WCU - Spring 2006 About SKIN DEEP

First, this film won an award in 2001. It’s a powerful film, but not really a pleasant one. There is some violence here, and a lot of ugliness in the form of racism.

The film tells the story of Romo, a 15-year-old mixed race teenager who is half white (his mother is British) and half Asian (his father was Pakistani). Although he and his sister are both “Paki’s”—which is a racist way of calling them Pakistanis—Romo has learned that he can conceal his Asian features well enough to pass for being white. Why would he want to do that? It seems he’s trying really hard to fit in, to belong. That’s a universal need, as we discussed on Wednesday, a really crucial part of anyone’s identity, feeling like you belong somewhere. This film shows us Romo trying really hard to be accepted by the very people who have been so cruel to him in the past. Why??? Why does anyone join a “gang”? Maybe he’s just tired of being the victim and he feels it’s a way to be more powerful. Maybe he’s been the victim so long that he’s completely internalized all that racist violence—to the point that what he most wants is to completely annihilate that whole side of himself; he wants to kill that whole “Paki” side of himself just as people around him have tried to kill him. That seems to be what he’s trying to do. But can he??

You’ll see in the film how much racism affected him throughout his childhood, growing up as a minority in an almost all white neighborhood, where everywhere he goes he can feel the hate. Violence is never far away. In the flashbacks that punctuate the film, we get a small sense of the abuse he had to endure growing up. But we also see that intimidation and violence firsthand in several scenes. We first see it when his little sister is taunted on her way to school. The men who taunt her are members of the skinhead group called the National Front, a well known white supremacist gang in England. You’ll notice in that scene where Romo is walking his sister to school that he has no intention of “protecting” her from this gang—even though his mother tells him to watch out for her. Instead, he hides away and leaves her to fend completely for herself. He’s more concerned about not being seen with a “Paki”—even if she’s his sister. That really speaks to how alienated he is from his real self. He abandons his own sister. But he abandons her even before that. It’s really obvious that whenever he looks at her he feels ashamed; her race is too visible. You may begin to think pretty early on that this guy is heartless, horrible. But that’s what the film is exploring—what racism has done and is continuing to do to this kid, the psychic damage it inflicts, how it rips his soul completely apart, how it completely threatens his identity.

You’ll notice throughout the film he keeps looking in the mirror. It’s a motif. The film opens with him looking in the mirror, talking to himself. And throughout, he keeps checking himself in the mirror. Each time he looks, the feeling is a little different, until the last scene, which is the real climax of the film. When you see him looking in the mirror, try to imagine what he’s looking for, what he’s feeling, what he seems to be trying to feel.

One or two other things that might be hard to pick up on because of the British accent—and only seeing the film once. When he walks his sister to school he tells her he’ll be home at 6:00 for a special dinner to celebrate his first day on the job. At some point you realize he's completely neglected to go home. Notice, too, the scene in the pub; in the background, the comedian on stage is telling “Paki” jokes.

The action of the film is pretty simple. It’s 13 minutes long and it follows this boy in the course of one day. But it’s not just any day—this is a big day for him. He’s starting a new job. His co-workers at this new job are both in the National Front, that white supremacist gang we see when he walks his sister to school. He wants badly to be accepted by them. Nothing else—his “Paki” family included—is the least bit important to him. Will he be accepted? At what cost????

Questions to Consider

Are the men from the National Front the only ones with racist attitudes? (The comedian, the people in the pub—they’re all hostile.) Would it be different for him if the racist attitudes were limited to that group?
What do you think happens to this boy after the last scene?
Not everyone reacts like Romo when confronted by racism. What makes him seek the acceptance of the people who’ve been so cruel to him? Does it seem psychologically realistic to you that he’d want to join with them?
In her brief scene, the mother says her children wouldn't be acting this way if their father was still there.

Another short film, Second Skin, is also about identity, but not really about an identity crisis. It’s more to do with how we judge people by their appearances, but how, especially for teenagers, appearances can be deceiving.

Questions? Contact me.

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