Mixing Nia

Dad is white, mom is black. Nia grew up and went to school in the New Jersey suburbs, and doesn't know anything about living and being black. She tries a couple of boyfriends. One has the map of africa in his bedroom, the other is a preppy ivy-league type. Asked to choose, she can't. Help comes from a house-mate musician, who plays different instruments to her hears and eyes shut, asking her to choose the right sound for her. And after she chooses and opens her eyes, she asks what instrument it was, and adding more insecurity, it was a Senegalese musical instrument. Eventually, Nia finds her voice. Was shown in Pittsburgh in 1999 at the second annual afro-american film festival.

"Mixing Nia" tells of a "color blind" half black, half white New York City career woman who wrestles with her identity in a race conscious world. A light drama with "low budget indie" written all over it, "Mixing Nia" is flawed but manages a nominally good story, screenplay, and script. A little flick whose heart is in the right place and a good stop for channel surfers.

This movie explores some potentially explosive ideas, but does so in a very light and good humored way--which is very refreshing in light of the desperately serious and overwrought works usually associated with racial issues (see anything by Spike Lee for an example).

Nia is about as white bread, middle class and suburban as they come. Problem is her mother is black, dad white. What's the problem? She fits perfectly into mainstream culture in work, manner of dress, attitudes, speech, books. But her life is somewhat upended when she quits her job over an objectionable advertising assignment related to marketing beer to the inner city. This raises her consciousness about her own situation and racial identity, and triggers the age old search for "who I am."

The problems Nia faces are pretty standard for any young woman: job, family, friends, and romance. Each one is examined as Nia, a genuinely nice person, tries to deal with the extra layer of difficulty presented by being biracial.

Finding a boyfriend to suit her takes up most of the time. She is torn between the two worlds in the form of two suitors. Unfortunately these two worlds are represented by two basic stereotypes: An Afrocentric, jargon spouting, sexually aggressive black activist who hilariously wants to segregate Nia's books, black authors from white authors. The white suitor is a geeky pretty boy upper crust optimist who can't dance and is hopelessly clumsy in seducing Nia. The movie is most interesting when departing from these crude stereotypes, like Nia's hamfisted attempt at fitting into black culture by taking her black boyfriend to a soul restaurant only to find that he's a vegetarian and can't eat anything on the menu.

The movie tends to concentrate on Nia's attempt to come to terms with her black half--sometimes directly at odds with her otherwise white existence: She is shocked when she hears her new boyfriend and a black female friend's cruel racism against her white friend; or when her very liberal white father confronts her new black boyfriend's anti-integrationism.

The movie doesn't offer any real resolution, nor is one really expected. This is a modest movie, exploring some sensitive issues in a very lighthearted way. The flaws are minor, some stereotyping in order to get a point across, and some attempts at humor which don't quite work, but altogether an enjoyable attempt to bring down the volume.

The thing that struck me most about this film, was that it was a very personal look into a someone's life. On the surface, that would make it inaccessible to most, but in fact the exact opposite is true. It touches on some universal truths about finding one's way (or one's voice) in the face of so many conflicting influences. Although, I wouldn't dare relate my own experiences to those of Nia. It's nice to see a film that can speak to many and few at the same time.

Nia is a mixed race woman working in an ad agency who leaves when forced to market beer to young inner-city blacks. She sets out to write a novel and, by doing so starts on a voyage of discovery regarding her own identity.

Karen Parsons is not a great actress - she's probably best known for Hilary in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" series, however here she does manage to lend an air of believability to her mixed up character. Changing her impression of her identity in line with her men: she is passionately pro-black when dating her Afro-American studies professor while care free and yuppie-style when dating her work colleague. She manages to convey the roots of her confusion without having to overplay any scenes in particular.

Supporting cast are uniformly great - Isaiah Washington stands out as the professor who may be more racially intolerant than her racist colleagues. None of the characters are overly stereotyped (in fact black stereotypes are made fun of in comic interludes) but rather come across as ordinary people who gradually expose themselves to be as messed up about race as Nia is.

The overall message that each person should find there own identity based on your experience rather than basing yourself on a culture or a lifestyle is simply made but is not done in a patronising way - in fact when the point is spelt out for the audience we've already been allowed to decide this for ourselves.

This is not rocket science - a gentle story that has a set point to make and makes it in a comic, entertaining and rewarding manner.