The True Identity In Dee Rees's Film 'Pariah'

Dee Rees’s film Pariah has a very easy storyline to follow. A young woman who is suffering because she has to balance two lives, her life with her mother and her true life, breaks, free from the oppressive forces that make her conform to what society says a young woman should be like. The protagonist has to overcome many obstacles within herself, her family, and other outside forces to prevail and proclaim her true identity. Pariah is not like most coming of age stories. It gives an interesting and provocative twist on the traditional coming of age story. The film tells the story that of Alike, a woman who is beginning to explore her sexuality and expression. She knows that she is a lesbian, but what happens when lesbianism doesn’t make you …show more content…
However, Alike does everything in her power to fight it. Alike continues to act more butch and kill any assumption that she is going through a tomboy phase. In Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam says the “tomboyish tends to be associated with a “natural” desire for the greater freedoms and mobilities enjoyed by boys” (6). Alike’s open tomboyism, especially in the clubs, allows her to explore a setting where she enjoys a positon of freedom and power. However, this freedom is what sets the wedges in her and her mother’s relationship. As seen when Alike is first introduced to Bina. Audrey has an aggressive intent on building a relationship between Bina and Alike. She feels like Laura is the reason for Alike’s tomboyism. Alike consistently tells her that she is her own …show more content…
Audrey and Arthur are arguing about Alike. Alike decides to intervene and winds up coming out. A physical fight ensues between Audrey and Alike. This scene is very symbolic because it shows how much rage black women have for difference. Instead, women like Audrey, who live with a belief that anything that defies societal set gender norms or religion is bad, fight difference. Women like Audrey fight freedom because freedom is scary and when you live in self oppression those fears overcome you. The first step to ending this fear is understanding that “masculinity is constructed” (Halberstam 1). For some reason, black women fear female masculinity or any masculinity that is not by “manly man”. Masculinity is a performance of freedom that can be performed by anyone. Alike is center stage in her masculinity whenever she changes out of the clothes her mother forces her to wear.
In the end, Alike is able to overcome her oppressor and embrace her true identity. She is able to do what society thought she couldn’t and live as a queer black woman, who embraces her female masculinity. You can see her acceptance by the simple sigh of relief she has on the bus to California. She is enjoying the freedoms her mother never got to experience. Alike is living Alike. Nonconformity placed her in a monstrous “other” role in society. Alike accepted