The Road to Self Discovery
“A process of different subjects knowing one another and beginning one another anew only from the living boundaries of the other: a multiple and inexhaustible course with millions of the encounters and transformations of the same into the other and into the in-between, from which woman takes her forms.” (Cixous)
In the film Searching for Angela Shelton the road functions as a device for self-discovery and awakening. By searching for the other Angela Shelton’s of America, Angela is able to tell her own story and come to terms with her past. Her trip on the bus is, “a process of different subjects knowing one another and beginning one another anew only from the living boundaries of the other”. It was as though each Angela was a transformation of the one before her, different colors shapes and heritages flowing together to ultimately help Angela face her dark past. As a bottle of pop shaken, Angela was agitated and eager. With each encounter she would start off her conversation calm and collected only to explode her story all over the ‘new’ Angela. The road brought out a darker side of Angela, one that she’d been trying to suppress since childhood. While I applaud her for her strength and courage, I do not agree with the way she handled her camera power. As the sister of a rape victim, I know the damage she caused upon the anonymous ‘Angela Shelton’. I don’t think it was fair or professional the way she ripped open her emotional wounds, especially when she knew how unstable the woman was at the time. Do I think that this film was an accurate representation of “The American Woman”? No, but I do credit her for finding the strength to face her past and for allowing millions to be in on the process. I think it would have been interesting for her to try to locate teenage Angela Shelton’s in her study, or at least one who wasn’t straight. Choosing a gender neutral name also could have been interesting to compare male rape statistics vs female. Nonetheless, the film did a great job of bringing attention to a devastating statistic, with “encounters and transformations of the same into the other and into the in-between, from which woman takes her forms.”