by Montgomery Jones

Sometimes it feels like films and television shows think biracial or mixed children are mythical creatures. More often than not, multiracial actors play whichever ethnicity they “look like” most, and as a mixxie myself, this has always saddened me. Because it’s 2014 and we lack representation of interracial couples and their kin, I never even thought to want see multiracial characters. Maybe I, too, thought they were mythological. Representation matters. So when I first found out there was a film about Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate biracial daughter of British Royal Navy officer John Lindsay, I was very interested. The film Belle is based off of Dido’s life and is one I quite enjoyed.

The story begins as Dido’s father, Sir John Lindsay, picks her up after the death of her mother and takes her to his uncle’s house. John clearly loves his daughter, but tells her right away that he is to leave again for the navy. He asks his aunt and uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield and Lady Mary Murray, if they can raise her. The couple is hesitant when they realize that Dido is black, but eventually they come around to it.

Dido is raised with her cousin Elizabeth of the same age, and the two are inseparable growing up, closed off from the small-minded outside world. From a very young age, Dido is intelligent and observant. One of the things she picks up on right away is that the paintings in the house always show the black people in the background while their white counterparts take front and center—if there are any black people in the paintings at all. The close ups of these paintings are phenomenal visuals from the director, showcasing the contrast between the white aristocrat at the center of it all and the slave/servant in the background .

Dido’s place is never clearly defined. She tows the line between a member of the family and “other,” a guest in her own house.    Dido only eats dinner with her family when the setting is informal (i.e., no guests). She holds her head high, as though she is resigned to the fact that this is the way things “just are” or must work. At one point, a black maid helps her with her hair, something no one else in the house ever did. Dido tries to distance herself from the maid, to establish that they’re in different classes. It feels safe to assume that that’s how she feels about many black people. Only after meeting John Daviner, a lawyer who works for William Murray, does she start to question things.

I relate to Dido in so many ways. As a newer feminist, I am still opening my eyes to how the world works. There are things that are deep seeded in me, like saying “oh, that’s something women simply don’t do.” I still struggle with seeing that things aren’t true just because society tells me they are. That’s a hard lesson to learn. Dido simply didn’t question her treatment in the house because that is the way things always were for her. Then, she meets John Daviner, a lawyer who works for William Murray. Daviner insists that Murray is turning a blind eye to a recent case in which hundreds of slaves died for the insurance claim. Murray is irate and forbids the two from any further contact.

Dido is then betrothed to Oliver Ashton, a white man with a racist family. His mother only insists that they marry because Dido had recently inherited quite a fortune. Oliver himself is just enamored with her looks; he tells Dido that it’s not her fault she had the “misfortune” of being born that color. Realizing that he saw her race as an unfortunate circumstance (luckily he said she was still beautiful), she left him, perhaps realizing that moving up in society and having titles is no match for self-respect. All the while, Dido and Daviner are uncovering that William Murray is presiding over the insurance case about the murdered slaves. Dido, ever the astute student, finds evidence that the ship passed several ports where they could have stopped to feed and give water to the starved and dehydrated slaves, who later died. She asks her uncle how he would feel if she were on that ship, because those people are just like her. This is the film’s big moment, Dido standing up to her uncle and recognizing that these are her people.

I relate to Dido in more ways than one, and I think most mixed people can.  Often times it feels like society is telling us we need to be either one race or another, whether it is on standardized testing (which is getting better at the “select one” option), TV shows, or just kids on the playground telling you that you’re lying about your ethnicity. Often times we put ourselves in one box and inadvertently close off a huge part of our ethnic make up in order to fit in or fit the mold we are told to be. Period films are always intriguing because they give an inside peak in to a world we will never experience, but there are so many more stories to be told than the rich, white, aristocrat. We pride ourselves on not repeating history yet here we are, telling the same stories over and over. Belle is proof that we can tell different stories that are just as intriguing.