Black Girlhood

Programmed by: Danielle Momoh

The concept of ‘girlhood’ has risen in popularity (online and off) over the last few years, flocked to for its airy rehashing of a time that women are supposed to wistfully look back on with rose-colored glasses. The framing around girlhood is nowadays one of material objects and easy expressions; brightly colored trinkets, giggles, bubbles baths, and saccharine scents. This idea of girlhood is not only homogenizing and cheaply stylized, but also overwhelmingly white. The best films about girlhood don’t do the patriarchal work of smoothing over its jagged edges, but a majority of them center white perspectives. Just as Black and Brown girls are denied their innocence and personhood in reality, not allowed into the nostalgic fantasy, they are similarly elided that privilege onscreen. Yet, obviously, every Black woman was once a girl; her journey within (and eventually away from) girlhood was undoubtedly a crucial time in her life. This series is my attempt to spotlight films that capture Black girlhood in all its beauty and strife. These films highlight the discomfort in one’s own body, the confusing and frequently violent relations with boys and men, the infinitely complex webs of love and betrayal that girls spin with and around each other – all through a Black lens. From a decades-spanning epic, a small-time/high-stakes spelling-bee, to the first blushes of a queer romance, these films afford Black girls an empathetic and loving frame to grow up in.