F06 :: Feminist Film Studies

"The women in Set It Off cannot keep Sapphire in check" (Springer, p. 182)

I have to definately disagree when she says this about the women in the movie. It was not that they couldn't keep sapphire in check, which she defines as evil, treacherous,bitchy,stubborn,hateful, etc, it was that situations kept popping up that forced the women to have to keep robbing banks and forced them to be violent and hateful. The first bank robbery, they only got $3000.00 each. If they were trying to get out of the hood, that is not nearly enough money. That makes them rob another bank and they hide that money in a vent at work, which gets stolen by their boss. The reasoning behind their bank robberies and turn to violence is not a result of them not being able to keep this notion of sapphire in check. They have obviously kept it in check all their lives of having to live where they live, of having to work where they work and barely making enough money to survive. Them robbing banks is the result of black women pushed over the edge; women that have taken all that they can take.