| Popis: |
This chapter explores the possibility of interrogative film criticism as a means for Black flourishing, focusing on an under-heralded Black femme film critic, Almena Davis, editor of the 1940s and 1950s Black newspaper, the Los Angeles Tribune. In her writing, which mixed consideration of film, politics, her children, her dogs, and her “premenstrual tension,” it was precisely her embodied, strident unmasking of Hollywood’s toxic white placidity and plasticity that made her own liminal, gender-porous self-hood legible. Her loose play with Hollywood constructions gave place for the noir, the avant-garde, and the satirical. Davis provides a case study of Black femme, interrogative criticism as a way of life: un-abating, avowedly bitter, borderline hysterical critique gives recourse for the marginalized Black subject watching “America” to draw therapy, life, and possibility. Davis’ model of daily, trenchant critique as self is vital now; we have as much to fear from fascisms of the screen today as we did in Davis’ time. |
