"Just Another Girl on the IRT"
                          A Film Review
                               by
                      Linda Lopez McAlister

     Last year about this time we got a glimpse of the first
feature length film in general distribution produced, written and
directed by an African American woman, Julie Dash's magnificent
"Daughters of the Dust."  Now playing at the Tampa Theater is
another feature film produced, written and directed by another
African American woman, Leslie Harris's "Just Another Girl on the
IRT."   Both films give voice to the perspective of Black women,
though they couldn't be more different.  While "Daughters of the
Dust" is a haunting, languid, historical evocation of African
culture as brought to America over the centuries of the slave
trade, "Just Another Girl on the IRT" is a frenetic, high energy,
thoroughly contemporary look at urban Black teenage women.  Both
are very important as film and as declarations of Black feminism
or, if you prefer, Black womanism.

   The girl in question on the IRT (for those of you who don't know
New York IRT stands for Interboro Rapid Transit and is one of three
main subway lines in the city) is named Chantel Mitchell (Ariyan
Johnson), she's seventeen years old, and lives with her mother,
father, and two brothers in a housing project in the Prospect
Park/Flatbush section of Brooklyn.  Chantelle prides herself
enormously on being NOT just another urban Black teenager; she's
different.  She's the best looking ("baddest looking") woman in her
high school, she's also the smartest and the most ambitious with
her mind set on graduating with straight A's in three years and
going to college and becoming a doctor to escape from the working
class drugery and dangerous neighborhoods that are her parents' lot
in life.  But she's got a mouth on her and she's frequently in trouble
with teachers and even the supportive Black principal as well as her
parents for her attitude and generally for being full to overflowing of
herself.  She escapes Brooklyn by working at Zabar's, a fancy
gourmet delicatessen on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a good hour's
ride from her home via the IRT and she longs to have the material
privilege that the customers she scorns take for granted.  Anyone
who flies this high, no matter how tough, smart, cute and appealing
she might be, is riding for a fall and Chantel is no exception.
She gets pregnant.

   From there on in the film is as detailed and honest a portrayal
of a young woman's struggle with fear and denial and disappointment
and shattering of dreams as any you'll have ever seen.  At the end
of the film there's a quotation from the filmmaker, Leslie Harris,
to the effect that this is "The Film Hollywood Dared Not Do" and
that's certainly true.  Though the film is frequently upbeat and
funny, there are also sequences that are powerfully harrowing and
hard to watch.  No punches are pulled.

   This is an important film for feminists to see though, unless
you're a teenage member of the hip hop generation, you will
probably miss a lot of the dialogue which is fast and unfamiliar to
most people outside that group and backed up by a loud rap
soundtrack that constitutes a running commentary of its own on the
action of the film.  It's an even more important film for Black
(and other) teenagers to see.  But that won't happen when it's
playing the Tampa Theater instead of in malls where the kids hang out.
Hollywood's mysogynistic money men see films about the 'hood made by
Black male filmmakers as hot properties so they distribute them
widely aimed at a Black audience.  This film, which needs the
same kind of marketing to reach its intended audience, is playing,
instead, the art film circuit--not exactly the place to find a Black
high school audience.  If you're a high school teacher out there, you
ought to try to figure out a way for your students to see this film.

   I'm sure Leslie Harris won't get the kind of media hype that
Spike Lee, from just up the street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, got for
his early work.  But she thoroughly deserves it; she's a talented
and passionate feminist filmmaker who has made an impressive debut
film and whom we need to hear from again.

  For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.