What It Becomes

Slowly drawing on her face with grease crayon, Maren Hassinger builds up lines until they completely cover her skin. Alluding to the history of blackface and the act of applying makeup, Hassinger’s mask makes literal the effacing impact of race and gender stereotypes. She disrupts these flattening assumptions with a defiant smile at the end of the film, explaining: “With all that blackness covering who I am, and with all that application, all that endeavor . . . which women have to go through to cover who they are, I somehow look up into that light and there’s a kind of tentative smile. And the light in some ways indicates the possibility of something that isn’t bad. It is light, as a matter of fact. . . . Something that could be enlightening and strength-giving.”