More Than Just “Black Girl” (1972): A Retrospective and My Unfurling Hope
Eight months ago, I turned 25 years old.
The months leading up to my birthday were filled with this tentative promise. It was like a bubble I was afraid of popping; porcelain I was afraid to touch in fear it would shatter in front of my eyes. Seeds I planted and cried over and abandoned broke the soil and sprouted up quicker than it ever had in two years. My haphazard wishes manifested into succulent, glistening fruit.
In this time, I’ve been observant to patterns and habits that have transpired around me for years, and I feel as if this new age where I am undeniably “grown” has helped me draw a conclusion as to what I believe about myself and my circumstances. And then, I saw a clip of this old movie called “Black Girl” from 1972 on TikTok.
It’s truly rare, to me, to find things that speak uniquely to the spirit of the Black girl. As cliche as it may seem now to dream of fleeing from your limitations in hopes of a intangible “maybe”, it is, in my opinion, the defining motif of Black girlhood. Maybe I’ll fly, but first I gotta spread my wings. Maybe I’ll fall, but only if I jump. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Langston Hughes asked what happened to a dream deferred. Lorraine Hansberry tried to answer that question through the portrayal of the Black family, and Jennie Elizabeth Franklin, who penned the original screenplay of “Black Girl” for the 1969 broadcast, focuses on the generational regret, shame, and revelation of the Black woman within this family framework.
Our main character Billie Jean is a young Black girl with dreams of becoming a dancer. However, living in a full house surrounded by her fears, Billie Jean struggles to carve out her own path for herself. Her two older sisters Norma Faye and Ruth Ann are single-mother highschool dropouts who can’t stand to see Billie Jean prancing about to her jive-ass music, and their mother Rosie grows increasingly for Billie Jean’s future when she discovers her daughter has also dropped out of high school and is working at the Groovy Bar And Grill as a waitress and part-timer dancer. The only person who sticks up for Billie Jean is Mu’Dear, the eldest matriarch of the household, yet she is not without her own faults. She and Rosie constantly bicker about Rosie’s parenting style, and the results her own actions have wrought due to her relationship with her slick-talking ex-husband Earl.
On top of all this, Rosie has her foster daughter, Netta, who is the apple of her eye. Netta is the paragon of Black Excellence — a college student who Rosie believes will be the reason the family will be pulled out of their misfortune. However, Netta, too is running from her family’s dysfunction, and her status as a foster daughter irks Rosie’s biological kin who believe their fates are already sealed for them. They’ll raise children, just like Rosie, and suffer, and lash out, and stifle their desires for more because, to them, that window is closed. In them, the cycle has repeated.
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Netta and Billie Jean are outsiders. Netta is everything Billie Jean wishes she to be: educated, ambitious, and away. Neither of them fit neatly in the molds their family has laid out for them and it’s constantly held over them, pushing them further into their own destinies. Earl ignores Billie Jean because she isn’t his daughter, and Netta avoids coming home not only because of Rosie’s lofty expectations, but her biological mother’s mental health issue that the whole town is privy to. That’s why Netta pushes Billie Jean to go back to high school so she can go to college and pursue her dreams.
For me, wanting an education was more about escape than anything else. Many Black people deep down wish for escape from their circumstances — rather, from their mistakes. Rosie wants Netta to come back so she can present her to the world as her Wunderkind, her masterpiece, potential realized — so much so that she has turned her back on her other daughters. That neglect is so tangible in Norma Faye and Ruth Ann that they seek to squash any inkling of difference they find.
Who does this uppity heifer think she is? She best not forget where she comes from. Loss, and shame, and regret, and indignation, and loneliness, and strife. She better not forget what she is: Black. Girl.
Billie Jean stumbles because she is without a guide. Even with Netta’s encouragement, she has to advocate for her own wants, despite the chagrin she’s bound to face from those who built and share her blood. The only times we see Billie Jean smile is when she’s dancing in her cramped bedroom — the one she fought against her family to have — or at the seedy bar she isn’t meant to be in. It’s all she has, and they aren’t where she belongs, but she shines regardless.
The movie is a message. Black Girl, you are made of more than adversity. It may have brought you, your sisters, your mother, and your grandmother this far, but you can’t stay there. And adversity is not all you are guaranteed in this life. You will never know unless you leave the cave and don’t look back. The light to guide you is already instilled within, and it comes from the dreams you refused to abandon. You are more than just a Black Girl, doomed to misfortune out of your control.
Even in your darkness, you shine.
In the grand scheme of Time, 25 years is nothing. It wasn’t too long ago that I earned my degree and had my first real taste of More. I’m still chasing that ubiquitous More. However, I feel my pursuit’s motivation is slowly morphing from escapism into something more.
The eagerness for More, in all of its multi-colored, flavorful variety, compels me to persist despite circumstance. I am a Black Girl, yes, and in being so am well-acquainted with adversity.
But, oh. To be more than a Black. Girl. To love and to hold and to cry and bleed and want and pursue and achieve More.
