A Black Cat Crosses Your Path: The Indelible Durability of Black Cat Superstitions Through Their Use in Horror Films

 

            The association of cats with the occult, Halloween and generally anything spooky, has been woven into our culture through centuries’ long entanglements of superstitions, folklore, and anti-cat rhetoric; coupled with the embrace and overall cultural primacy of dogs in many western civilizations. This specious speciesist behavior can be, in part, attributed to the differences in domestication between cats and dogs. Whereas dogs were domesticated first, simultaneously independent in other geographic regions and bred for a variety of purposes that were both practical for the survival of the human species and for social companionship (the dog is “man’s best friend”[1], after all), the domestication of cats, while similarly early and paralleled geographic independence and diversity, their use was far more practical, in the elimination of vermin. Unlike K-9 integration, cats have undergone little genetic or behavioral changes as they have been independently integrated across countries and continents. This independence and lack of evolutionary refinement led to the negative associations many cultures developed around felines, especially black cats. This paper is a brief exploration of those negative associations/superstitions from a sociological perspective, steeping the enmity of cats in the ubiquitous proliferation of the Christian religion and mechanisms of gendered oppression, to the point where these associations eventually get reproduced in our modern mythology of movies.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT  

            The practiced acrimony toward (black) cats is a byproduct of religious colonialism. Masculinely coded and just as fragile, the manifest destiny minded, pre-pubecently lecherous institution of Christianity sought to eradicate any belief that did not align with their patriarchically hegemonic monotheism; and black cats were caught in its undertow. Prior to this invasive transformation, cats were revered as symbols of the divine in a variety of non-Western cultures, including Egypt and Greece. Even European folklore had a more amenable association with cats prior to this invasion; seeing cats as being both spiritual and familial companions. Yet, as the influence of the church spread, it wrestled power from the people to loom their manufactured divinity over the people they were enslaving.

            In 1233, Pope Gregory declared that black cats were an incarnation of Satan. This sparked an inquisition into duplicitous demonology and established literal “witch hunts” that were designed to eradicate a Luciferian cult that had developed in the region (Wilde, 2017)[2]. That these practices pre-date both the decree and the Christian religion itself was of no matter, as the goal was a complete elimination or emulsification of these traditions; stripping what they need from them and gaining loyalty and obedience while amassing power though establishing authority.  This process can be understood through the Sociology of Religion

 

            The Sociology of Religion

The power of the oligarchic patriarchal Christianity and its demonization of black cats can be understood by looking at the Sociology of religion and the work of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Durkheim (2001) discusses the foundational principle of the sacred, a concept that predates the formation of institutionalized religion. The sacred is socially constructed through individual and group interactions surrounding a belief or object, and the restrictions that we place on how that object, belief or behavior can be expressed. Something becomes sacred through our own experiences, when other people tell us something is sacred, or when there are social restrictions and consequences around the mishandling of an object or behavior. Ironically, “sacredness” does not only include the divine, but also the diabolical. Therefore, even though black cats and the superstitions around their behavior consider them to be deplorable, they are still sacred.

The valuation of black cats as still being sacred hits at the core of the power of religion for Durkheim; the content of belief is less important than the function and control of that belief. Social organization determines how people are going to understand and accept religious belief. But this practice has more to do with social order and social control rather than anything spiritual. This is what Durkheim called “collective effervescence” where through emotional contagion and appeal to a higher authority, feelings of emotional security, comfort and solace get attributed to a higher power or an exalted entity when those feelings of elation, fear, hope and sadness are, instead, the product of basic group dynamics. This, on the surface, seems to promote spiritual plurality as it is the group, and not the belief that is the most important.  However, the culturally relativistic practice of spiritual plurality does not develop into the acquisition of and exercise of social power. For that, belief needs to be greatly regulated, creating a tighter grip on what is considered acceptable, and an elaborate policing of belief and behaviors that a group does not find to be legitimate. It requires bureaucratic institutionalization.

Max Weber (2002) understands the relationship between religious belief and social structures, in the way it uses belief as a resource and currency to allow that structure to replicate itself. The cultivation of that “collective effervescence” is done through legitimation in the form of the social structure that establishes the social order. Belief Systems (folktales and other indigenous stories) are born out of traditional levels of authority, which justifies its ascension to power through tribal leaderships supported by bloodline or birth order. Unfortunately, this still allows for plurality, thereby minimizing the power of the system’s ability to create collective effervescence. To control how people experience belief, and maximize the output of disassociation between the power of a belief and the recognition of group dynamics, belief systems have to be bureaucratized by being transformed into a religion.

  A religion is a belief system that has been routinized. There are fixed jurisdictions of authorities, the organizational chart is structured as a hierarchy, there is archival communication and correspondence, there is a level of impersonality and an obligatory drive for the reproduction of the religious structure itself (Weber 2019). This obligatory reproductive drive of religion is also comparable to the institutions of masculinity and capitalism of which they too share a bureaucratic organization and the fatal flaw of fragility requiring proliferation in lew of perishing. All three institutional mechanisms have rigid belief structures without acceptance of diversity difference or deference. Therefore, Capitalism must propagate itself through profit and monopolization, Masculinity through a toxic hegemonic expression of itself that every person has to accept, acquiesce, amplify or interrogate, and religion through monotheistic missionary work and conversion. Each has a drive and focus to cover the planet, because it is threatened by anything that isn’t itself or complementary to it. Thus, the vilification of black cats can find its origin in the eradication of nonwestern beliefs and cultures because they threaten the fragile supremacist organization of oligarchic Patriarchal Christianity. Since this proliferation of these uniform institutions continue today, many of these beliefs and practices are reproduced in our film and popular culture.

 

SOCIAL ANALYSIS

            Film and popular culture are forms of soft power within society. They influence public perception and reflect the values that we both live by and aspire to. They are a mirror and a wish fulfilment fantasy separately or often simultaneously. Since the historic valuation of dogs as the animal most coveted for human companionship, cats have been regulated to something other, less than. This is, at least in part because of the threat that cats pose to the religious social order throughout history, being associated with beliefs and practices that needed to be eradicated to strengthen the importance and claim of Oligarchic Patriarchal Christianity. Furthering this aim, is that one of the most consistent representations of cats, particularly black cats, is within the Horror genre. This is using the language of cinema as another tool to reinforce the erroneous claim that cats have a sacredly diabolical “nature”.  Granted it is unclear if these depictions have the same lofty purpose as the religious decrees of the past; or that the “spooky” nature of [black] cats has seeped into our culture for so long that it has poisoned our attitudes toward these feline familiars by being part of the horror zeitgeist. To interrogate this further, there is an interesting juxtaposition of two representations of black cats in horror films, one from within the hegemonically Christian United States of the 1940’s in Cat People  and the 1960’s Japanese Feminist Horror film Kuroneko.

            Black Cat Comparisons in Film: Cat People and Kuroneko

                The 1942 film Cat People is one of the first horror films by producer Val Lewen for RKO pictures. The film follows the budding romance between Serbian Immigrant Irena (Simone Simon) and her bespoken beau Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). As their courtship turns to marriage, Irena confides in Oliver that she is descendant of a group of witches, cursed to transform into violent cat-like beasts whenever they feel either love or passion; pursued to almost eradication by King John. The majority of the film’s economic runtime (of 77 minutes) is spent in denial or trying to cure Irena of this so-called delusion through Psychoanalysis, until the fears are realized, and the transformations begin.

             Cat People has a lot of socially relevant and seemingly progressive themes for the time (divorce, the struggles of immigration, the ease of white male privilege, the importance of mental health, the validity of working women and platonic cisgendered heterosexual friendships). Part of this progressiveness is due to it being a genre picture in Horror. Much like Noir of the 1930’s, more progressive ideas and attitudes were allowed because it was in a genre that was perceived as a fantasy, as outside the realm of reality.  Also, in typical Hollywood fashion of the time, the film ultimately forgoes these progressive themes, labeling them as dangerous (vilifying female sexuality) and/or in need of correcting. Then, doubles down on the reproduction of the “traditional family” through the construction of typical romantic traditions and the elimination of “the other”, in this case, the “immigrant other” of Irena. The image and representation of cats are used as an allegorical cautionary tale against these progressive ideas. The cat is the other, so “the other” is represented by a cat; thereby sealing their fate for their perceived transgressions. The wildness and violence that Irena displays as a shape shifted feline beast, speaks volumes about the fear of female sexuality as something that needs to be contained, controlled or destroyed. At the same time, this solidifies the feminization of cats and masculinization of dogs, that linguistically is still hard to shake. Colloquially, we often use the pronouns of she/her for cats and he/him for dogs regardless of the sex of the actual animal.[3]

This cautionary tale of female sexuality becomes even more crystalized when viewed through a queer lens. The struggle that Irena has with understanding a secret side of herself that she’s had since she was born, can be an easy stand in for the Queer communities coming out process. From this perspective, the stalking of Oliver’s co-worker, Alice, takes on a new dimension. Gone is the simplistically traditional reverberation of the scorned wife, in its place is a delectably juicy subversion of Irena trying to contain her animalistic lust for another woman. Unfortunately, the film still centers itself in the reproduction of the traditionally Christian ideas that results in an early example of the “bury your gays” trope.

Years later, Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo reappropriated the perceived diabolical nature of [black] cats into a horror revenge fantasy with Kuroneko. The film is part of the kaibyo “Demon Cat/Ghost Cat subgenre of Japanese horror films that originated from Kabuki theater; but gained popularity prior to WWII and again in the 1960’s. Kuroneko is unique among its contemporaries as that the demon death dealt by the cat, has a vengefully noble purpose. In the film, a mother and her daughter-in-law are raped and murdered by a troop of Samurai before their house is burned down. After they are brought back by a demon cat as vengeful spirits, they seduce and murder Samurai that wander in the woods, tearing their throats out. This becomes such a problem that, in a twist of fateful irony, the mother/ daughter-in-law’s son/husband is sent to destroy them. With each unable to destroy the other, one of the ghosts becomes damned and the Samurai, realizing what he’s done, wastes away to nothing.    

The subversion of western tropes in Kuroneko is notable both in its storytelling and its depiction of cats. The Japanese onryo (feminine vengeful spirit) has become an easy allegory for feminist respite and revolution in modern and postmodern filmmaking[4]. The anger and desire for retribution is compellingly understood due to the ubiquity of misogynistic western Patriarchal rule that has become so conventional that it is actually a trope. Additionally, Japanese folklore does not see the cat as demonic, or the spawn of Satan as Pope Gregory did. Instead, cats in Japan can have an interesting duality. They can either be seen as benevolent creatures of good fortune (manekineko)[5] or they can be precocious shape shifting tricksters (bakeneko) which garner them a more malevolent moniker and reputation. In Kuroneko, the black cat spirit could be seen as balancing the scales towards justice; for the pain and rage felt by the two women deserves rectifying retribution.

Unfortunately, there is also a debilitating gender double standard that goes on within these narratives. As often happens within these stories, when men seek retributive violence for the death and loss of a loved one, their orgiastic orgasm of violence is a tempestuous tapestry of glorifyingly gory images to the point that it is considered artful. Think of the work of Eric Draven in The Crow (the good version) or the titular John Wick. Yet, when women seek retribution, arguably for something more devastating, and sadly commonplace, their vengeance usually comes at the cost of their own life.  This is a part of The Rape Culture that is rarely discussed: when women are allowed to be saviors or vengeance demons, they must also be punished for it. Too much feminine independence threatens the masculine structures of the oligarchic patriarchy. Women in these stories are always being “rained in”, they have “gone too far”, or are shown to have remorse for their actions. Meanwhile, men will carve whole bloody paths through entire civilizations with little introspection, consequence or comeuppance. They are singularly focused and when they have had their fill, they often die because there was nothing left inside them but rage. When that is gone, there is nothing left. Men are often depicted as an instrument through which that rage worked through.

The impact of myths and superstitions on the Real life of Cats

  The overall impact of the religious persecution of cats by Christianity and the overwhelming durability of cat themed superstitions that are reproduced in popular culture, specifically in film, have an indelibly direct impact into the lives of actual cats. Even though cats are the second largest animal to be adopted in the United States with 26% of household owning at least one cat, this pales in comparison to the number of households that own dogs (45%). The entire pet industry produced a revenue of 157 billion dollars in 2023. This includes nutrition, supplies/medicines, veterinarian care, live animal purchases, and other services.  Of that, it is a 60/40 split between dogs and cats. Fewer cats are housed as pets when compared to dogs, and people spend less on their cats than their dogs. Part of this statistic can be attributed to the simple fact that cats are (typically) smaller animals requiring less maintenance and care.[6] Yet, this does not account for the infrastructure of boarding companies, grooming salons, specialty shops and segregated parks that revolve around dogs. This creates a culture that is consistently more welcoming and understanding to the dog parent, than to the cat parent. There is a level of cultural capital to dog ownership that cat owners have yet to experience (Bourdieu 1984). Dogs have been commodified by our culture as secondary children in ways that cats still are ostracized. This can partially be explained by the subservience that dogs feel when living with a family. Most aim to please and have fierce loyalty. Whereas, while cats are very much social creatures, and enjoy being part of a family, they perceive themselves as being the most important creature in the house, or more generously, see everyone on equal footing with themselves. This is misinterpreted by many pet parents as independence or aloofness. It is neither. Cats aren’t immediately intimidated and subjugated by humans just by our size. In fact, they tend to see us as gangly stupid, big bipedal cats. Thus, unlike dogs in which their service and loyalty was bred into them through generations of domestication from wolves to dogs, cat’s affection, admiration and respect, must be earned by their humans. Any good cat parent will confirm, it is worth it[7]

Additionally, cats have been blamed for a variety of social ills throughout history either as a direct cause or an adjacent accessory. Cats were blamed for the spread of the black plague. Ironically however, it was their annihilation due to this false belief that contributed to the proliferation of the disease since the cats were killing and eating the true carriers…the rats. These negative myths and superstitions also impact cat adoption and euthanasia rates. Black cats are only being adopted at about 10 % of all cats adopted, while they make up 74 % of cat euthanasia. This causes many black cats to live out their lives in shelters. In correlation, many shelters do not adopt out black cats in an around Halloween because of an unsubstantiated sense threat of violence against them, or (more commonly) the likelihood of the cat being returned when the holiday is over.     

 

CONCLUSION

The continuation of these myths and superstitions about black cats that were originally used to reinforce a religiously oligarchic patriarchy which eventually spanned cultures, and infiltrated our popular culture has left an ineradicable effect on the lives of cats. This unfortunately obfuscates the health benefits of cat ownership. In addition to the common factors of pet ownership with its increase in overall health, reducing stress and increasing serotonin and dopamine; purring cat frequencies have been shown to help heal injuries and reduce inflammation. With more accurate testimonials from good cat parents, and a more accurate depiction of Cats in popular media, hopefully these myths and superstitions about black cats can soon be dispelled.

 

Author’s Note: This article was written during the processing of my grief from the loss of my cat Poncho.  He is now with his sister Mia. I love you. My floofy little fascist.   

 

REFERENCES

Bourdieu Pierre 1987. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press

Durkheim, Emile 2001.  The Elementary Forms of Religious Life New York: Oxxford University Press

Weber Max 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and other Writings New York: penguin Publishing

__________2019. Economy and Society: A New Translation Massachusetts Harvard University Press.

Wilde, Layla Morgan 2017. Black Cats Tell All: True Stories and Inspiring Images New York: Cat Wisdom 101  

---

[1] This leans into the obvious ongoing misgendering of dogs and cats to be only associated with cisgendered masculine and feminine traits respectively 

[2] https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-cats-tell-all-layla-morgan-wilde/1127199937

[3] Since we typically mislabel the sex assigned category of cats, is it any wonder we are having a difficult time understanding the realities of trans-folk and the importance of their representation?

[4] One of the more recent examples of this is Mizu, the protagonist of the Blue Eye Samurai series  

[5] Think of the “Hello Kitty”esque prosperity figurines that you see in small shops in Japan.

[6] Though these numbers are rising

[7] Most Cat Owners should not have cats

The Films of Celine Sciamma: Girlhood

 

                The third film in my analysis of the films of Celine Sciamma is the complicatedly intersectional film, Girlhood. The confluence of race, class, gender and sexuality are palpable in Sciamma’s final coming-of-age story that rounds out her disconnected trilogy. Yet, throughout the film, Sciamma seems to disingenuously vacillate between vigorously engaging in these ideas, to only finding interest in them as a performative aesthetic garnish. This brief paper engages in Sciamma’s attempt, success, and failure to engage with these sociological concepts both at a distance and at half measure, culminating in a story that attempts to subvert racially gendered classist and sexual stereotypes while simultaneously relying upon them.   

 

PLOT

            In a poor Parisian suburb, Marieme (Karidja Touré) is told that high school is no longer an option for her and seeks solace in the local gang led by the illustrious “Lady” (Assa Sylla). With this new crew, Marieme finds sorority, solidarity, and sisterhood. But when the realities of home and her surrounding community increase their pressure, Marieme must decide to fall into the stereotypical path that lays before her, or forge a new one, breaking the bonds that social institutions, family members, and community expectations have efforted to restrain her.

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

            To understand Celine Sciamma’s decision to write and direct a film centering around the lives of Black girls, a contextual foundation of racial politics in the 2010’s needs to be laid. This then will serve as a backdrop for a discussion of the film’s production.

            Since the French Revolution of 1789[1], France has never had a significant identifier around race, only the State and “man” (intended to mean humans, ala, mankind, but also cisgender men). This leads to a lack of recognition of racial and ethnic minorities, which in turn leans towards the validation of whiteness through its association with capitalism and patriarchy. Because there is a lack of visibility and validation of ethnic and racial minorities, whiteness becomes the default, the norm. The appeal to human rights, or broad unspecified inclusion, has been a tactic of oppressive systems to obfuscate their domination. This is the discrimination of omission. Broad inclusivity without specification assumes that both the experiences and needs of all people are the same; each with the same level of access to opportunities and resources. It’s framing equality without an understanding of equity. This causes non-white people to be judged by white standards and minimizes the scope of institutional barriers, reducing perceived inequality and injustice; to be viewed only through the lens of individual choice and personal responsibility. This keeps an understanding of the complexities of race relations perpetually elusive to both the French Government, and its citizens.

            This country wide ignorance of the importance of race continues to obscure the normalization of whiteness even among its people. In the context of this film, this can possibly account for Celine Sciamma’s hypocritical statements during the Press tour for Girlhood.

In an interview for The Independent in April of 2015 Sciamma states that:

“…she intentionally cast Black actresses because of her concern over a lack of opportunities for Black women in France saying that she was shocked how Black people are never on screen [In France] and how there are no Black actresses famous in France.”

Incongruently, in an interview with The Observer that same year, fielding a question about being a white woman crafting and telling a story about Black girls, she states:

” I’ve always lived on the outskirts, [But] I wasn’t making a film about Black women, I was making it with them. It’s not the same. I’m not telling you what it’s like to be Black in France today. I just want to give face to the French youth I am looking at.”  

Additionally, in an interview with Indiewire, Sciamma stated that the film was not from a ‘White Feminist Gaze’ as the interviewer prompted, but from the vantage point of “…what it’s like just being a girl…it’s not about race or racism.” Yet, later in the interview she sates:

“With few [Black] representations [in film] [Girlhood] takes on a new responsibility…It’s a lot on my shoulders. But I knew that going into it. But, I mean, I didn’t know how messy it could get…I can tell this story and Black Female directors cannot.”

 

There is a lot to unpack here.

            Firstly, by doing a simple internet search anyone can easily find any number of famous Black French female actors that existed either before or contemporaneously with the actors in Girlhood; as well as a long rich history of Black French female actors and directors creating art since the 1950’s. Sciamma’s comments illustrates her obliviousness to the history of French Black Cinema and the centering of whiteness in French film culture.

A Variety article in 2021 corroborates this normalization of whiteness and ignorance of white feminism to the plight of Black creatives, recounting the backlash experienced by Aïssa Maïga after she counted aloud the few Black People in the audience at that years Ceaser Awards. The article goes on to discuss that of the few known Black directors at the time, their success was hard fought; and while several studios, under renewed pressure from the Black Lives Matter Movement, installed inclusion riders and greater diversity quotas, it hasn’t taken hold in part because of France’s reluctance to count race as an indicator. This skews the data and allows the industry to engage in Color-blind Racism in the film industry.

In this context, Sciamma’s hypocritic confluent commentary on race and racism during the press tour for Girlhood is understood as a symptom of the imbedded structural racism of Color-blindness in France. Unfortunately, this also frames her ignorance of Black cinema and willingness to tell Black stories (as a white woman) to be a gross invocation and specter of the history of French Colonialism in areas like Senegal and Haiti.   

SOCIAL ANALYSIS

Sciamma has stated that the inspiration for this film came from the girls that she would regularly see hang out in the Paris area or in shopping centers and train stations. This limited sample, and the original title “Girl Gang”, both points to her voyeuristic fascination with the culture of Black women without attempting to interrogate the failure of institutional mechanisms like the economy, education and the criminal justice system that shape those lives. Instead, she seems more interested in how girls adapt to these ever-constricting pressures and whether they recreate stereotypes, or rage against them.

Race, Class, and Education

The triptych of the demographic intersections with the clearest overlap is between race, class and education. Since the historic moral failure of the transnational slave trade, Black bodies have been given economic value in their ownership and exploitation. After emancipation (April 2^nd, 1848, in France Jan 1^st 1863 in the US), there was a period of sharecropping that was designed to return Black people to as close to the status of slavery as possible. This was the first in a long line of practices seeking to disempower Black people. Outside of the historic overt violence used to economically subjugate Black people at the turn of the 20^th century in the US (Tulsa Massacre) there have been efforts by various government agencies to eliminate the ability for Black people to accrue generational wealth. This lack of generational wealth translates to an inability to afford substantive education. The lack of education forces Black people to be reliant on low wage and often service industry jobs.

 According to Kendall (2020) this confluence of problems between race, class and education often gets ignored by a majority of social and political movements, even those that are well meaning. Consistently, there are social issues that exclusively affect Black people that are largely ignored or antagonized by the institutions of any cross-national society[2]. There is a lack of support that these issues receive when Black people are the focus, and a lack of understanding as to their amalgamated impact. Sin the US, since most K-12 schools are primarily funded by the property taxes of the surrounding neighborhoods, lower income area schools have less funding than those more affluent. Considering the history of systemic housing discrimination against Black people from emancipation forward, most of the poorly funded schools are the ones Black kids attend (Rothstein 2017, Kendall 2020). Meanwhile, many of the houses in these areas are “unfit for human habitation, (because they are zoned for commercial in addition to residential use) but Black residents have no other option” (Rothstein 2017 Kendall 2020:207). This negatively impacts the functioning of schools and the student’s ability to learn. Desmond (2023) reminds us that poverty can be both the cause and the result of institutional failures like education. This cycle of collapse is additionally obfuscated by the structure of an individualist society and the deflection of “personal responsibility” that gets unfairly leveed at Black people, particularly Black women, while framing it as a strength of character (Kendall 2020).

“The Strong Black Woman” has been a trope in the media since Black women began gracing screens. Along with other racist and sexist stereotypes like the “Mammy” and the “Jezebel”, “The Strong Black Woman” has been created as an archetype for Black women to be judged by the white supremacist patriarchy. Yet, unlike the other tropes, “The Strong Black Woman” is consistently internalized by Black women themselves, further obscuring the need for systemic solutions and minimizing the acknowledgement of systemic racism altogether.

According to Jones Harris and Reynolds (2020): “The Strong Black Woman” has been characterized by three components: emotional restraint, independence, and caretaking. In this trope, Black girls and women must hold back their emotions to avoid appearing weak, portraying themselves as strong and independent while being responsible for the problems of others. They are supposed to have a psychological resistance to the oppression within society; therefore, under this framing, Black women aren’t supposed to get tired or ask for help.

Kendall (2020) reinforces the dangers of this trope:

“Being strong or being fierce or whatever appellation is usually applied to the ones who get brutalized, who sue, who wind up on the ground with those she leaves behind begging the world to #sayhername, sounds great, but the labels are cold comfort if we don’t do more to solve the problems they are fighting… This becomes “a millstone around the neck [of Black Women], dragging them down and endangering their chances at survival.” (Kendall 2020:133-134)

The trope of “the Strong Black Woman”, a racist caricature built from the roots of cataclysmic injustices that forced Black women to “do it themselves”, has now been weaponized against them in the media that they consume, especially those pieces of content that are said to be about them.

In Girlhood, Sciamma leans into the stereotypes associated with the interlocking mechanisms of race, class and education, while exalting “The Strong Black Woman” trope in the most whitely feminist way possible. When we first meet Marieme, she is playing football for her school and embraced by a sorority of her fellow teammates and students. As they all walk back to their respective houses (various apartment complex high-rises), each of the girls taper off in different directions toward their dwellings. Finally, Marieme is left alone and when she gets back home, we see that she is mostly responsible for the care of her two younger sisters because their mom is constantly working. Immediately, this is invoking flavors of the “Strong Black Woman” trope in the way that Marieme finds ways to feed and bring money into the home to supplement her mother’s income. Later, in a conversation with the school counselor, we learn that even though she is 15, Marieme is still in “middle school” looking to finally make it to “high school” despite already being held back to repeat the grade. This is regardless of the clear fact that her poor grades are not a symptom of ignorance or laziness, but because of her mounting family obligations, and living within a generally racist and sexist system. The counselor denies her another chance to improve her grades or take the grade a third time, and instead, suggest vocational schools[3]. This systemic failure is the catalyst for her finding solace in the gang. Throughout the rest of the film, at every barrier, Marieme triumphs, when she experiences a setback, she does not fall to the dangers of vice all around her. On the contrary, she perseveres and charts her own path.  

In this depiction, Sciamma is clearly valuing the bootstrap pulling ruggedness of “The Strong Black Woman” trope and framing it as individualistically feminist, messaging to the audience that “empowered women can do anything despite the economic and social realities that they face” (Kendall 2020:131). As Kendall (2020) rightly assesses: what about the people who can’t? From the images that Sciamma gives us in Girlhood, those are stories that are not worth telling. Additionally, when tropes like these are reproduced by self-described feminist filmmakers, it continues the unnecessary internalization of these ideas in their audience. White women see this film and they accept the trope as truth. Concurrently, Black women feel even more compelled to follow these assumptions making them more likely to reject various forms of self-care and accept support lest they be criticized and socially sanctioned for not being superhuman. In this regard, Sciamma is the typical “Karen” who believes they can tell Black girls and women how they should exist. Never falter, never succumb, or surrender. Yet, what makes this seemingly empowering message racist when applied to Black girls and women is that it assumes equal access to resources, thereby judging Black women by white feminist standards. Sciamma, however, goes a step further and presents a racially transcendent feminism which posits that regardless of the social conditions and a variety of systemic barriers, “girls will [still] get it done”. This is a white feminist’s racist benevolent sexism that focuses on the messaging of empowerment without an interrogation of the harm these distorted images could cause.  

  

 Gang Subcultures

            One of the basic concepts of Sociology, peer groups, are an endearing and necessary part of the process of social learning called socialization. They are unique out of the other “agents” of socialization that shepherd individuals through various life-course “rites of passage” in that they are the individuals that help understand and shape reality by going through it with us contemporaneously. An understanding within the same social, historical and political context is a rare and precious resource. Unfortunately, this also means that individuals are judged by following a menial trajectory of the life-course as determined by the average. Anyone who doesn’t reproduce the same narrative arc is in danger of being sanctioned. Marieme invites this sanctioning when she is unable to follow her cohort into “high school”. The loss of this peer group creates a void which Marieme fills with the gang she sees outside of school.

Gangs, in the sociological sense, operate as a counterculture in most societies, often with a hint of religious flair mixed in.  A Sociological “subculture” is a microcosmic group within a dominant social group that holds their own ideals, values, beliefs and norms along with their own hierarchy structure, competitions, and clothing. Typically, a “subculture’s authority is superseded by the dominant culture’s authority when applicable (regardless of your subcultural status). A counterculture is a specific type of subculture that is characterized by the challenging of the dominant culture’s authority by simply existing against the norm, or actively seeking the supplication and removal of the dominant culture’s structural supremacy, replacing it with their own ideals and values. This is commonly referred to as benign and malignant countercultures.[4] Commonly, both subcultures and countercultures express some attitudes and behaviors that are reminiscent of religions. Both gangs and religions ritualize becoming members, have their own sacred text and special garments that distinguish them as being different than other groups.

In order to be a part of the gang, Marieme has to slowly break herself of the norms of general socialization to adopt the goals and ideals of the group through the incremental but escalating breaking of social and cultural rules as well as established laws. Through these behaviors (intimidation, stealing, and violence) a sense of solidaric camaraderie is formed. By participating in these ritualized behaviors Marieme becomes a gang member, and a lasting sisterhood is created.

The romanticized version of gangs depicted in Girlhood is a part of the legacy of cinema constantly depicting disreputable denizens duplicitously doing despicable deeds; reframing these deplorables into the anti-hero because protagonists are humanized, and the audience often doesn’t want to follow “a bad guy” without redeeming qualities. Yet, Marieme, Lady, and the rest of the gang never fall into this trope laden trap; they always skirt the surface of something darker, rightfully not getting in too deep.

This gang glorification in Girlhood also carries within it an element of racialization. Racialization is the process by which nonwhite groups are consistently discriminated against for different purposes throughout history. From the annihilation of native people and slavery, to separating children at the border, flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and removing Black Studies as a discipline on college campuses, every nonwhite group has been racialized and systemically discriminated against for a variety of purposes; whether that be for: property[5], profit, politics, or popularity. This exercise in power has been an aspect of race and foreign relations since its inception. The media representation of nonwhite races has been a valuable tool in this process given its penchant for leaning into racist stereotypes and depictions that allow certain groups to be racialized and then discriminated against. To that point, Celine Sciamma’s use of Black girls to tell a story about criminality and poverty adds to the racialization of the criminally poor as being exclusively Black. This criticism is compounded by her use of an all-Black cast, expressing, intentionally or not, that crime and poverty in France is an entirely Black problem. Thus, through the narrative, we are supposed to revel in the way that Marieme avoids the pitfalls of her peers, or works a situation to her advantage, which further removes her situation from being properly perceived as a systemic social problem. Instead, Sciamma wants us to marvel at the perseverance of her protagonist without contemplating its contribution to the larger context of the racialization of Black girls and women.    

    

Gendered Restrictions  

            There is a consistent consolidation of the feminist movement around a white ideology. This normalization of whiteness is diffused in such a way that the desires and needs of white women became ubiquitously synonymous with feminism itself. This solidification assumes that the needs and struggles of Black women are the same as white women. This myth echoes the central tension that threatened to break up the solidarity of Black and white feminist during the second wave feminist movement. This tension still exists today as we continue to establish a unifying emulsification of feminisms that represent every demographic. Hubbard (2022) mentions that even Black feminist have a difficulty accepting all demographic groups into the fold, specifically those of the LGBTQAI community[6]. Because of these deficiencies in acceptance, there needs to be focus on restorative justice frameworks. As a part of this restorative justice, there needs to be a harm repairing stage between all demographics, but especially between white and Black women for the isolation and appropriation of the feminist identity into whiteness. During this stage, there needs to be sincere apologies, the taking of responsibilities, and reparational support for Black women’s struggles by white women (Hubbard 2022, Kendall 2020). Once there is restoration of what is “broken”, only then can there be a reintegration of feminisms into a cohesive movement that is all inclusive.

            Sciamma’s portrayal of the intersections of race gender and sexuality in Girlhood are still coming from a colonialist framework; painting the experiences of Black teens from the standard white feminist perspective (with a dash of the white savior complex mixed in). She only hints at Mariene’s burgeoning sexual expressions for Lady and her experimentation with gender nonconformity (through binding) as mechanisms to propel the plot or relationships forward rather than fully explore them as aspects of Mariene’s character. Because of this, the audience is left to infer intention through brief montages and single lines of dialogue that Mariene’s sexuality might be more complex than originally thought. While some might look upon this misguided attempt as genuine inclusion, the lack of interrogation of these ideas on the part of the writer/ director not only reinforces the otherness of gay and trans representation of Black girls, but by using it as a simple narrative device, it demonstrates a lack of compassionate creativity by the filmmaker.  

 

CONCLUSION

            Girlhood is a faux-feminist film that consolidates the Black feminist ideology down into a reproduction of the individually focused “Strong Black Woman” trope. This sadly continues the long history of judging Black women by the appropriative white colonialist standards without contemplating what makes the Black experience different. At the same time, Sciamma praises herself for helping to elevate Black voices, even though Black female directors have been doing the same thing, with little recognition, for over a generation prior. This is yet another example of a white woman co-opting Black women’s experiences in order to be praised as an ally, rather than a racially exploitive opportunist.    

 

REFERENCES

Desmond, Mathew 2023. Poverty, By America New York: Crown Publishing

Kendall, Mikki 2020. Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women that A Movement Forgot. New York: Viking Press

Hubbard, Shanita 2022. Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well-being of Black Women New York Legacy Lit Publishing

Jones, Martinique K., Keoshia J Harris, and Akilah A. Reynolds 2020. "In Their Own Words: The Meaning of the Strong Black Woman Schema among Black U.S College Women". Sex Roles. 84 (5–6): 347–359. doi:10.1007/s11199-020-01170-w  

Rothstein, Richard 2017. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How the Government Segregated America New York: Liveright Publishing   

---

[1] A water shed moment for the development of Sociology as a discipline. It is often cited as one of the rapid social changes that August Comte used to determine that there needed to be a new type of science that studied society and its social changes.

[2] Kendall exclusively looks at the Feminist movement in the United States and the way it has left Black women behind. This paper and its author see value in extrapolating Kendall’s point to a broader focus

[3] Vocational schools are often the two tier systemic split that helps to minimize institutional racism  

[4] In is important to note that regardless of the cancerous analogy, the use of the adjectives refers only to the desire for a change to the dominant cultural and structural system, and should not be implied that Benin is benevolent and malignant is infernal.

[5] Of which it is either about or adjacent to

[6] Looking for a great film about Queer black Teens? I recommend Dee Rees’ Pariah