Yesterday, a friend texted me asking me for movie picks for a group of young black girls. Her boyfriend works at a center for black youth and he wanted to show the girls a couple of movies with positive messages for young women. I racked my brain for movies that filled that criteria and I instantly thought of some of my favorites: “Now and Then”, “A Little Princess”, “The Man In The Moon”, and “All I Wanna Do”. They’re all great movies and I think that every girl can relate, in one way or another, to the growing pains that the female characters in those movies endure. But it bothered me that I couldn’t think of one movie about a group of young black girls that wasn’t based in trauma. I say young because movies about black female friendships in adulthood definitely do exist. A perfect example being the 90s classic, “Waiting to Exhale”. I would be remiss not to mention that there was a time when black girls had multiple shows that focused primarily on the experiences of growing up on tv. Shows like “Moesha”, “The Proud Family”, “The Parkers”, and “One on One”. But despite that, our representation on the silver screen has been scarce, to say the least. 

When black girls do grace the silver screen, the way we are usually portrayed is a small part of a much larger issue with black representation in the media. Black trauma sells. This isn’t a secret. The movies that are critically acclaimed are almost always the ones that show black people at their worse. Which usually means that the characters are in poverty, slavery, or any other horrible situation. Just as long as they’re suffering in some way or another. But pain does not encompass the black experience. Black people laugh just as much as they cry. Black people live normal lives. Not every step we take in life is weighed down by the shackles of our ancestors. My friend’s boyfriend couldn’t show them “The Color Purple”, “Precious” or “Eve’s Bayou” because while those movies are about black girls, the subject matter isn’t really for them. He could’ve shown them “The Hate U Give”, but why must the options made readily available for young black girls have the overarching theme of pain, suffering, and injustice?

 Earlier I said that our representation on the silver screen has been scarce. I said that because there are coming-of-age stories surrounding black girls. Even some that aren’t dripping in trauma. They just aren’t as readily accessible. Most of us haven’t heard of or seen them because they’re almost always indie films. Meaning their production teams don’t have the big budgets of their white counterparts, giving them limited access to the press. And while some of them have excellent reviews, they aren’t seen by viewers outside the indie film world, and I don’t know about you all, but I don’t know many teenage black girls who frequent indie film festivals. 

I want to make something clear. There is nothing wrong with the films I’ve mentioned previously because those stories need to be told. But if I want to watch a movie about black girls that won’t completely devastate me, shouldn’t I have that option? Black girls deserve to see themselves on screen making friends, going to dances, graduating, and falling in love. White girls have options. If they want to watch a movie where the biggest problem for the characters is prom, they can. If they want a film about a group of friends just growing up together; they have 5 to choose from, and they’re set in different decades. And say they need cautionary tales of STDS, addictions, body issues, or teen pregnancy, they have all of those as well. The same can’t be said for black girls. 

So we’ve had to learn to see ourselves in their stories. Rework the scenes in our mind, to envision how they’d play out if the main characters were black. And I know that the same can be said in terms of representation for black boys and other youth of color. Luckily, we’ve entered a time in Hollywood where production companies have begun to realize that mainstream films with diverse and inclusive characters and themes actually can make money. It’s about time. Thank the Lord for Ryan Coogler and Jordan Peele. Maybe this means we’ll get to see more examples of the young black experience in the mainstream. Despite the progress we have seen, I can’t help but be frustrated that I can still write opinion pieces about the lack of black representation in media. There have been so many generations of black girls that haven’t been able to relate to the black stories they have seen. And that’s assuming they’ve seen any to begin with. I’m just hoping that in the future, black girls won’t have to share that experience.