This essay will be focusing on the extract from Lindiwe Dovey (2009) where she summarises feminist responses to Ramaka’s Karmen Gei (2001) as falling under three categories: that she constitutes a “model of bold female independence”, that the film “engages in fetishization of the female” or that the film “deconstructs the male desire to fetishize the female”. With this statement, this essay will be in support and argue that Karmen is the “model of bold female independence”, and with supporting scenes from the film and supporting quotes from the two provided readings, it will be able to argue why this specific description is most accurate.
When watching the opening scene in the movie Karmen Gei, we are first introduced to a woman who is a strong, black female body who naturally commands…show more content… She is aware that she is a sexual attraction, and is using it to her advantage to grab the attention of the authority, not only with Angelique, but with Lamine, who will be introduced later in the essay assignment. Karmen is an independent female who is very bold in how she carries herself. In the end of that scene, Karmen manages to successfully enchant Angelique, and from this moment onwards, a very intense and toxic love story begins to boil between these two characters, and will be displayed on our screens up until the death of Angelique. With still referencing Karmen’s dancing in the film, it is about charming, seducing, entertaining, competing and challenging the notions of what a female body is capable of doing. General knowledge notes that in Senegal, religion plays an incredibly important factor in how the female body should be perceived and what they can, and cannot do with their bodies. However, in this film, Karmen plays against any conservative notion of what the representation of a female should be, and uses her own body as a means to communicate feelings and emotions,