Stealing from the White Man: Black Women’s Geography as Seen in Heist Films

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, the diversity of male representation in heist films has exploded, encompassing racial diversity, class distinctions, and the binary choice of being a willing participant or coerced in their respective heists. However, women’s representation in heist films remains limited, with a growing gap in representation, especially for Black women within these narratives. Currently, scholars have not yet adequately theorized or engaged with the significance of Black women's representations in the heist film genre. To address this literature gap, this paper critically analyzes representation in heist films that center on Black women like Jackie Brown (Tarantino 1997) and Widows (McQueen 2018). Two major theoretical perspectives inform this filmic analysis. The first is Julian Hanich’s critical study of heist film conventions. Hanich examines key themes of the heist genre, including freedom, social mobility, and spatial access, along with exclusion. Employing Hanich’s scholarship as a framework, my paper reveals that Black women characters transform thematic meanings of the heist film as Hanich’s scholarship starts and ends with male-centric narratives. The second is Katherine McKittrick’s work on Black women and social geography. Considering the geographic nature of the heist film, McKittrick’s study of Black women’s geography—which she defines as the interplay of domination and concealment underscored by the social production of space— illuminates Hanich’s thematic examination of the genre. By using both Hanich’s and McKittrick’s framework, this article focuses on how heist films that center Black women operate as filmic examples of Black women’s geography as these characters transgress the most social boundaries like racialize doubt, get shown more of their characterization to better identify with them, and have an innate knowledge of their social geography by utilizing public space.