Episode 21

WITS chats 'Black Girl' (1966)

Rebecca and Tori don't chat, we dive deep into Ousmane Sembene's 1966 classic, 'Black Girl.' This is the next installment of our Recommended By series based on the Criterion Collection Closet Picks. In this podcast, we get political as we discuss colonialism, post-colonialism, economic slavery, racism, and abuse.

For the first time, we are spoiler-free for the first 25-ish minutes because we encourage you to listen to us for the spoiler-free segment, go watch the film if you haven't seen it, then come back and listen to the rest of the podcast. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we forgot to pick both our Shining Star and Spotlight Scene.

PS: We mention in the podcast that two of the characters don't have names. It was only in editing the podcast that we found out they do. Our bad.

Music

Apache Rock Instrumental | by Sound Atelier; licensed from Jamendo

Movie Clips

Benjamin James | 21 Feb 2020 | Black Girl (1966) | YouTube

Sound Effect

Countdown | by freesound_community from Pixabay

Restricted Sources

"Senegal." In Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023, edited by Tom Lansford, Jorge Brown, Jack Covarrubias, David Harms Holt, and Robert J. Pauly, Jr., 1523-1535. Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press, 2023. Gale eBooks (accessed February 16, 2026). https://link-gale-com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/apps/doc/CX8521500175/GVRL?u=wash_main&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=bd4c4fb9.

Klein, Martin. "France's African Colonies." In Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, edited by Thomas Benjamin, 490-493. Vol. 2. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Gale eBooks (accessed February 16, 2026). https://link-gale-com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/apps/doc/CX2587300177/GVRL?u=wash_main&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=757682b4.

"Senegal." In New Encyclopedia of Africa, 2nd ed., edited by John Middleton and Joseph C. Miller, 383-395. Vol. 4. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. Gale eBooks (accessed February 16, 2026). https://link-gale-com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/apps/doc/CX3049000597/GVRL?u=wash_main&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=39b4b36d.

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Wallowing in the Shallows
A podcast about movies and television

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About your hosts

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Rebecca B

Rebecca has always appreciated nerdy and cult-classic media such as Star Trek (in all its iterations), Star Wars (leaning toward the early stuff), Battlestar Galactica, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and so on. She has also been a huge fan of Fantasy content like Lord of the Rings, Piers Anthony, The Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, and many others. She is relatively new to Marvel content and the world of Buffy, but she is enjoying the ride. She loves to talk about ALL of the above and could not be more thrilled to do so with her long time friend and often partner in crime, Tori.
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Tori S

Tori is a life-long tv and movie fan, growing up with classics such as Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, M*A*S*H, and movie musicals. Alas, she never got into "fandom," which is probably because her mom wouldn't buy her the teen mags needed to be a super fan back in the day. Now, this Pacific Northwest transplant is trying to rectify this by chatting television and movies with her intrepid friend, Rebecca.