The Rachel Divide

While Rachel's story is interesting and raises many valid questions about race and identity, the viewer doesn't actually learn much about these topics. As a staple of Netflix documentaries, The Rachel Divide includes virtually no expert opinions or historical background or even contextual information - I would've loved to hear what actual scholars and researchers of race or identity think about this issue! - all we get is Rachel sharing her feelings and long scenes of her doing chores or talking to her family. And then of course a bunch of clips of people angrily reacting to the whole issue.

I think it's a massive missed opportunity and although the ending desperately wants to ask the viewer "well what do you think?" there is almost nothing to base our opinions on.

Gets off to a rough start, because for the first 20 or so minutes, it doesn't really present criticisms of its subject, doesn't provide much of her background at all, and really seems to just follow her around her life and make her seem sympathetic.

I found her actions were a little more understandable (though perhaps sympathetic would be a stretch) when the background context was finally provided, and they do have interviewees and stock footage (eventually) to show how and why Black people have a problem with her actions. I think they could have gone a little harder with showing more of these criticisms, but it is interesting to balance that with some sympathetic moments and leave it up to the audience to decide.

It's the fact that she is the first high profile person to commit to being "trans race" that makes her case unprecedented and divisive. I can recognise she doesn't think that choice was harmful, but in cases like this, I think you do have to listen to what others say, and if a good number of Black people give good reasons as to why they have a problem with it, you should listen and stop doing the offending behaviour.

Still, the multiple perspectives and fairly neutral tone of the documentary did make it a little more interesting. Otherwise, the slow start and competent but unimpressive presentation does weigh it down a bit.

Like all documentaries about controversial subjects, I could definitely understand someone watching this and hating every minute of it, but for me personally, I thought it a solid, sometimes quite interesting, but certainly far from great watch about a topic/subject that, to my knowledge, no other film or documentary has covered.

This is an interesting story, and raises genuine issues but fails to delve into them deeply. The good part of the doco though is how it shows how Rachel's decisions and actions impacted on her kids and family. I do believe she needs help regarding a possible identity disorder and that her 13 year old son desperately requires some form of counselling. I have complete and utter empathy for her up bringing and the actual good work she did for the African American community, however, fluidity when it comes to ethnicity does not exist yet and probably won't anytime soon. I feel it would have been far better if she had just identified as neither race and explained that she feels a stronger connection to the black community (due to her kids) and that she doesn't want the same possible prejudices against her family. I think most people would have agreed with her feelings regarding this, could relate and be driven for change together.

Poor thing is addicted to persecution and keeps seeking it out. I feel really bad for her black teenage sons who she keeps dragging through it.

The story of Rachel Dolezal is an interesting one - a white woman pretends to be black and runs a local branch of the NAACP, lobbying for civil rights... only to be revealed by the media to actually be a white woman. The interviews in the media with her that follow the reveal are even stranger as she basically still claims to be black, because that's how she feels inside.

This documentary has to great footage compiled of this scandal and it raises some interesting questions, such as: In this current social landscape where a person can say they were born female but feel male inside (and vice versa) and choose to reassign their gender, why can't a person do that with race? You might find yourself vacillating between wondering if Rachel Dolezal is the first of many to come in a possible future landscape of racial reassignment, or you might just think she's crazy.

Regardless of your personal views on her, the problem with this documentary is that it starts out strong and peters out because the filmmakers don't have a feature's worth of interesting footage. The inside look into Rachel's life post-scandal is pretty mundane as she talks with family and friends, drives her sons to school, paints alone inside her house, etc. Perhaps they're trying to humanize Rachel, but in the end, I eventually got bored with it.