After reading bell hook’s chapter on “Narratives of Struggle,” I was initially thinking I would choose the novel The Round House by Louise Erdrich as an example of a critical fiction. The book focuses on the (unsuccessful) prosecution of a white rapist who commits his crime against a Native woman on tribal lands. It details just how difficult it is for the tribal judge -- who is also married to the woman who was attacked -- to prosecute the crime because tribal legal jurisdiction is often superseded in unfair ways by U.S. jurisdiction. In the end, the woman’s son ends up killing the rapist with the help of his friend to bring about justice.
However, as I thought more about it I realized that, although The Round House is an important book for the light it sheds on the tribal legal process and the injustice within that system that impacts Native communities, it may not actually be a “critical fiction” in the same terms that bell hooks’ outlines. For hooks, a critical fiction is not just a retelling of a particular community’s challenges or pain. In fact, she notes that “literature emerging from marginalized groups that is only a chronicle of pain can easily act to keep in place the existing structures of domination” (p. 59). Instead, she states that “the writer of critical fiction makes the conscious decision to locate her work in the realm of oppositional cultural production. That choice is most often informed by a desire to intervene critically in the status quo, to participate in cultural revolution” (58). In essence, critical fiction ‘reimagines’ the world in a more equitable way, and ‘reimagines’ the author’s community in powerful, positive ways that reject the dominant narrative about it. So, while The Round House has an important goal in showing the reader a challenging, ultra-realistic portrayal of injustice in Native communities, it does not take an additional step to reimagine this reality. What, then, might constitute a text that not only chronicles a community’s challenges, but also reimagines that community in a powerfully critical way? If I can stretch the meaning of “text” to include both words in book form and words in the form of a scripted movie, I’d like to propose that the movie Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler and written by him and Joe Robert Cole, is an excellent example of a critical fiction. (I would include a link to the film directly, but it does need to be purchased to view) Black Panther chronicles the nation of Wakanda and its transition in leadership from the deceased former king to his son, King T’Challa. Wakanda is assumed by the outside world to be a “poor African nation,” when in reality it has the richest reserves of vibranium (a fictional super-metal) in the world. In fact, Wakanda is actually home to the most advanced technology on earth, and has chosen to cloak itself from the outside world to avoid being sucked into needless conflict. In this way, the very setting of the movie pushes against common stereotypes about Africa and its supposed “need” to be developed by the West. This resistance and reimagining of reality continues throughout the film. For instance, King T’Challa’s 16-year-old sister, Shuri, is head of technological development for the nation. Her positioning as an expert in technology as a woman of color (and a teen!) resists and reimagines the audiences “usual” narrative about young black women. Not only that, but when an American intelligence agent is injured and brought to her high-tech lab for medical care, she comments, “Great! Another broken white boy for us to fix.” This line creatively jabs at the ‘white savior’ mentality by flipping it completely on its head -- now it’s the white man in need of saving! Black Panther could be an incredible asset in teaching critical fiction in the classroom. Not only do I think students appreciate multi-modality in analyzing texts (and come on, it’s fun to have ‘movie day’ every once in a while!), the movie is also rich in imaginative, subversive scripting that can be analyzed for the commentary it makes on culture. I think it would be really interesting to combine the critical analysis of the movie through a race or gender lens (having students identify how these identities are played out by the different characters), and also having students look at other texts that construct a meaning of what it means to be African or African American. For instance, you could also have students read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness after watching the movie and have them note the differences between that and the portrayal of African identity in Black Panther. Or, you could combine the watching of Black Panther with a reading of Richard Wright’s Native Son or with texts by Malcolm X, James Baldwin or historical documents related to the actual Black Panther political party. Together, these could create a compelling, multi-layered exploration of race in film and written texts for students. References: Coogler, R., Cole, J. R., Feige, K., Boseman, C., Jordan, M. B., Nyong'o, L., Gurira, D., ... Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Film),. (2018). Black Panther. Erdrich, L. (2017). The Round House. New York: Harper Perennial. hooks, bell. (1991). Narratives of Struggle. In Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing (pp. 53–61). Seattle, WA: Bay Press.
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9/29/2019 09:20:27 pm
Kathleen,
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