Kenyan Filmmaker Makes New Movie Yellow Fever About Skin Bleaching A new short film titled “Yellow Fever,” Ng’endo Mukii, a Kenyan artist and filmmaker, reveals the truth about Western beauty standards and the tragic culture of skin bleaching through the eyes of a little girl. Via The Grio reports: “While growing up, I would come across women who practiced skin bleaching (‘lightening’, ‘brightening’), and often had a condescending internal reaction to them,” Mukii said. “Now, I realize they are only products of our society, as are we all. Since our media perpetuates Western ideals to our girls and women, and we consume this information continuously from a young age, how can we fault anyone who is susceptible to these ideals (men included), without challenging the people that are creating them?” In the film, Mukii’s niece, who is five years old, sits in front of a television screen with a white pop star and proclaims, “If I were American, I would be white, white, white, white and I’d love being white.” She then begins a heartbreaking tale of how magic could change her skin to be more white. Each moment of the film is flowing with conflict, but Mukii said perhaps the most “exciting” for her to work with was the body landscapes. “I had not worked with breathing bodies before in this way, and the effect of the staccato movement created from photographing individual frames was very satisfying. I was trying to create a sense of being uncomfortable in one’s own skin, and had been reading Frantz Fanon’s work at the time… I don’t know, it was the body as a breathing landscape, and the eruption of emotion. It just fit.” Will you be checking out the new short film?? Find out more of the powerful film HERE .
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Yellow Fever: Kenyan Filmmaker Exposes Skin Bleaching Culture In New Cartoon
