Pariah (2011)

Document Type

Miscellaneous

Publication Date

5-2017

Abstract

Pariah, directed by first time director Dee Rees, is a semi-autobiographical film following the young adulthood of 17 year old Alike (Adepero Oduye), a shy teenager growing up in Brooklyn raised by her parents, her emotionally attached father Arthur (Charles Parnell) and her conservative and controlling mother Audrey (Kim Wayans). Throughout the film, Alike comes into her own queer and gender identities through her friendship with the butch Laura (Pernell Walker) and a potential romance with Bina (Aasha Davis), a closeted girl from the church her mother forces her to attend.

On the surface, the film could be seen as a typical coming out story told many times before, but the narrative following the lead character Alike is much different. She takes on many different identities through her clothing and expression of gender depending on which character she has been spending the larger amount of her time with. It is through her relationships with her more masculine friend Laura and her romance Bina that Alike begins to navigate the gender binary, revealing her struggle to find her place in it. Through the film's use of clothing and color, I assert that Pariah isn't simply a film depicting a woman coming out as a lesbian, but centers on a Alike's journey to embracing a genderfluid identity outside of the confines of the traditional gender binary.

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