Passing (Netflix film)

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in “Passing” (2021).

“Passing” (2021) is a Netflix film based on the 1929 book of the same name by Nella Larsen. It is the tale of Clare Bellew (Ruth Negga), a Tragic Mulatto who passes for White in New York in the 1920s and comes to a bad end.  Irene “Reenie” Redfield (Tessa Thompson), her friend, lives in Harlem with her Black doctor husband and only occasionally passes. Or so she thinks. Rebecca Hall writes and directs.

I already did a post on the book, so this post is just about the film.

Ruth Negga passing for White!?

The Wikipedia explains:

“The title refers to African-Americans who had skin color light enough to be perceived as white, the practice of which is referred to as passing.”

Rebecca Hall (pictured above above with her mother) did not know about passing till about 2008 when she read the book. It broke her heart and opened her eyes.

Hall grew up as a White girl in England, brought up by her opera-singer mum, Maria Ewing. Her mother was from the US and looked Black but had White parents. When asked about it, her mother said stuff like, “It’s possible we’re Black. Or maybe it’s possible we’re Native American. I don’t really know.” When Hall read Larsen the scales fell from her eyes – her grandfather had been passing for White.

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson are mixed-race too. They look Black to me, even in the film, but are able to pass as White in its world.

Hall says she remained pretty faithful to the book, but saw Irene, Tessa Thompson’s character, as someone who did not know she was lesbian. Hall drops hints about that in the film. Translation: She was passing full-time too!

The book was better, of course. In the film we do get a ringside seat as Clare, well-dressed, spirals down into self-destruction, but only get glimpses of what is going on in her head. I hated that. But maybe the book was like that too. In the book her doom seemed inevitable – in the film it is an “accident”.

I expected the film to wallow in the Harlem Renaissance – but all of that is pretty much just reduced to fancy parties and ignorant remarks by a White, Gore-Vidalesque writer. At least it did not have a hip-hop soundtrack.

The film is in black-and-white even though it was harder to raise money for it in that form. Hall means it to be ironic: the world is not as black and white as it seems. Even black-and-white film itself is just all – shades of grey.

For Hall it is a story about identity:

“There is always this tension in all of us about the story that we put out in the world about ourselves versus the story that the world reflects back to us saying this is the kind of person you’re meant to be or should be.”

The moral of the story, says Hall:

“If you end up being too rigid about who you think you ought to be, you turn into a powder keg.”

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• passing for white
  • 1929: Nella Larsen – Passing
  • 1949: Pinky
  • 1949: Lost Boundaries
  • 1959: Imitation of Life
  • 1971: Anatole Broyard
  • 1988: Adrian Piper: Cornered
  • 1998: Danzy Senna – Caucasia
  • 2008: Sandra Laing – Skin
  • 2014: Lacey Schwartz
  • 2020: The Vanishing Half
• Britishwashing
• Tragic Mulatto trope

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