Analysis of Mariama Diallo’s ‘Master’ 2022

[Attention: this article will contain some spoilers; readers be warned.] I scrolled through a selection of movies within Amazon’s Prime movie section when I see a recognizable face in an eerie looking film poster. I watched this movie on Sunday May 1st at night.

Premiering at this years Sundance Film Festival in early January was Master, starring Scary Movie film series actress Regina Hall. This seriously-scary movie was not a parody of already-made movies but was instead a horrific & satirical commentary on the experiences of racism that black women endure at primarily-white universities. Written and directed by Mariama Diallo, a New Yorker native & Capricorn based in Brooklyn, Master is her first feature-length film at the Sundance Film Festival after showcasing her 12 minute short film, Hair Wolf in 2018 at Sundance.

Mariama Diallo drew inspiration from experiences from her days as a college student at Yale as she majored in film studies as a Senegalese-American woman. Growing up in Roosevelt Island, NY, she wrote stories and loved reading Goosbumps; she decided at the young age of 14 that she wanted to be a filmmaker. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Diallo speaks on the early stages of creation and inspirations.

Beginning with the title of the film firstly for it’s multitude of definitions, Diallo knew she wanted to set Master in a place and time that reflected a “descent into a very isolating, forbidding feeling. It gets cold. It gets dark, your friends get pulled away, it gets lonely and then experiencing that slow slide to the darkest of winter” Diallo says to Teen Vogue’s Christine Jean-Baptise in February 2022.

The 3 triptych main characters: Jasmine Moore, an incoming freshman, Gail Bishop, a tenured teacher appointed as residence hall Master, and Liv Beckman, a friend and fellow teacher to Gail, are 3 black women on campus who each have their own unique struggles with racial oppression, microagressions, and stereotypes amongst other issues presented on campus.

The fictional school, Ancaster, is set in the North-East of New England U.S. near a town with a history as old as the salem witch trials. After closely watching this movie one-time only, I felt that the legend of the witch wasn’t developed enough. I would have liked to see at least a flashback or a montage from the lore.

Diallo’s choice to focus on a freshman student’s perspective as opposed to an older student was done so to expand on the feelings of isolation as one of few black students on campus. Being a freshman on campus is hard enough because everyone’s struggling to find friends and become attached to some sort of group to feel some sense of belonging. Coupling that with an unprovable ambiguity of racial prejudices an microgressions, and it gets more confusing and frustrating.

One of the first scenes that showcase this feeling is within the segment “Can someone clean that up, please” where Jasmine and her roommate, Amelia, are in their shared room with Amelia’s friends when one of them knocks over an open drink on the floor. The friend asks “Can someone clean that up, please” and Amelia throws a rag to Jasmine telling her “Here, can you do it?” We all have been there, obligated to follow out the request of a command while surrounded by equally capable people. As anyone who has been subjected to one or multiple disenfranchised, marginalized, or historically neglected groups/cultures, thinking “why me and not them” is an automatic thought process. Jasmine cannot object to this command because there is no way to prove that she is being singled out for any specific reason, so she does as she was told–or asked, rather.

In the following scene showing residence hall master, Gail Bishop, looking around her new living quarters, she finds an old picture of 4 White people posing in what appears to be the residence hall master’s quarters. As suspenseful music heightens, the camera pans to the outskirts of the black and white photogragh pausing on a black woman who can be seen in the kitchen with a grimmace. It’s not only that artifact that creeps out teacher and hall master, Gail, it’s also a characterized ‘mammy’ ceramic figurine, maggots within different places shown multiple times, and an old piece of paper showing drawings of skull comparisons from apes to what is noticeably recognizable as a black man.

From English teacher, Liv’s point of view, she views herself as a fun and down to earth teacher who is well-liked by her students and her peers. Being the only other Black woman in faculty, Gail clings to her, and the two are shown to be equally invested besties. Gail admires Liv’s carefree attitude, and Liv admires Gail’s high status. Throughout most of the movie, Liv is trying to get tenured and it puts Gail’s friendship with her in an awkward position because Gail is on the board of tenured faculty. To make matters more uncomfortable, Liv’s ethnicity is being questioned by Gail when Liv’s mother sits down at a diner with her.

The part to me that should have been expanded upon was definitely Liv’s storyline. I felt that too much time was spent on conversations with her and Gail on fluff. That time could have been spent developing her backstory and going more into detail on the town of people and discern if they’re amish or pagen or something.

I also would have preferred to see Jasmine abstain from kissing Tyler, her roommate Amelia’s crush. I get that it was motive for Amelia to start disliking Jasmine but I wish Diallo could have instead wrote that Tyler stole a kiss from Jasmine as they were harmlessly flirting. Even though that’s nothing to get upset with Jasmine about, girls direct their anger in situations like this alllll the time. So I felt that keeping Jasmine innocent in the kiss between her and Amelia’s crush Tyler, would have showed a better representation of an unjustified hatred coming from Amelia to Jasmine.

All in all, this was such a great movie!! I can’t possibly discuss every detail within the confines of this blog post so PLEASE watch the movie and decide your opinions on your own! I can’t wait to discuss.