Human Zoo Hut

1958: A young girl twirls in As a URI undergraduate, Webb was a basketball player and track front of her bedroom mirror, star on a full athletic scholarship. picking out a party dress for her birthday She majored in journalism and trip to the World’s Fair in Brussels, minored in English, and was a Belgium. Cut to fairgrounds: popcorn founding mother of the University’s tumbles from a kettle, a ticket booth opens. first African American sorority, In a small dirt corral, a groundskeeper Alpha Kappa Alpha. Although she sweeps leaves from the dirt of one of the loved the arts, she felt obligated after day’s exhibitions, a replica of a Congolese graduation to pursue a practical Human Zoo hut. Inside the hut, an African girl waits path. She returned to her native A dark, forgotten chapter of the 1958 World’s Fair with her mother. The groundskeeper stakes Maryland, working in IT and even- a sign into the dirt: live feeding. compelled filmmaker Monda Raquel Webb ’90 to explore tually real estate and the mortgage Thus begins the short film Zoo racism and the loss of childhood innocence. finance industry. But her heart (Volkerschau) by first-time filmmaker belonged elsewhere. “The first 44 Monda Raquel Webb ’90, inspired by a real- Young actresses Kate Egan (left) and Erin Appiah BY NICOLE MARANHAS years, I worked to make sure my life photograph of an African child on became “instant besties,” says Webb. “When they mother would be proud of me,” says Webb. display in the “Negro Village” at Expo ’58, met one another, there was a moment of shyness. “I decided the next 44 years are for me.” the first World’s Fair following the end of Then they began running around when they Webb had never written a screenplay, weren’t on camera, jumping on the bed with little World War II. “I knew the story needed to but she drew on her writing background muddy shoes and having a blast.” be told,” says Webb. After seeing the black- to navigate her way to a finished script, and-white photograph posted on the inter- centering her story on two young girls: a net, she was shaken by the realization that well-pampered German girl on a birthday Baartman, the Khoisan woman stage- human zoos—ethnographic displays of trip to the World’s Fair and the African named the “Hottentot Venus” as a Eskimos, Native Americans, Asians, child who is put on display. Shot in black 19-century London and Parisian “freak Africans, or other “human curiosities,” and white to a haunting violin soundtrack, show” attraction; and to Ota Benga, an especially popular in the 18th and 19th the film follows the girls in the hours before African pygmy who lived in captivity at the centuries—had existed. More disturbing they meet. Bronx Zoo in 1906, eventually committing was how recently the photograph had been suicide at 32 years old. “To the extent that taken: 1958, only ten years before Webb we don’t learn the history of the world, we was born. “I had trouble processing it,” Since it premiered last year, the film has screened at festivals around the are bound to repeat its mistakes,” she says. Webb says. “I instantly needed to know this world, earning audience accolades and She hopes Zoo, and stories like it, can be an little girl’s story, how it would feel to lose numerous awards, including the prize for educational tool in classrooms for students your innocence in that way. I heard a Best Script at the Filmmakers International to understand the roots of racism. “I’m definitive voice, not even mine: You’re Film Festival in Marbella, Spain, last fall. convinced we don’t come into the world going to make a film. Even though I had “People said it would be impossible to get with cruelty and bad intentions stamped on no idea how I was going to do it.” the film made and into festivals,” says our hearts,” says Webb. “I believe children Webb, reflecting on the challenge of are born with love, light, and hope.” recreating a World’s Fair and 1950s Europe In the final minutes of Zoo, the show in her backyard, on a shoestring budget begins. The birthday girl peers over the Monda Raquel Webb with a handful of cast and crew. “I couldn’t fence, startled as the African girl her own lives in Rockville, Maryland. Her allow myself to get caught up in that fear. age steps out from the hut. The birthday upcoming movie We each have our own path; one person’s girl is confused as the crowd points and Red Clay Dirt is journey does not need to be my journey.” whispers. “Mama, why is that little girl adapted from a book This is the philosophy that also inspires inside the fence? Will she perform of her short stories, her work. Through her production acrobatics?” the birthday girl wonders drawing from her company, Little Known Stories, Webb aloud. “That must be what we’re family history. “My hopes to shed light on other stories that waiting for.” • main characters are female heroes. In the history has overlooked or ignored. “If we worlds I create, lose our history, we lose ourselves,” says women are visible, Webb. She dedicates Zoo to the unknown For more information about Webb’s women are heard.” girl in the photograph; to Saartjie “Sarah” work, visit humanzoos.com. 26 QUADANGLES SUMMER 2016 PHOTOS: COURTESY MONDA RAQUEL WEBB UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 27 .

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