[While recent films in the Black horror genre have presented the
terrifying realities of being Black in America, Nanny is rooted in
the specific experience of the African diaspora.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘NANNY’ EMPLOYS AFRICAN FOLKLORE IN A HAUNTING BLACK HORROR FILM
 
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Pilar Galvan
November 23, 2022
NPR
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_ While recent films in the Black horror genre have presented the
terrifying realities of being Black in America, Nanny is rooted in
the specific experience of the African diaspora. _

Anna Diop plays a Senegalese immigrant pursuing the American Dream in
Nanny., Courtesy of Prime Video

 

There's something in the water in the new film _Nanny_. Over two
unsettling hours, director Nikyatu Jusu
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suffocating night terrors, blending glowing reflections of Black love
with discomforting glances amongst kin. The film is an experience for
the senses; you'll hold your breath as you're consumed.

While recent films in the Black horror genre have presented the
terrifying realities of being Black in America, _Nanny _is rooted in
the specific experience of the African diaspora. Black horror films
often subvert systems of oppression but they also often employ Western
devices and narratives. In films like _Master_, _Get
Out_ and _Candyman_, the horror device is the predominantly white
institution or neighborhood – which has implications on the Black
character's sense of self and being. In _Nanny, _the white domestic
space is the setting, but the tensions are manifested through African
folklore.

Anna Diop stars as Aisha in _Nanny._

Courtesy of Prime Video

Maternal instinct and sacrifice

Aisha (Anna Diop) is a Senegalese immigrant pursuing the American
Dream in an attempt to give her son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara), who is
still in Senegal, a better life. When she is hired as a nanny for a
wealthy white family in Manhattan, she constantly feels the weight of
her own maternal sacrifice.

Maternal instinct and intuition are Aisha's power even as she uses
those instincts with the child, Rose (Rose Decker). Aisha allows Rose
to eat her Jollof rice when she refuses to eat anything else, reads
her folk bedtime stories like _Anansi the Spider_
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shields her from the realities of her parents' relationship. The film
reflects the centuries-long tradition of Black women taking care of
white children as "the help," and also reveals the contemporary
African immigrant experience in which this imbalance continues.

Michelle Monaghan plays an affluent mother with a volatile home life.

Courtesy of Prime Video

As a child of Sierra Leonean immigrants to the U.S., director Nikyatu
Jusu teases out the experience of being a Black immigrant in all its
tiring and traumatic layers. There are tense confrontations between
Aisha and Amy (Michelle Monaghan), her employer, who faces her own
personal turmoil as a mother and woman. Aisha spends sleepless nights
in a harrowing guest bedroom.

The scenes are deep and saturated in dark tones. The film's visual
language is disorienting by design. Hauntingly beautiful forms
materialize to suggest the experience of being submerged in a body of
water; the audience is immersed in Tanerelle's
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echoes, running showers, and beach waves are layered with both Aisha's
dreams and her reality. Aisha is shown drowning in her night terrors,
which is paralleled with a sense of her displacement in the waking
world.

Anna Diop in _Nanny_

Courtesy of Prime Video

Summoning Mami Wata, the water spirit

Aisha has a magnetic connection with Malik, the charming doorman of
the building, played by Sinqua Walls. She is introduced to Malik's
grandmother Kathleen (Leslie Uggams) with whom he is close and who
acts as a surrogate mother to him. Uggams embodies the essence of a
strong unwavering Black mother. She is magic, in form and practice.

Uggams' character, Kathleen, is a spiritual priestess – or Marabout
– as they are known in West Africa. She introduces the idea of Mami
Wata, the water spirit within the African diaspora, who haunts the
myths of the Middle Passage. These myths stem from the possible
destinies of those enslaved Africans who jumped overboard or threw
their babies into the sea. Mami Wata is said to have guided these
souls as they became one with the ocean.

YOUTUBE

Mami Wata is traditionally portrayed with an altar adorned with
objects of indulgence – mirrors, combs, and fruit. But she is made
literal in _Nanny_ as a mermaid-like figure who haunts Aisha's life.
In one scene, Aisha swims in a public pool in the daylight only to
emerge in the night, face to face with the magnificent, Mami Wata as
an omen, who pulls her down into the water as the pool becomes an
ocean.

Jusu's film demonstrates that Black stories don't need to be situated
within a familiar white framework to be both recognizable and
impactful. While films such as the upcoming live-action adaptation
of _The Little Mermaid_ may have cast Black actors in preexisting
white narratives to be more inclusive and
representative, _Nanny_ illustrates that Black people have their own
folklore; Black mermaids already exist. Jusu draws from Black history
and mythology, while also subverting and recontextualizing them in a
contemporary setting. It is a classic New York immigrant story,
retold.

Harnessing the power of African folklore

As an Afro-Latina kid who grew up with a nanny from Mexico, the film
resonated with me deeply. I had the privilege of having a second
mother who was there for me as if I was her own child – and who I
later realized had to leave her own children behind to care for me.
The representation of kinship dynamics in this film is so real, and so
poetic. Watching it on screen became like experiencing scenes from my
own life as if holding up a mirror to a reality that was fading.

The final act of the film is bathed in ambiguity. It renders Aisha's
journey as an open-ended question and left me wondering whether I had
also drowned in a dream or sunk into a dark reality. As Jusu
intends,_ Nanny_ is a haunting film of personal and racial horrors,
diving into the complex experience of being a mother and an immigrant,
harnessing the power of African folklore.

CorrectionNov. 23, 2022

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Phylicia
Rashad plays Kathleen. Though Rashad was reportedly initially cast in
the role, it is Leslie Uggams who appears in the film.

* African diaspora
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* domestic workers
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* immigrant workers
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* Sierra Leone
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* African folklore
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* racial horror
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