Speculative Film and Moving Images by or about Black Women and Girls

Jeffrey-Legette reminds us throughout her remarkable book that we study imaginative literature in order to understand what it means to be human. As she demonstrates, speculative fiction and works of science fiction are especially equipped to ask this question, not least when they attend to representations of Blackness. Watch It! offers a timely and groundbreaking survey of filmic and televised representations of and by Black women and girls: it is the kind of book on which future generations will build. -- Martha M.F. Kelly, Vice President for Scholarly Programs, National Humanities Center This project fulfills its promise, as stated by author Karima Jeffrey-Legette, “to discuss works by and about Black women and girls as they dynamically explore, write about, and/or appear in speculative film and moving images.” Jeffrey-Legette aptly explores “the (mis)representation of Black women/girls in these imagined spaces that entertain” through a thorough review of various texts. The judicious use of reference material, across multiple genres such as film and television, literature, and streaming videos supports Jeffrey-Legette’s critical reflections and analyses on the imagined Black/Brown body/human/humanoid in future and alternative contexts. This contextualization of various works of speculative fiction within an African-centered framework brings a thoughtful, necessary, and critical lens to understanding the “Black images [that] are quite pervasive in the rendering of the speculative today.” It is also a project that complements earlier foundational work like Thomas’ Dark Matter and brings into sharp relief how the absence and marginalizing of Black and Brown women and girls as we imagine the future is not only misrepresentation on a large-scale but actually unimaginative and lacking in creativity in some cases. As a scholar and educator, I can confidently assert that Speculative Film and Moving Images by or about Black Women and Girls: Watch It! is a must have for anyone engaged in writing about, writing on, or simply enjoying speculative fiction today, especially work that features Black women and girls. -- Valerie Ann Johnson, Shaw University