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Race and belonging: a review of recently issued National Film Board DVDs.

Article Excerpt
Race is a Four-Letter Word. Written and directed by Sobaz Benjamin. Produced by Annette Clarke. National Film Board of Canada, 2006.55 mins, 19 secs, Language: English. Full Screen, $59.95. Closed captioned--decoder required. Dolby sound.

This film is a collage of autobiographical and biographical narratives combined with artistic performances on the complex issue of race, racism, and identity in contemporary Canadian society. The director and narrator is a young black radio show host who presents the audience with a personal journey of exploration to address his own demons centering on race and belonging. He interweaves his story with those of three others: a young black Caribbean woman from England who moved to Canada to escape British racism; a young black Canadian female performance artist who reacts to the dominant racialized aesthetic of beauty as white; and an aging white, male artist who was raised by a black family and sees himself as more attached to blackness as an identity than whiteness.

This is also a film about the body politic and representations of self. For instance, in a photo-shoot, the aging male body is contrasted to the young body as well as white to black, each in opposing masks--black to white. The photo-shoot is a performance of race, gender, ageism, and sexuaiity, where the homoerotic context of two nude male bodies entwined also comes face to face with the issue of miscegenation and ageist fears in Western society and the race masks that we all wear, whether we are white, black, or in-between. The nude masked poses are an effective means of de-stabilizing how the black male body is stereotyped and viewed in Western culture through its Other, the dominant image of the ideal: the young white male body. As another example, the young black performance artist challenges dominant images of white beauty and beauty queens by declaring herself "Miss Canadiana." Resplendent in red satin gown and beauty queen sash and tiara, she features herself in parades and public events at a variety of locations across the country.

Sobaz Benjamin does a wonderful job of personalizing the...

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