| Boy | ||
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| This clip is not available for streaming at this time. Please contact WPA. | Tape Master: | |
| Catalog #: | 491165 | |
| Clip Number: | 491165-1 | |
| Orginal Film: | WPA 1722 | |
| Timecode: | ||
| Location: | TV Soundstage | |
| Year Shot: | ||
| Audio: | Yes | |
| Color: | No | |
| Headings: | CIVIL RIGHTS: African-American LOCATIONS/NORTH AMERICA: USA | |
| Description: | An experience in the search for black identity, produced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). This is a rather arty sociological look into race relations and the politics of hate between blacks and whites in the United States. And so, given the nature of performance art-- and all traditional art forms for that matter-- the material is rather superficial regardless how many racial epitets are bandied about; for art is nothing more than a cultural mirror, offering no concrete solutions sans the ones those viewing it have to force from within themselves. Of course, the intended society is vastly different from the one we currently reside in, so such an attempt if tried today would never even get off the ground unless it were gritty to the point of becoming farcical. To be commended nonetheless.
The actors here are two young black males wearing masks, one colored white and the other black. MS of a shoeshine stand, the man in the black mask sitting in the chair, a painted city skyline in the BG. White mask (wearing a business suit) walks on-screen for a shoeshine. Slowly but surely their relationship degrades into one of "obedient slave-mentality worker vs. whip-cracking oppressor/slave owner". Many teeth-gnashing racial epitets and much subservient talk is traded between them, phrases like GOOD BLACK BOY, MAKE MY SHOES SHINE LIKE YOUR BLACK FACE, YOU AREN'T WORTH YOUR OWN SPIT and so on. Eventually lapses into mild violence. White mask, before leaving, drops payment and demands black mask to pick it up. As he does so white mask says the n-word and exits.......... Black mask, alone, then dons a white mask and revisits the hate, assuming the opposite role. Then he reinterprets the situation as it should have happened (but patronizingly so, the color barriers still firmly set, like a stone wall, no matter the amount of pleasantries given and received). In the end, confused black mask takes off both masks, starts crying, demanding, WHO AM I? Later, he decries, BOY I AM NOT. | |
WPA FILM LIBRARY
