REEL WOMEN:BLACK WOMEN AND LITERACY IN FEATURE FILMS

Many times we watch films just for the entertainment perspective of things. We look at it form an emotional perspective and not really at the deep meaning within the film. This article by Joanne Dowdy indicate that we should take a step back from the emotional perspectives of important films such as "the Josephine Baker Story"' "Clara's Heart", and "The Color Purple"to establish the deeper meaning of the film and how we can apply that to our lives. By doing this we establish a sense of space for "critical observation" so that we approach the world around us in a different perspective.

Each one of the films demonstrate the views of Black women and how they view the environment around them. The films also convey the literacy of Black women and how they interacted with various cultures and the White society. "Movies provide the opportunity to witness the everyday experience of Black women within certain sociocultural contexts" (Dowdy 164). The movies mentioned above all indicate the different levels of literacy women had in the different films and recognize the differences as well as the similarities that our past has from our present and how it'll change in our future. She also accentuates the importance of taking the events and perspectives of those films and apply them to our lives and society around us today because it will make us be more literate of our environment.

This article illustrates the intelligences of Black women in films and how talented and literate they are. Dowdy tells the importance of students watching these films and extracting the importance of them, especially Black women. Being that television can be used to enhance education, Dowdy states that it is important that we extract the necessary data from these films to understand the Black experience and the history of our people. "We can use the lessons learned from our experience with popular film to build a bridge to learning more about the history of African-American women and celebrating their contribution to our society and the world" (Dowdy 180).