Black Girl, 1966

Feb. 19, 2022 | DRILON TOSKA

The movie, “Black Girl” starts off with the main character, Diouana, getting off a ship and getting picked up by a taxi. The taxi drops her off at a house that a white family owns in France. She is brought inside and sees a monkey figured mask on the wall. She was brought here because of a job watching children, as she was told. She soon realizes that she is put to work she is told to clean, make food, and everything else except for watching children. In fact, there were no children present. She started to ask herself “where are the children?” The family then tells her that they will have guests over for dinner and she must cook rice. She does so and the family enjoys the rice, but they say it is a bit spicy.

After this scene, the film goes back to tell the story about how it all started. Diouana wanted a job, so a guy brought her to the place where the people wait for work. She joined plenty of women waiting. They all waited for the opportunity. A lady finally came and looked over everyone. She skipped over everyone and went to Diouana who was sitting patiently. The lady asked her if she wanted a job and if she cares for children and if she ever worked for white people. She boys the monkey figured mask at her village and gives it to the lady. They put it up as a decoration. There is another man in the house who tells her the rules of the house. She meets the children. She did not do cooking or cleaning in Dakar; she watched the children.

Back in France, she understands that she was picked to be a housemaid. The lady notices Diouana is acting strange. She says the children will be back soon. She asks many questions as to why she is there. Diouana wakes up and gets told that the children are here. The lady had to make her own coffee because Diouana stayed in the bathroom. The guy feels sorry for her and says she should rest so she can visit the town, but the lady refuses. The lady tells Diouana to take off her shoes and to remember that she is only a maid. She then told her she cannot eat if she does not work.

Diouana receives a letter from her mother. Her mother is upset she is not sending money back to her mother as she is very ill. She says that is not her mother's letter and that she did not ask him to write for her. She gets up angry that she is their prisoner. She takes the mask back from the wall and says that she won’t play with the child as the mistress disrespected her.

She goes back in time again to show the viewers how excited she had been to go to France with her mistress. It goes back to current time and the mistress and her husband arrive. The guy pays her. They take the mask back and she takes it back. She returns the apron and the money back to them. She packs as she tells herself she will never be a slave. She went to the bathroom and killed herself in the bathtub. The mistress and her husband head back to Dakar with her suitcase. The guy gives her mother money, and she refuses to take it. The guy leaves the town with the little boy with the mask on following him.

This movie relates to the reading by Kant in many ways. In the reading, it states that someone who follows orders is not doing it out of good will, they are doing it just to follow orders. In the movie, you can see Diouana following orders, but as the movie progresses, she stops taking their orders. One of the main points in the reading is that you must treat other people as an end and not as a means. This means that we must respect other people's status as moral worth. In the movie, the mistress treats Diouana as a moral mean. She is disrespected greatly as she is using the human to do all the work, rather than respecting her moral worth as a human. They did not treat her as a human value, rather, they treated her as some sort of recourse for their own purpose.

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