issue of being black enough or not black enough. What does those terms mean. Who gets to decide, are there any criteria. Black music and its relation to identity and function as a expression of identity. The role of religion for black identity. The role of family for black identity. The role of rural life (slavery past) for the black identity. The role of vernacular for the black identity. The role of urban ghetto for the black identity. The role of communication and unity among black people for their identity. 1

2. Give an example of a particularly interesting montage. I think that the particularly interesting scene was the one where we heard the definition of what black means from some dictionary. We see key words popping out, juxtaposed with images illustrating how white people saw black people in the past, with images of black dancer. The voice reading the definition is also a montage, en echo being added to it. 3. Sources of humor in the film. I think that the main source of humor here is self-irony and distance towards the analyzed issues. We can easily imagine someone being offended by the comparison of a black person to gumbo, or by the story of how two people argue if a person is black or colored. Yet Riggs does not hesitate to include those scenes in the film, and we can see theyre not there to shock or offend, that they are there as another ingredient of the gumbo. This makes us relax, which is strange, because we are used to being so clenched, politically correct and almost allergic to anything that someone take as offensive. And only then we can feel the warm humor, and actually truly smile, which we would not normally do watching a serious documentary on black identity. This was for me one of the best things in that movie. It was so nice to see that not everyone lost their mind in the flood of political correctness, and that finding racial issued funny, especially in such a warm, cozy way, is not a felony. 4. Moments of meta-commentary and/or self-irony in the film In the very first scenes we see a film crew explain their project to some people We can see Riggs in the hospital, at first sitting, then lying in bed, explaining and commenting on topics addressed by the film and on the film itself (for example explaining the motive of him naked in the woods, explaining his mission etc.) We can see images from the set, pictures of cameras in hospital etc.

5. How would you read the recurrent image of Riggs running naked in the woods?

Riggs explains that motive in the movie himself. For him it symbolizes a fight with a society that tries to confine one to the limited notions of the identity. No to repeat him, I read those scenes somehow differently. Only naked, without clothes, Riggs is truly black, moreover, as surrounded by nature, he is naturally or truly black. He is aware of himself, although this just a very shallow awareness. With clothes - that is culture - this is lost. Yet only culture means deepening of the awareness. Clothes mean stereotypes. Leaving nature means entering an artificial world, full of artificial identities (created mostly by white people), and - what is very important - conflicts concerning those identities. Running, or wandering, may symbolize searching, a desire to feel comfortably not only naked in the woods, but to find this deeper awareness that would be true. Also, I think it is possible to relate this scenes to the issue of AIDS. AIDS makes a person vulnerable, weak and lost, just as if he or she was left alone naked in the woods.