Dark Girls (2012)
- Directed by
- Bill Duke
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 11m
- Rating
- 6.8 of 10 from 16 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This documentary interviews African American women about their experiences with colorism, or discrimination based on skin tone within their own community. Public figures like Viola Davis share personal stories. The film also revisits a classic experiment showing that black children often favor lighter-skinned dolls.
somberreflectiveearnestintimatethought-provokingrawunflinchingsobering
What happens
Dark Girls is a 2011 documentary film by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry. It documents colorism within the African American community, a subject still considered taboo by many black Americans. The film contains interviews of African American women describing the role colorism has played in their lives, with notable African Americans including Viola Davis also detailing her experience. It also reports on a new version of the 1940s black doll experiment by Kenneth and Mamie Clark, which proved that black children had internalized racism by having children select a white or a black doll (they typically chose white) based on questions asked. In the updated version, black children favored light-skinned dolls over dark-skinned dolls. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
"Good Hair" and Other Dubious Distinctions (2011)
The Souls of Black Girls (2008)
A Girl like Me (2005)
Fear of a Black Republican (2012)
Strange Victory (1948)
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014)
Hue: A Matter of Colour (2013)
The Curators of Dixon School (2012)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.