MovieChat Forums > Small Island (2010) Discussion > Some questions.

Some questions.

posted 14 years ago by msladysoul
18 replies | jump to latest

I found this movie strangely interesting. It seems there was something missing though.

Is this a real story?

I have some questions, why didn't Queenie keep her child? She enjoyed sleeping with a black man, but thought it would be too much to raise a child who wasn't white. She didn't mind being seen in public with a black man, but didn't want to raise a black child. I think this contradicts her being so liberal and open-minded. In that time there were whites who were starting to adopt black children. I thought Europe was suppose to be so open-minded.

Hortense was a very attractive girl. I'm surprised she didn't have some man in love with her. She pretty much married a man for the wrong reasons. It would had been interesting had there been a romance with her and a white man.

I know there was some racial tension but there was some scenes especialy with Hortense and the black guys, I forget their names, they don't seem to be acting like its a race or color conscious time. There were some scenes where you would think they were living in today's era. Was it different in Europe? Did people look at blacks as equal? Queenie had blacks staying in her home and there didn't seem to be, on both sides, no feelings of strangeness.

I wonder why Hortense didn't want to come to America. I know America at the time was highly prejudice, but she found out Europe wasn't so perfect either.

I've been reading the book reviews, why color prejudice in Jamaica left out in the movie? Hortense was suppose to be a light-skinned black woman who was supposedly treated better in Jamaica, because she's lighter, and she looks down on darker blacks. She thinks Europe will accept her, but finds prejudice there because she is black, so the tables are turned on her, and she goes through what darker Jamaicans went through in her country. She benefited from the color prejudice in Jamaica, but in Europe she was treated like any other black, but it didn't change her mind on dark skin/light skin. She didn't want to treated badly or looked down on but didn't mind if others were. I think this aspect of the story should have been portrayed, but it was left out. In fact, the woman who played Hortense wasn't light-skinned, just brown-skinned, but the woman who played Hortense brought Hortense to life, Hortense seemed snooty, overly prudish, and pretentious, and the actress Naomie brought that to life perfectly.

[–] supergran 14 years ago

I have some questions, why didn't Queenie keep her child? She enjoyed sleeping with a black man, but thought it would be too much to raise a child who wasn't white. She didn't mind being seen in public with a black man, but didn't want to raise a black child. I think this contradicts her being so liberal and open-minded. In that time there were whites who were starting to adopt black children. I thought Europe was suppose to be so open-minded..... Was it different in Europe? Did people look at blacks as equal? Queenie had blacks staying in her home and there didn't seem to be, on both sides, no feelings of strangeness.

Hi msladysoul. Good questions.
I haven't read the book, so my observations are just based on the adaptation.
Queenie was commendably liberal and open-minded, as you say. But I don't think she was representative of the general populous. As she said to Hortense: "I'm not like most around here." As was mentioned on another thread, people welcomed soldiers from abroad for the sake of wartime expediency - fighting for the Mother Country, and all that. It was a different matter when the war finished.
Queenie knew she had to make a pragmatic decision which took into account the racism in 1940/1950's Britain. She also wanted to safeguard her marriage as well as protect her son from what she saw as Bernard's inevitable prejudice.

"Pray, do not use it ill. It fought at Waterloo".

[–] timberbutte 14 years ago

There's a Q & A by the novel's author, Andrea Levy, that you might find helpful.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/smallisland/levy.html.

Andrea Levy says the story is based on the experiences of her father who was a passenger on the Windrush, and the difficulties and the kindnessses he was shown once he arrived in London.

Growing up in America but with an English mother, my views about race in England are based on what she told me and what I've learned from my English relatives. One important fact to remember is that Britain had a vast colonial empire before WWII, places like Jamaica, India, Kenya where the local people learned a great deal more about England than the English learned about them. So when people of color came to the British Isles, the English had to real knowledge of the different cultures. We tend to take interracial relationship/marriage in stride now, which certainly wasn't the case when I was growing up in Kentucky in the sixties for example.

I do think Queenie's decision was a very difficult one, and that it was partly Michael and Gilbert's treatment at the hands of white people that made her fear for her child's upbringing in a white home. I think she was motivated most by the love of her child, something Hortense understood and respected, and what makes the ending so heart-wrenching.

[–] supergran 14 years ago

Hello timberbutte.
Thankyou so much for posting the link to that interview. Ms Levy answered some of my questions too. And it seems that she liked the adaptation of her book:
"..the cast does a fantastic job. They really do embody those characters. I cannot now think of the characters in Small Island without seeing the actors."
The Masterpiece site is brilliant, isn't it? I thought so when looking at the section on Emma some time ago. So much better than the BBC pages.

It seems you and I are of a similar age and share an admiration for Ruth Wilson. (The Prisoner is now being shown here in the UK, btw.) You recounted in another thread how your mother met your American father in the war. Do you mind telling me how she felt when she got to the US? Wartime Britain and Kentucky must have been poles apart.

"Pray, do not use it ill. It fought at Waterloo".

[–] timberbutte 14 years ago

Hey Supergran,
Indeed we are of a similar generation and yes, I'm a big RW fan! Love seeing her career take off.

Regarding my mother's experience in Kentucky, I think she would have said she eventually 'became accustomed to the place.' Early on she felt a bit flummoxed by the people who thought 'she talked funny.' She was a Londoner, and while certainly not posh or Cockney for that matter, people were easily tripped up at the market when she asked for a 'toe-MAH-toe, or but-TAH.' Luckily, she had a sense of humor and got past most of that. She said she finally got over 'people taking the mickey out of me.'

By the time Upstairs/Downstairs came along on PBS in the sixties, everyone was happy to have an "English lady" living next door. I can remember people introducing her that way. Eventually she became a member of the Daughters of the British Commonwealth - Churchill Downs chapter - in Louisville where there were probably sixty other warbrides. Many became steadfast friends and the club became quite a social circle for her and my father in their later years.

Another up side was that she felt fortunate especially in the years right after the war to avoid the deprivation experienced by her siblings' families. She continued to send food parcels even when I was in elementary school in the mid 50's. And she felt her children had greater opportunities, getting to go to college and have career options not available at the time to our cousins in England.

In the end I think she enjoyed her home in Kentucky (she loved the warm weather), although she never gave up that British passport to become an American citizen. My father and we kids appreciated that, and rather admired her. She was a Londoner through and through, had survived the Blitz and became a Land Girl. She made us all feel tremendously proud of her/our heritage.

cheers for asking ;-)

[–] alfa-16 14 years ago

I lived for almost a year in Ponca City, Oklahoma back when Jimmy Carter was elected and Alex Haley's Roots was first shown. I was surprised and disturbed by the strength and depth of American racism which seemed to be have a completely different emotive depth to the British variety which was mostly based on fear and ignorance and had, anyway, become ideologically unfashionable in the 70's.

I really enjoyed my time there but having lived in France for the two years prior to turning up in the mid West, instead of feeling more cosmopolitan, the effect was the complete opposite. I found I felt more foreign and certainly more English than I ever did in chauvinistic Paris. Perhaps because I was a bit of an exotic rarity. People used to call the Motel and ask to speak to The Englishman.

However, despite all this, I had far less trouble adjusting to the Panhandle than the three New Yorkers I was working with.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] alfa-16 14 years ago

PON KAH - rhymes with plonker. They're an Injun tribe. It was called The Quo Vadis Motel. Hand on heart, I kid you not, citizens used to go out in the evening to watch the train come through or watch haircuts at the barber shop.

[–] timberbutte 14 years ago

Alfa, you do get around. Quo Vadis Motel - hmm, sounds like someone else with a keen appreciation for irony preceded you in the Oklahoma outback...

As for your observations about comparative racism, much has been said/written. My own personal feeling is informed by living in Kentucky, which is too far North to be considered southern, and too far south to be considered Northern, where I always felt a bit out of step with the thinking.

I do know that my mother exhibited more prejudice against Irish people than she did black people. This once took the form in London of "Don't play with that girl, she's Irish." She never made such comments about black kids, at least that I ever heard. Then again, she too may have felt that had become unfashionable.

Historically speaking, the early arrival of the slave trade to the Americas and its necessity for the economic success of the southern states turned racism into a classist struggle that continues to this day and not just in the south. The U.S. is still struggling to address economic injustices that pit poor whites against poor blacks two hundred fifty years later. Those deeply emotional responses you witnessed are as much about economics as anything cultural or political.

Britain was spared all this thanks to abolitionist victories. Of course, life in the Commonwealth countries was quite different as Small Island attests.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] alfa-16 14 years ago

The Empire was built on good taste first at home and profit first abroad. There's no more benevolence in the way the British did things than in the way anybody else did things. Putting more in, in the way of civil and legal infrastructure was just a more efficient way of getting more out. The Romans also used the same technique.

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[–] alfa-16 14 years ago

God, I hope not.

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[–] Wolverine37 14 years ago

Regarding her decision to come to Britain instead of the US, this is covered extremely well in the film. To put it simply: she'd been raised in a culture where Britain was considered the be all end all. She was (in her own mind and the in the most legal of senses) British and longed to be in her "motherland". This was the case for people from all over the British Empire... you'll notice that immigration to the US from the Caribbean, Africa and India is a relatively recent trend, brought on by the independence of these countries and by changes to British immigration laws brought on by European immigration.

Queenie was very liberal, but she was being realistic. She understood the kind of challenges he'd face in the world and knew that, in spite of his good intentions, her husband would always be resentful and slightly prejudiced. It's not the kind of situation you want to raise a child in. How is she supposed to console her child when he's just been called the n word by some school bully? She can't possibly empathize, she can't show him how to overcome. Contrary to your statement, white couples adopting black children was incredibly uncommon prior to the 1970's (and even that might be a little generous).

[–] smhrca 13 years ago

One of the central considerations of the novel, which I think was decently represented in the film, was the impact colonization had on the psyches of the colonized. Hortense wanted to go to England because England was the mother country (of empire), because England was the country she had been systematically raised to respect or even revere. It was only upon arriving in England that her positive preconceptions began to crumble.

As for Queenie, this is another reference to the novel, but it's also something mentioned, if only passingly, in the film -- Queenie is no liberal, or if she is, it's not for fully conscious, rational reasons.

The novel opens with Queenie as a young girl, visiting the Great Exhibition with her family. While there, she meets an African man, who terrifies her just on principle. Her siblings, teasing her, try to egg her on to kiss him, which just freaks her out even more...but afterward, he stays in her mind, fascinating her. It's a commentary on the ideological phenomenon of exoticization, of hypersexualizing blacks, and that's what subconsciously impacts Queenie for the rest of her life. That's why she's open to lust and infatuation and even, to an extent, to kindness, but she's never supposed to be read as some noble figure whose ideals are far ahead of her time. (This anecdote is only mentioned in passing in the film.)

In fact, in the novel, when she gives up her baby at the end, her words ring much more hollow than they do in the film. She's sad, yes, but she's also just strangely desperate to be rid of the thing.

Blacks were in absolutely no way seen as equal in England, which I think the film showed. Racism just took a somewhat more unspoken form, but it was (is) just as prevalent and just as influential over how lives could be led.

Anyway, I hope some of this was helpful.

Last Films Seen:
"Tokyo Twilight" - 9/10
"It's Kind of a Funny Story" - 3/10

[–] Wolverine37 13 years ago

Racism was a major problem in Britain (like it was in much of the Western world), but it never reached the point that it did in the US. Not that the experience of Black Britons was ever easy (The N word was considered acceptable slang on TV in the UK until the early 80's), but I'm sure a lot of them would take their verbal lashings over the actual physical violence they would have faced in the US

[–] timberbutte 13 years ago

In fact, in the novel, when she gives up her baby at the end, her words ring much more hollow than they do in the film. She's sad, yes, but she's also just strangely desperate to be rid of the thing.

Unfortunately, I have lent my copy of the novel and so can't reread the ending.
I do recall a desperation on Queenie's part to solve the problem of dealing with the impending difficulty of raising a black child in a white culture. However, I don't recall feeling she wanted to be rid of her child. It seemed to me rather a mind/heart dichotomy that so often complicates family relationships.

The characterization of Queenie as a young woman who has to fight for a life of her own is set up early in the novel. The loss of the child is yet another instance where she is faced with having to give up what she most wants because her marriage takes precedence.

Barn burned down; now I can see the moon.

[–] kaishalouise 11 years ago

Queenie's nice to black people because as a child at the exhibition, she realised that they were just people - the quote's something like "It was warm and sweaty like any other man's" (Used this quote in my AS English exam!) this is when she shakes hands with that man. She's ahead of her time because she had that experience. Also, the prologue (where this encounter happens) is I believe, the only point where she uses a racial slur, and if it isn't, there aren't many more because she believes there's just like any white man.

Also, they weren't her siblings, they were just people who worked at her parent's farm - they even wandered off at one point for a quickie. Her parents' farm also plays a role in showing how she was different - she became vegetarian which was another thing that set her apart from other people at the time.

She doesn't want to get rid of little Michael either - she does love that child, however society (and Bernard) are both not ready for her to be raising a black child - it wouldn't have been fair on Bernard or Michael - it's not something she wants in the slightest, it's something she's simply accepting as what she must do. She'd really looked forward to this make believe reality in which she would have been able to raise him by herself, no Bernard, perhaps she'd have found Michael (well, in her fantasy anyway, he was probably just out there making more babies with random women). Coming back to reality, she realised it could never happen.