Pariah

This week we watched Pariah, a sort of coming of age film about a 17 year old Black lesbian named Alike who is struggling with her sexuality and gender identity while living in a fairly conservative religious household. 

I really enjoyed this film, I found myself laughing a lot, but also crying... I was particularly interested in Alike's relationship with her Dad. In many ways, he is a more caring and understanding figure in Alike's life, obviously MUCH more so than the mother. However he is also very passive and does not stand up for her during her mother's homophobic tirade, or do enough to advocate for her. He seems to be constantly living in the past, imagining his daughter as a young child still, who doesn't have what he views to be a "burdensome" sexuality that he has to come to terms with. This is shown in what I thought was a really beautiful visual way during the scene where Alike's father meets her on the roof of Laura's apartment. Alike is facing outwards, looking out at the world from the edge of the roof. Her father looks out for a second, then turns his back on the view, and begins to reminisce on the past, their first apartment, and how Alike's mother always used to pick her up. Alike doesn't respond to this reminiscing, and instead looks to her future, telling him about the early college program she was accepted into. Unable to meet her where she needs him to in that moment, he has trouble it seems answering her question about signing the paperwork to allow her to graduate early. He says "You know you can always come back home, right?" Within that question, there is a kind of implicit requirement of her returning to the child that she once was, and more specifically, the straight child that he remembers and wants her to be. Meanwhile, like any young adult, Alike is looking towards her future. She doesn't want to return to the abusive arms of her mother, like her dad really wants her to do, in fulfillment of his past vision of their ideal nuclear family structure. 

This scene was so heartbreaking for me, almost as heartbreaking as the scene with her mother. In that moment, I wanted him to be less passive, to embrace her for who she is, and to celebrate her and her achievements. Instead, he centers himself and his idealized (straight) version of her that he remembers, and is unable to step alongside her into her future.