Mammy: Unpacking anti-Blackness

12 & 13 | WOMEN IN STEM 14 & 15 | PHOTOSHOP EFFECTS 18 | PURIM

LAILA EL MUGAMMAR

Black Heritage Month is an opportune time to spotlight archival material that contains evidence of a long history of anti-Blackness. Specifically, Canadian advertising cookbooks in the early 20th century offer unique insight into the role Blackness played in Canada’s imagined, or socially constructed, community.

Advertisements featuring caricatures of Black people provide a timely reminder that hate is not the sole signifier of anti-Blackness. Sometimes it’s masked as endearment, as with the Crisco-wielding mammies of the Dear Old South whose lives were characterized by feeding white mouths. Other times, it is pity for the ‘starving African children’ that voluntourism (a form of tourism in which travelers participate in volunteer work, typically for a charity, according to World Vision) weaves into a mosaic of flies and distended bellies.

The Black presence is a chalk outline on the tarmac of Canadian food history. We need only a keen eye to spot it.

The Bliss Cook Book was published by Montreal-based Alonzo O. Bliss Medical Company in the early 20th century. The chapter “Old Fashioned Southern Preserves’’ is punctuated by the smiling face of a mammy, a Black nursemaid or nanny working and serving in a white household. She is canning jam in a checkered dress, and her scarf and head wrap mirror the garb in early renditions of Aunt Jemima, who Quaker Oats is now retiring as the figurehead of their pancake products.

This image of a mammy romanticizes the roles enslaved Black women held. However, because the mammy was a cultural import from the United States, Canadians could participate in the perpetuation of this caricature without having to take accountability for it and thus maintain the illusion of a racism-free country. It was inherently anti-Black stereotypes such as the mammy that connected Canadians to the imagined community of Antebellum America.

The mammy is not a misremembering of the past: she is a fabrication designed to placate white folk who were anxious about the new roles of the formerly enslaved. Worries about equal rights and miscegenation (reproduction between people of different races) disappeared when they reminisced about a Black figure who asked nothing of them.

Black manumission (slaves being freed by their owners) and Black social mobility devastated Canada and America alike, leading some to seek reassurance that Black folk enjoyed back-breaking domestic labour. Historian Micki McElya challenges this falsehood with an anecdote in Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth Century America (2007):

A woman identified only as “A Negro Nurse” described to a journalist oppressively long days and terrible wages as a live-in servant in an unnamed Southern city in 1912. She was allowed only one Sunday afternoon every two weeks with her children, who in turn were prohibited from visiting her at the home she worked and lived in. Except for those afternoons, she was on duty twenty-four hours a day. “It’s ‘Mammy, do this,’ or ‘Mammy, do that,’ or ‘Mammy, do the other,’ from my mistress all the time. So it is not strange to see ‘Mammy’ water-ing the lawn in front with the garden hose, sweeping the sidewalk, mopping the porch and halls, dusting around the house, helping the cook, or darning stockings … You might as well say that I’m on duty all the time—from sunrise to sunrise, every day in the week. I am the slave, body and soul, of this family.

Black writers are under immense pressure to avoid discussing race issues that are perceived as unfixable, making historical anti-Blackness an unpopular topic; but we cannot erase the mam-

Old Fashioned Southern Preserves. Bliss Cook Book - Livre De Cuisine De Bliss (Alonzo O. Bliss Medical Co., circa 1910), A&SC, University of Guelph Library, TX715.6 ZZ921.

my from Canada’s past — nor should we want to.

Going forward, we must give credence to those whose work disrupts the idea of Canada as a racism-free space, not just those who construct Canada as a safe haven. All of the texts mentioned here are available for viewing on the “What Canada Ate” website: whatcanadaate.lib.uoguelph.ca/, a digital repository of historic cookbooks from Archival & Special Collections’ Culinary Collection.

As a self-proclaimed cinephile, Prabhjot Bains believes that while 2020 shattered our foundations of normalcy, it also gave us films that provided us solace from hardship. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

PRABHJOT BAINS

Unprecedented, unrivaled, and troubling: a few words that have been exhausted in our attempt to describe what this year meant to us and what it will go down as in our collective history.

While these last twelve months effectively shattered our foundations of normalcy and comfort, they also gave us films that provided us solace from the cold and exacting world, albeit in a new way. These experiences reached us in the comfort of our beds and couches as the silver screen remained shuttered for the better part of the year. While this remains to be the case, theatres, and their explosive IMAX screens, will soon be back with full force — as the moments of joy, introspection, and empathy they afford us are much too valuable to be erased from our cultural framework.

So, here’s to a more uplifting 2021, where the crunch of popcorn will complement the gasps and laughter we share with each other in our return to collective cinematic experiences.

Before diving in, here are five honourable mentions that didn’t make the list, but are still worthy of your time: First Cow: Kelly Reichardt’s slow, lyrical, and contemplative depiction of an unlikely friendship in the 1820s pacific northwest, in which two vagabonds secretly rely on the use of milk from a landowner’s esteemed dairy cow. It won’t be for everyone, but it will make you swoon with emotion just the same. Mank: David Fincher’s first movie in six years is a flawed but masterful look at how the supposed ‘greatest movie of all time,’ Citizen Kane, was conceived through the experiences of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, in opposition to its famed director Orson Welles, in Hollywood during the 1930s and early 40s. The Wolf of Snow Hollow: Jim Cummings’ sophomore effort blends relatable family drama with the traditional monster flick, resulting in a mesmerizing feature that shouldn’t work, but does, due to its extreme violence, emotion, and humour. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets: A pseudo-documentary that details the closing night of a community bar, showcasing the poetry inherent in ‘bar talk’ and the melancholy that is laced within every sip of hard liquor. Possessor: A cerebral foray into body-horror that pushes the limit of gore in a sci-fi tale that views self-identity as a catalyst for a war that wages in our minds. It raises the question of if we truly are the masters of our own invention or if we’re always controlled by someone who sees the “bigger picture.”

10. PALM SPRINGS

Time-loop movies have been pretty much exhausted at this point, with movies like Groundhog Day (1993), Source Code (2011), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). But Palm Springs revitalizes this sub-genre by injecting it with sharp humour and wit that refreshingly comments on the reciprocal and ever-changing nature of relationships, romantic or otherwise.

Taking place during a wedding that is doomed to repeat itself, Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) slowly resign themselves to their fate as a time-loop presents them with the opportunity to experience a life that is devoid of consequence. As more experiences are shared between them, romance inevitably develops between the two.

The worst American comedies too frequently showcase established comedic actors talking with each other in blandly shot scenes, but Palm Springs tosses these conventions out the window by utilizing ingenious editing and an inventive lens that allows this outrageous scenario to feel wholly relatable and memorable, resulting in one of the best comedies of our generation.

9. RED, WHITE AND BLUE

Steve McQueen’s Small-Axe, an anthology of five films centered around the West-Indian community of England, sparked questions amongst large film publications, cinephiles, and awards shows of what a movie truly is after the anthology was labelled a TV-series. The third film of the series, Red, White, and Blue touched me and, in my opinion, sparked the most reflection.

The film focuses on Leroy Logan (John Boyega), an educat-

ed child of Jamaican immigrants who longs for real change in his crime-ridden and neglected community in the early 1980s. Against the wishes of his strict father, he joins the police force, becoming the first Black police officer in his neighbourhood.

What results is a profoundly nuanced commentary on police reform and finding a sense of place that offers no easy answers. McQueen’s contemplative direction and framing allows the audience to take in the world just as our protagonist does — putting us in his shoes, feeling every uproarious and devastating moment as Logan tries to find his way in the world as a man who doesn’t quite fit in the community he came from, nor the new one he’s trying to foster.

8. PIECES OF A WOMAN

Kornél Mundruczó’s harrowing Pieces of a Woman contains one of the greatest opening scenes in film history. A meticulous 23-minute shot detailing a home birth is one that will not leave the recesses of your mind for quite some time, as it simultaneously showcases the profoundness of birth and the fragile line on which relationships walk. This masterful framing and mise-enscène continues throughout the film, fully realizing its thematic and emotional ambitions in a way that is wholly resonant.

What cements this film as one of the year’s best is Vanessa Kirby’s vibrant and realistic performance as a woman who is dealing with profound loss while deciding to start a family or keep the one she already has. Yet, this bravura performance is supported by ones that are just as great, as Shia LaBeouf plays Kirby’s flawed partner and Ellen Burstyn plays her mother who doesn’t see eyeto-eye with her family’s decisions.

While the second half of the film is not as strong as the first, it is still an emotional journey worth taking and will leave you longing for more love in your life.

7. BACURAU

A Brazilian acid-western following a small rural community that is plagued by strange occurrences and deranged tourists that are trying to kill them after the town matriarch dies of old age. Sounds heavy, I know.

On the surface, the film unfolds as a thriller paying homage to John Carpenter’s films of the 80s; underneath, it’s a bold commentary on the resilience of small communities in the face of larger, oppressive forces that seek to destroy their unity.

The film faced a lot of backlash from Brazil’s authoritative government, and rightly so, as it condemns their policies and actions in ways that are best served via film. It has impressive direction, intoxicating cinematography, and most of all, a kickass soundtrack. Don’t let the subtitles serve as a barrier, but as a lifejacket which allows you to joyfully drift in this film’s gleeful madness.

6. MINARI

The immigrant experience is captured with a unique authenticity and humility in Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, where a Korean family moves to an Arkansas farm during the 1980s in search of the widely sought after “American Dream.”

This film could have easily fallen into the trap of being too schmaltzy, but the film instead presents us with tender vignettes that convey the complex domestic turmoil that every family has faced at one point or another.

Families fail and succeed together, but above all else, they are resilient. Chung’s film nails the portrayal of this reality through impressive writing, sturdy acting, and an empathetic lens that glides us along the trials and tribulations this family faces. Minari is Korean for water celery, a plant whose roots are spread wide and deep, emulating what this family seeks to do in this foreign land.

Another family drama set in the 1980s, but not quite as tender. Sean Durkin’s The Nest follows an unravelling relationship between Rory and Allison (Jude Law and Carrie Coon) where both parties, and their children, are too invested in their own lives to see the warning signs of familial conflict. Everything is going swell until Rory seizes a business opportunity that would require the family to relocate to England. Once this move happens, the fragile foundations of their nuclear family begin to crumble.

Rory makes luxurious purchases, like buying a mansion, to showcase his status of wealth — except, it’s a sham, he’s not rich and this realization and its gradual effect on the family is expertly conveyed through Durkin’s restrained and subtle direction.

5. THE NEST

4. THE CLIMB

The Climb is the rare independent film that uses budgetary constraints to its benefit, in which a complex friendship between two men is showcased with technical mastery that rivals the most expensive of Hollywood movies.

The evolving and troubling story is broken into seven distinct chapters that are all filmed in long, impressive takes. They force the audience to focus on the details of every laugh, cry, and act of infidelity permeating the key moments that define the two characters’ friendship.

No matter how selfless one of them is — and how selfish the other is — the friendship conveyed here is one that meaningfully comments on the greatest relationships that define us and how much sway they hold over our lives.

3. I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS

After three viewings, I still don’t truly know what this film is about. But, with the sheer quality of acting, directing, and writing on display, who cares?

Charlie Kauffman takes us through the annals of fading romance, the pain families inflict, and the gargantuan effect remorse has on our psyche as we age, all within a drive to and from a single Thanksgiving dinner.

The surreal imagery within a supposed mundane dinner creates an unsettling feeling for the audience, forcing us to realize that something more profound lies beneath the surface, as is the case with all the experiences that shape our lives: never has frustration felt this good.

2. ANOTHER ROUND

The second foreign film to grace this list, Thomas Vinterberg’s take on drinking culture in Denmark and throughout the Western world leaves the audience with a whirlwind of emotion in which we experience intoxicating highs and devastating lows.

It follows four friends who decide to test a theory where keeping a consistent blood-alcohol level of 0.5 per cent will allow them to lead more fulfilling lives. While it begins joyously, it slowly descends into a meaningful observation of what role alcohol plays in our daily lives and the level of significance it has on us when we reach the ever-looming mid-life crisis.

The mesmerising and subdued performance by Mads Mikkelsen creates powerful emotion in the subtlest of movements, while Vinterberg’s assured direction keeps us on our toes and constantly asking whether our protagonists are doing the right thing. Vinterberg’s conclusion points to the idea that alcohol isn’t the problem, but rather, the type of person drinking it. Featuring the best ending this year, Another Round will leave you in awe, enriched with an uplifting view on the numerous directions your life could possibly take.

What happens when you lose something so deeply intertwined with your sense of self that you can’t live without it? How do you move past such a profound loss?

Darius Marder’s The Sound of Metal attempts to answer this question, and it does so with tact, compassion, and a sense of humanity. Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed), a recovering addict and metal drummer who uses his passion for music to move past his substance abuse issues, is thrown into existential turmoil when he begins losing his hearing.

With insights into the heartbreaking realization of going deaf, Marder taps into the resiliency that is inherent in humanity. These harrowing themes of loss, regret, and change transcend into greatness through this year’s greatest performance by Ahmed, who’s expressive eyes and languished face force us to understand the gravity of the loss Ruben is experiencing. The Sound of Metal is the best film of 2020, not just because it comments on these complex themes in a refreshing way, but because it allows us to understand how we can eventually heal from living through brutal times.

1. THE SOUND OF METAL