Abstract
This essay focuses on two recent British feature films that have documented parts of the history of the African diaspora. Each focusing on a single black historical figure, the films 12 Years a Slave (2013, directed by Steve McQueen) and Belle (2013, directed by Amma Asante) are notable for their black directors and their portrayals of eighteenth and nineteenth-century British and American black slave histories. However, the films’ approaches to the representation of black women vary considerably. “Negro Girl (meager)” explores the problematics of portraying black female agency in these feature films and argues for continued vigilance in the deployment of a black feminist vision.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Steve McQueen’s film is not, moreover, the first filmic adaptation of Northup’s narrative. Gordon Parks created a made-for-TV version in 1984.
- 2.
In his Preface, Wilson writes that “the only object of the editor has been to give a faithful history of Solomon Northup ’s life, as he received it from his lips,” which suggests that Northup did not pen this narrative himself, although we know that he was literate. In their book Solomon Northup : The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave , David Fiske et al. consider the authorship issue and conclude, “Even if not the actual person who put pen to paper, Northup was very involved in its content” (Fiske et al. 2013: 113).
- 3.
In a piece about the film adaptation for the online journal The Root, Skip Gates writes, “Some will ask, Is everything in the film version of 12 Years a Slave accurate? My response is yes and no, for the truth is Solomon Northup himself changed some of the facts, including his birth and marriage dates, the spellings of certain names and, in an early play version, he even made the character of Samuel Bass more of a ‘Yankee’ than a Canadian. This points to a deeper truth about African-American culture, and one I have written about throughout my career: that signifying or black signification, by its very nature, is an act of repetition and revision, of invocation and improvisation, and so to me, the far more relevant question to ask of any representation of 12 Years a Slave is not whether it is strictly factual but whether it is true. To this I say yes, without question….”
- 4.
In a lengthy piece for Vanity Fair, Katie Calautti chronicles her nearly two-month search through archives, town records, and the like for any evidence of Patsey after the Civil War to no avail.
- 5.
The use of Patsey to further Northup’s story is also noted by scholar Vincent Woodard, who makes a parallel argument about the textual version of 12 Years a Slave : he contends that the presence of Patsey and her transformation from “a joyous creature” to a constantly abused, depressed woman serves a “utilitarian purpose in relationship to Northup’s assaulted masculinity” (Woodard 2014: 258).
- 6.
Quotations are from the 2013 film Belle unless otherwise noted.
- 7.
Many have written about the relevance of ghosts in depictions of the transatlantic slave trade. See, for instance, Guyanese novelist Fred D’Aguiar’s 1997 Feeding the Ghosts and Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo’s 1970 play Anowa.
- 8.
See, for instance David Scott, “Introduction: On the Archaeologies of Black Memory.” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (2008), Article 2.
Works Cited
Aidoo, Ama Ata. The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa. London: Pearson, 1995.
Baucom, Ian. Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
Calautti, Katie. “‘What Will Become of Me?’ Finding the Real Patsey of 12 Years a Slave.” Vanity Fair, March 2, 2014. Accessed on June 18, 2015.
Charron, Sylvie. “Ghost Writing and Filming Oral History in 12 Years a Slave.” In Delphine Letort and Benaouda Lebdai (eds.), Civil Rights Auto/Biographical Film and Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Cliff, Michelle. Free Enterprise: The Making of Mary Ellen Pleasant, 1994.
Crenshaw, Kimberle and Andrea J. Ritchie. Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women. New York: African American Policy Forum, July 2015.
D’Aguiar, Fred. Feeding the Ghosts. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1997.
Fehskens, Erin M. “Accounts Unpaid, Accounts Untold, M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! and the Catalogue.” Callaloo, vol. 35, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 407–424.
Fiske, David et al. Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013.
Garza, Alicia. “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.” The Feminist Wire, October 7, 2014. Accessed on January 14, 2015.
Gates, Henry Louis. “12 Years a Slave: Trek from Slave to Screen.” The Root, March 3, 2014. Accessed on June 17, 2016.
Gates, Henry Louis. “The Political Romance of ‘Belle’.” Ms., June 4, 2014.
Gates, Henry Louis. “Who Was the Real Dido Elizabeth Belle?” The Root, August 26, 2014.
Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. New York: Harper Perennial, 2014.
George, Nelson. “An Essentially American Narrative: A Discussion of Steve McQueen’s Film 12 Years a Slave.” New York Times, October 11, 2013. Accessed on February 8, 2016.
Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
Hobson, Janell. “Imagining Patsey’s Rescue by Harriet Tubman (Or, Marie Laveau’s Vengeance).” The Feminist Wire, November 8, 2013. Accessed on January 14, 2016.
hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” In Amelia Jones (ed.), The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. New York: Routledge, 2002.
hooks, bell. Interview. “Watch this Amazing Conversation Between bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry.” Bitch Magazine, November 8, 2013. Accessed on February 8, 2016.
Kellaway, Kate. “Amma Asante: ‘I’m Bi-cultural, I Walk the Division that Belle Walked Every Day.” The Guardian, May 18, 2014.
Li, Stephanie. “12 Years a Slave as a Neo-Slave Narrative.” American Literary History, vol. 26, no. 2 (2014): 326–331 (Project MUSE, Web, accessed on January 9, 2015).
Northup, Solomon. 12 Years a Slave [1853]. Los Angeles: Graymalkin Media, 2014.
Philip, M. NourbeSe. Zong! Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
Rickey, Carrie. “A Portrait and the History It Holds: ‘Belle’ and Slavery’s End in Britain.” New York Times, April 25, 2014.
Romney, Jonathan. “A History of Violence.” Sight & Sound, vol. 24, no. 2 (2014): 28–32 (Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), Web, January 9, 2015).
Saunders, Patricia. “Defending the Dead, Confronting the Archives: A Conversation with M. NourbeSe Philip.” Small Axe, 63–79, June 26, 2008.
Scott, David. “Introduction: On the Archaeologies of Black Memory.” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (2008), Article 2.
Stevenson, Brenda. “The Surprisingly Central Role of Slave Women in 12 Years a Slave.” History News Network, October 18, 2013. Accessed on February 8, 2016.
Walvin, James. The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
Williams, Andreá N. “Sex, Marriage, and 12 Years a (Single) Slave.” American Literary History, vol. 26, no. 2 (2014): 347–353 (Project MUSE, Web, accessed on January 9, 2016).
Woodard, Vincent. The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Botshon, L., Plastas, M. (2018). “Negro Girl (meager)”: Black Women’s In/Visibility in Contemporary Films About Slavery. In: Letort, D., Lebdai, B. (eds) Women Activists and Civil Rights Leaders in Auto/Biographical Literature and Films. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77081-9_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77081-9_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77080-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77081-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)