Ethnic Notions

This movie was very troubling. If you didn't find it troubling, you trouble me as well. This films dealt with the evolution of derogatory depictions of African-Americans from the Civil War up to the present day. It also dealt with the psychology behind those who enjoyed these grotesque forms of comedic entertainment known as "minstrels." It was argued by many in the South that the Blacks were animals who enjoyed servitude to White Masters, and were meant to be domesticated by the Whites. When Slavery was abolished by the Constitution, the backlash hit the blacks which depicted the Freedmen as wild rampant wild animals, as seen in "Birth of a Nation."

All this seems like a horrible, yet past ordeal. It is quite horrible, but unfortunately it can't be said that it's passed. This movie made me think of a different film I saw at the Orpheum about 5 years ago, called the "Confederate States of America." It was a strange satire of America told through a mockumentary about the Confederacy winning the Civil War and continuing to the present day (not a great film, but at least a noble effort). It was meant to be very dark comedy, and products such as "nigger hair cigarette" and other racially charged products were joked about surviving to the present day. Some instances like these were so ridiculous, the audience couldn't help but give uncomfortable laughs. In the credits, these products made reappearances with captions that told when they were actually from. I was highly to disturbed to find a good chunk of products, including "nigger hair cigarette" were actually sold as recently as the 1970s. I think this fact illustrates perfectly the point of "Ethnic Notions," which is that this stereotyping will take a very long time to completely wear off this society.

This film made me think a lot, and proved to be very troubling in thought as well as the simply disgusting images. I wish the we had a bigger discussion on this as the class, but we are short on time, so I can't complain.

Caucasia Part ii: What do you Think?

I was a bigger fan than most toward the beginning of this book, and my support was admittedly pretty lukewarm when the plot was early in its development. However, now that Birdie has found everyone again, I'm pleased to say I appreciate a few things that seemed to take ages at the beginning of the book. Everything had its place, once you could tell the breaking point was about to come in Birdie and Sandy's refugee lifestyle in New Hampshire country.

Danzi Senna did too good of a job at making raw domestic conflict as realistic as it turned out to be. I thought the eventual divorce was pretty heavy until I read of Birdie's overly hostile attitude toward Jim and her mother's descending into a sort of depression. The scene that struck me most in this part of Caucasia was the incident with Samantha's family at the grocery store when her mother slipped up by calling "Jesse" Birdie, and Birdie slipped up by revealing that she was half-black, and not a non-practicing Jew. Senna did a great job at capturing the panic here to the point of making me feel a little panicky.

I loved the last section of the book: it was a bit cliche, and multiple motifs were used ad nauseum, but nevertheless it still had moving moments that brought the novel full circle and answered many questions that I had. The encounter with Dot was both touching and tragic, her encounters with both her grandmother and Deck were both rather off-putting and depressing, and the meeting with Cole was rather predictable for the happy moment that it was. The ending itself was annoyingly anticlimactic, a point that I would go into more had I something more constructive to say.

Caucasia was not a perfect book, but it lived very well in its touching moments (which were very touching, if I might say). I felt very sorry for all characters involved, for Senna did a superb job at showing that everyone was going through their own tragedies. I don't know about you, but I liked it.

Caucasia Part i: Writing Style and Aging

I'm not generally negative toward this book. Were it not last quarter of Senior Year, I'd probably be a lot more into it. Caucasia took a while to pick up, but once it did, I came to appreciate the extensive character building that later made Birdie's trip to Boston and the San Francisco Area all the more memorable and moving. It wasn't the story itself that tending to fail at this task. I firmly believe it's the writing style that Danzi Senna takes.

Although it's supposed to be Birdie looking back on the past, she failed to make this apparent, and it just struck me as the voice of a 20-something-year-old from age 10 to 17. I didn't see it until Birdie grew older, and looking back, her childhood seemed rather mature. The conversations between Cole and Birdie sounded rather developed and adult, not developing at all throughout the novel. Her observations of the people throughout Dot's house at the beginning (the bit where Birdie is shown the guns, presumably a Black Panther-esque situation. Even "elemeno" failed to reach credibility for me. Little kids often do have long-lasting habits and even alternative social structures, but this form of language seemed almost a little too sophisticated for me for it to sound at all believable to come out of 10-year-olds.

Senna structured the conflicts well- the arguments and senses of paranoia suffered throughout the novel were structured the point of nearly making me feel uncomfortable and miserable with the situation. However, I just couldn't get the fact in my head that Birdie had changed ages in the book. This did detract a lot of the book from me.