Black and brown girlhood has rarely been imagined in terms of the "bildungsroman" which has largely been understood as a genre which chronicles a white male protagonist's psychological maturity from child to adult. As such, these particular femme coming-of-age stories have been relegated to the margins, only in proximity to the more recognized and celebrated masculinist plotlines. This project re-theorizes the bildungsroman from a femme-of-color point of view, using three key films as case studies: Spike Lee's Crooklyn (1994), Crystal Moselle's Skate Kitchen (2018), and Haifaa Al-Mansour's Wadjda (2012). Against a critique of marginality that advocates for mainstream centrality, this project offers feminist and racialized frameworks for developmental homosociality, worldbuilding, and spectatorship.
