Group Blog Post 7, Option 1

      We initially thought that Losing Isaiah was a very touching movie, and that it really showed the controversy of transracial adoption. We believed that it did a good job of portraying both sides of the transracial adoption issue; we found ourselves sympathizing with both Margaret and Khaila at different points in the film. Both women viewed themselves as Isaiah's mother and clearly love him. Margaret's family provides him with love and he seems to thrive in the environment, but we also see the issue that Isaiah was being raised without his own culture being incorporated into his life. He was around white people all the time, and didn't have much exposure to anything related to black culture. We thought something that highlighted this was when Isaiah was blowing bubbles with his white sister, Hannah, and she took his hand and asked him what was different about their hands. Immediately, he answered, "Mine's smaller!" He didn't see himself as different than Hannah based off of skin color. We also sympathized with Khaila because she clearly loves her son, and even got clean for him, despite the fact that she thought he was dead at the time. She worked incredibly hard to find a place for them to live, and to find a steady job so that she could raise Isaiah and provide him with opportunities. We thought that both sides were really well presented, and we really weren't sure which way the judge would end up ruling.
      While we thought the movie presented the transracial adoption issue very well, Duchess Harris thought that black actors in the movie have "done a disservice to their fellow sisters who strive daily to be seen as more than memorabilia" (Harris 49). She really took issue with the way that the black people in the movie were represented in comparison to the white people. For example, Maragaret was rich, Khaila was poor; Margaret was educated, Khaila could just barely read, and the list goes on. Additionally, she points out that three of the four black women in the movie are recovering drug addicts. In short, she views the characters as being very stereotypical, and disagrees with the writers' decision to portray them that way. She emphasizes how white people are given a superior role, and how the fact that Khaila asked Margaret for help at the end feeds into that idea. She writes that as Isaiah yells, "Mommy! Mommy!" at the end of the film, he "runs into the arms of the 'Great White Hope'" (Harris 48).
      Overall, we disagree with Harris' extreme stance on the movie and her harsh tone throughout the review. We don't agree that Halle Berry has done anyone a "disservice" through this film. We thought it was very extreme to say that the only way people could feel good about this movie is if they want to see black women represented in stereotypical ways; we thought it was a very touching film. We did agree, however, that this movie might not be a good representation of transracial adoption in the sense that a small number of white people seek out black children. Overall though, we did not agree with Harris' review and enjoyed the film immensely.



-Rachel, Sarah, Reanna, and Aly

Losing Isaiah. Dir. Stephen Gyllenhaal. Perf. Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. Paramount Pictures, 1995. DVD.

Harris, Duchess. "More Than Memorabila? Khaila as Jezebel, Mammy and Sapphire in Losing Isaiah." Rev. of Losing Isaiah. COLORS: An Arts and Cultural Criticism Section July 1995: 46-49. Print.