Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Meaning of It
One of the things that has stumped me about "American Violet" is the title. Originally, it was to be called "American Inquisition," which made more sense to me. There is a scene where a main character cares for some African Violets, but that didn't seem so connected to the story for me.
As usual, I find myself blessed with friends who are more insightful than I am. Paul Larson, the Spanish Medievalist and one of the best teachers I know, offers this cogent and convincing explanation after seeing the film in Hearne last night:
We (whites) call them African Americans, but nobody calls us European Americans. By calling attention to the racial difference, we create space, racial space, that gives us power over them. We create a "lesser" American. Read Brown v. Board of Education again and you'll see that the judges, although they don't say it directly, were trying to deal with the "separate but equal" idea because they knew that that idea was specious. By dividing us by race we are invoking tacit apartheid. So the "violet" in the film is American. The plant is the "African," and it symbolizes many things such as hope, beauty and love. The title is not obvious if you haven't seen the movie, but once you have, it's really quite poetic.
As we walked out of the movie, Paul also called to my attention the fact that Regina Kelley, upon whom the lead plaintiff character is based, was wearing violet that night.
As usual, I find myself blessed with friends who are more insightful than I am. Paul Larson, the Spanish Medievalist and one of the best teachers I know, offers this cogent and convincing explanation after seeing the film in Hearne last night:
We (whites) call them African Americans, but nobody calls us European Americans. By calling attention to the racial difference, we create space, racial space, that gives us power over them. We create a "lesser" American. Read Brown v. Board of Education again and you'll see that the judges, although they don't say it directly, were trying to deal with the "separate but equal" idea because they knew that that idea was specious. By dividing us by race we are invoking tacit apartheid. So the "violet" in the film is American. The plant is the "African," and it symbolizes many things such as hope, beauty and love. The title is not obvious if you haven't seen the movie, but once you have, it's really quite poetic.
As we walked out of the movie, Paul also called to my attention the fact that Regina Kelley, upon whom the lead plaintiff character is based, was wearing violet that night.
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It's also interesting to note that the African Violet (saintpaulia) is often grown as a houseplant in darker, colder climates, where it is known to consistently bloom despite long periods of darkness and is fairly hard to kill. I suppose that could be a metaphor for the spirit of hope in Hearne, and specifically for Regina Kelley.
Very nice, Justin. In the movie, we see "Dee" taking care of her children and watering her flowers, just like any other mother of any other color would do. The point is that color is irrelevant. People who raise flowers all belong to the same group regardless of color. Perhaps this movie's greatest lesson is that color is irrelevant. The flowers die while she is in prison, but instead of throwing out her African Violet that is all dried up, she knows from experience that just watering it again will bring it back. She waters the dried African Violet, pursues her lawsuit, and resolves many of her problems. In the end of the movie, we see a revived violet. Nice.
Rumors have already spread about the name change suggesting their was some patent or copyright issue.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152397/board/nest/111153731
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