Negrometraje

“We cannot value ourselves rightly without first breaking through the walls of denial which hide the depth of black self-hatred, inner anguish, and unreconciled pain.” Loving Blackness as Political Resistance by bell hooks

Negrometraje is a podcast that critically thinks and deconstructs Black representation in Latin American mass media and films. Negrometrajes is a derogatory yet popular term that translates as “Black Feature Film.” We center our work on Caliban, a Shakespeare's character in the play the tempest.

In today’s episode we discuss the coming-of-age film Pelo Malo (Bad Hair) by Mariana Rondon premiere in 2013.

“Unfortunately, black people have not systematically challenged these narrow visions, insisting on a more accurate “reading” of black male reality. Acting in complicity with the status quo (Patriarchal masculine ideal), many black people have passively absorbed narrow representations of black masculinity, perpetuated stereotypes, myths, and offered one-dimensional accounts. Contemporary black men have been shaped by the representations.”

Reconstructing Black Masculinity by bell hooks

Negrometraje is a podcast that critically thinks and deconstructs Black representation in Latin American mass media and films. Negrometraje is a derogatory yet popular term that translates in English to “Black Feature Film.” We center our work on Caliban, a Shakespeare's character in the play "The Tempest".

In today’s episode, we discuss El Otro Francisco. This documentary drama by Sergio Girl tells the love story of Francisco and Dorothea and, the horrific reality of enslavement in 19th century Cuba. We discuss what is Negrometraje, its definition, and how we will use it.

It is Aimé Césaire's, A Tempest that lays the path that “dramatizes all four possible courses of action for the slaves: Collaboration, Opposition, Resistance, and Separatism”.

Program

0:00: Prologue: from (Caliban: The Tempest)

3:47: Preliminary Conversation: Negrometraje and Sergio Giral

18:16: interlude: Una Mano con otra mano

20:40: Pre-viewing discussion (Ripple affects of Haitian Revolution)

31:02: Interlude: Crispin y la lluvia

31:27: post-viewing discussion (Sugar economy, and slavery in Cuba)

45:51: Caliban Theory

50:56: Outro and Next feature film: Pelo Malo