I am not a movie-fan (although I might watch that Batman film tomorrow), so, when Mr Renegade, in his interview with Bernth Lindfors, referenced this film, and character, I thought I had to look into it. Sure enough, the denigration of a black female also fell upon a black male.
Although this review doesn’t place much emphasis on this character, it still examines and deconstructs the theme of marginality in this mainstream movie.
Film critic, Ann Hornaday recently wrote an article in The Washington Post about the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which connects one of the characters in the film, with Ota Benga – an African of the Bawta tribe (otherwise known as a pygmy), who was enslaved and later “displayed,” Hottentot Venus style in the Bronx Zoo, beginning in 1906. Hornaday, the great-great-great grandniece of William Temple Hornaday, the man who exhibited Ota Benga, reveals her ignorance up until a few years ago, about her ancestor’s role in displaying another human being. Hornaday says:
My father never met “Temple,” as he called his great-great-uncle. But he often related stories passed down from his own father, who recalled him as an eccentric man — a teetotaler, for example, known to make an exception for a glass or two of champagne. Another favorite family tale was how during his stint as the first director of…
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nomasons 