BLACK DIASPORA CINEMA AND THE SPACE OF AFRO-BRAZILIAN WOMEN

Abstract

The interdependence that exists between arts and social reality as portrayed in creative works has turned out to be the master script of the content and context of contemporary society. There is no doubt that every creative work, such as music, poetry, prose, drama is a reflection of the reality of the society that produced it. This makes such products to become a ready source of information for researchers to extract information and data about a particular society.  One favorite genre of such information is the cinema. It is generally held that a film literally speaks volumes on the subject society. This medium is particularly appropriate to the study of Brazilian literature and social reality where the language gap is a barrier for most researchers from this part of the world. Whereas, the official Brazilian trope of Racial Democracy seeks to present Brazil as a land of equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens, be they white, black or yellow, those who are familiar with the daily realities of Brazil are often shocked by the gapping socio-economic and political inequalities in the country. The direct victims of such inequalities are the Afro-Brazilian citizens. It is to this end that this work seeks to explore a Brazilian film –  Doméstica o filme (2001) –  produced by Fernando Meirelles. The aim of the paper is to analyze the condition and the space of Afro-Brazilian women in Brazilian cinematography. It will also study the challenges encountered by these women who are often classified as “subalterns” or second-class citizens. And in the face of the myth of racial democracy which continues to sustain the historical racism and systematic exclusion of people of African descent in Brazil, the metamorphosis of Afro-Brazilian women from passive victims of social exclusion to conscious citizens who fight for their rights will also be analyzed within the framework of the theory of Escrevivência propounded by an Afro-Brazilian female writer, Conceição Evaristo.