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Reviews
The Color of Care (2022)
The documentary on race in American medicine you need to see
If you have never watched a documentary on race in American medicine, you should definitely watch _The Color of Care_. If you think you've watched enough documentaries about race in American medicine, you should still watch this one. It is a time capsule of the impact of the early COVID-19 pandemic on minoritized populations in the United States. As a physician, I do not want to believe it is true that sick individuals could be turned away from care, but as story after family story is told in this moving film, I had to come to the realization (yet again) that American medicine does not operate the way I would want it to. As a trained medical historian, I can vouch for the accuracy of the interpretation of how it is that we got to where we are today. We can--must--do better both individually and as a society.
Mignonnes (2020)
A powerful reflection of modern girlhood
_Mignonnes_ is a coming-of-age story about a Senegalese immigrant girl in France as she absorbs messages about what it means to be a girl and a woman. Getting your period means you are a woman, but an 11-year-old is too young to dance suggestively. Popular girls act sexy, but they don't have sex. Women should be submissive, even when their husbands disrespect them. Nothing in the movie is exaggerated. There are a few surrealist elements, but _Mignonnes_ is basically a cinema verite account of the tensions of growing up, of inter-generational and cross-cultural conflict, and of trying to fit in with one's peers. It gestures toward the trope of "underdogs competing against a powerhouse"--but turns that on its head. I could imagine assigning Maïmouna Doucouré's film in a college course on girlhood. It is not a feel-good movie, but there are reasons why it won an award at Sundance. It should become a classic, because pre-teens in many times and places teeter between childhood and young adulthood.
Confidential to the reviewers offended by the dance scenes: Doucouré chose to film them in order to make a point. If she had not filmed them, that does not mean that similar scenes do not play out everyday online and in real life. If you are bothered that girls don't have other, better role models than dancers in popular music videos on social media, are you prepared to picket dance studios where parents pay money for their children to learn to move like this? Are you boycotting TLC over "Toddlers and Tiaras"? Are you investing time and money into wholesome activities for latchkey girls whose parents have to work long hours to earn enough money to shelter, feed, and clothe them? It's pretty obvious from the film that, above all, Amy and her friends are looking for love and attention. They just find it in all the wrong places.