DISSERTATIONS
DISSERTATIONS
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
“Black Boys Look Blue”: Performing the Intracolonizing Effects of Black Masculinity in A24’s Moonlight (2016) and Waves (2019).
FILM STUDIES (BA):
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation undertakes a textual analysis of two recent A24 films, Moonlight (2016) and Waves (2019), using the strategies of film performance regarding the central Black male characters. Analysing the actors and their performances explores how certain moments in these performances reflect on and respond to the legacies and structures of white supremacy and how they govern the lives of Black men. As Paul MacDonald (2004: 40) proposes that ‘acting analysis will become integral to the study of film if, through attention to the micromeanings of the voice and body, it becomes possible to find in the very smallest of details the most significant of moments.’ Thus, this analysis considers how, in specific moments of these films, the actors’ performances speak to the characters and how they navigate the intra-colonizing effects of ‘Black masculinity.’
On the ideologies of Blackness and film, Ed Guerrero (1993: 2) notes that ‘the representation of black people on the commercial screen has amounted to one grand, multifaceted illusion’. The idea of Blackness as ‘homogenous’ has been widely contested within the dominant film industry, to commodify the hegemonic structures of white supremacy in society. By focusing on two recent products of the independent cinema industry, I intend to explore how the multiplicities of Blackness and masculinity are manifested through acting and specific uses of the actor’s voice and body. The commercialisation of Blackness for the screens of the dominant film industry, as Manthia Diawara (1993: 5) points out, speaks to the ‘formal veneer of Hollywood’s ideology of black subordination’; therefore, by centralising two recent independent products, this dissertation will highlight ways that Black masculinity is performed on-screen.
This paper is split into three distinct chapters. The first explores a link between colonialism, white supremacy, and contemporary Black masculinity, to understand how these legacies govern how Black men perform their lives. The second and third chapters take a textual analysis of A24’s Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016) and Waves (dir. Trey Shults, 2019) to answer how the performances of the young Black protagonists in these films highlight the intra-colonizing effects of the ideals explored in the first chapter, and how these effects are maintained or challenged.
Black British Expression Matters: SoulWork and its Critical Intervention for the Black British Body in Twenty-First Century British Theatre Arts Training.
DRAMA, THEATRE & PERFORMANCE STUDIES (BA):
ABSTRACT
This dissertation interrogates Cristal Chanelle Truscott’s Black acting pedagogy, SoulWork, in line with racial discourse and theories of intracultural practice, as a prime example of a culturally relevant performance pedagogy for Black British actors and performers. Truscott's pedagogy encourages the freedom of Black expression and acts as a critical intervention for British performance practices. Embodying Black cultural expression in a British social context highlights the need for training pedagogies to explore racial discourse and identity and its implications for teaching culturally relevant performance practices. Pertaining to the Black British identity space in the twenty-first century, this thesis proposes that SoulWork adds a new way of thinking about Black acting methods and mapping the African-Caribbean diaspora in UK theatre arts. This paper suggests that intracultural practice should become an integral part of the British actor training process, in centralising the racial and cultural contexts of its student of colour, and notably Black students.
INTRODUCTION
The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020, caused by the death of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers in the United States, saw a significant uproar of Black students and graduates of British actor training and theatre studies programmes voicing the trauma they endured due to institutionalised racism in these educational institutions. This uproar reveals the lack of attention that theatre arts programs pay towards their Black students regarding the level that racial and cultural identity impacts their abilities in the classroom. British actor training and theatre arts education do not sufficiently empower its Black students and students of colour by dismissing the diverse contexts of racial identities, misunderstanding their role in implicating an actor's performance or a student's engagement with embodying training pedagogies. The landscape of contemporary British actor training does not involve acting/performance practices relevant to the complex and expansive narratives of Blackness and Black identity.
As such, this dissertation looks to interrogate practices that celebrate and centralise racial and cultural identity as significant to an actor's training process, namely Cristal Chanelle Truscott's actor training pedagogy, SoulWork. When mobilised by the Black British body in the training classroom, Truscott's pedagogy encourages the freedom of Black expression and acts as a critical intervention for British performance practices. Embodying Black cultural expression in a British social context highlights the need for training pedagogies to explore racial discourse and identity and its implications for teaching culturally relevant performance practices. Whilst her pedagogy bears the African American body and experience in mind, this dissertation suggests that the implementation of its philosophies adds a new way of thinking about Black acting methods and mapping the African-Caribbean diaspora in UK theatre arts.
This thesis is split into three sections; firstly, it outlines the impact of contemporary British actor training's disregard for cultural and racial identity. Its argument then highlights the need for intracultural practice within British training. Finally, it concludes by suggesting that SoulWork is a prime example of culturally relevant pedagogy for Black performers and how this intervenes to make space for the Black British identity space in the contemporary training classroom.
