ABSTRACT
Compelling its audience to sit erect, widen its gaze, and lift its collective brow, Dee Rees inaugurates her first feature-length film, Pariah (2011), with the rapper Khia’s lyrics from her famous 2002 song, “My Neck, My Back (Lick It).” 2 We watch the protagonist’s excitement in slow motion in this scene, but we do not know who she is. Nonetheless, her queer desires are as clear and unadorned as the female dancers who contort in front of her. As the camera pans a dusky room interspersed with flesh and skin, Khia’s brazen voice barrels into the scene with aplomb, rapping, “My neck, my back, lick my pussy and my crack.” In no uncertain terms, Khia maps her sexual demands across her body. Her requirements, without the shelter of euphemism, are registered as both destinations as well as sites to be conquered, but also function as an introduction to, and frame for, Pariah’s 17-year-old protagonist, Alike (Adepero Oduye).
