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Why We Need Black Girls in Ballgowns
I was about 5 or 6 when I first watched the Bennet sisters prance around at the Netherfield ball. My sister had just begun her obsession with period films, which my entire family endured. She was about 12 or 13 years old, when she was practicing “Georgiana” over and over on the piano, until at some point we as family sighed, shrugged our shoulders, and continued about our routines. I often let the playing glide to the back of mind, as she Mary Bennet’d the soundtrack of the Arnold household (this is all coming from the point of view of a 6-year-old little sister).
I don’t remember the exact time or day when a switch went off in me, when hearing the dialect of British actors and actresses was no longer strange, or when me and my sister first started to throw, “These are the best boiled potatoes” or “UNGRATEFUL CHILD” into our regular conversations and messages. Neither, can I recount a moment when I began to know score composers by name, nor when the sound of pianos, violins, and other instruments became the criteria for a great film, or especially when the sight of an intricate fabric, flowing dramatically across a screen made my heart flutter with the same movements.
I now know that I can’t separate myself from these films or from the bond they created with me and my sister. Suddenly, within me there was a swift change that occurred, I went from once…
