discussion

Chapter 9 says the following:

 "Indie cinema is also a haven for women filmmakers,

most of whom continue to find it difficult to break into

the mainstream commercial industry. It is a sobering

fact that the percentage of women in executive positions

and the percentage of women in the director’s chair in

the early 2000s are smaller than they were in the early

1900s. Like the race films by African–American and

Chinese American filmmakers mentioned above, indie

pictures directed by and about women provide an alternative

to the typecasting and stereotyping characteristic

of mainstream commercial pictures. Dating back to

Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends  (1978) on through Nicole

Holofcener’s Lovely and Amazing  (2001) and Please

Give ( fig. 9.26 ), we find in these indie films by female

directors character studies of adult women, women

depicted as neither sex objects nor sidekicks."

Based on the fact the Daughters of the Dust was the first feature film to be directed by a Black Female, speak specifically to how the movie addresses some of the elements mentioned in the paragraph above.