In Rebecca Hall's 'Passing,' people aren't always who they seem
"We are all passing for something or other, aren't we?" says Tessa Thompson's character Irene Redfield. But the movie asks: what does one give up to live a white life?
I hadn't thought of this in years, but when I screened Passing, the new Netflix movie adaptation of Nella Larsen's classic book, a long-buried memory floated to the surface.
It was the late '60s. I was a teen, attending a garden wedding of a close family friend. After the meal and the cake-cutting, the bride's aunt started to chat as we watched the couple float across the floor for their first dance. Suddenly she turned to me and blurted: "If you would stop wearing your hair that way (like many people my age, I had an Afro), you could do what I do in New York, and just pass!"
I'm sure my jaw dropped. "Why would Ihad platinum hair and blue-violet eyes, and those amazing eyes widened. "Because, darling, your life would be so much !"
