Marginalia: How Black Girl Friendship Brings Healing in Chanel Dupree’s “Shoulders”

  “Black women are not just here to hold up nations and hold back tears. We are living, breathing, layered characters who deserve to be seen on screen as such!” So concludes the riveting description of writer and performer Chanel Dupree’s pitch for her independent film “Shoulders,” and like anyone with a passion for #BlackWomenDreaming I was immediately hooked. “What does it mean to experience the ‘urgency and necessity that is “Black girl friendship?”‘ I wondered. “And how do you capture it on film, especially when you’re free of network executives and focus groups sanitizing away the raw edges?” Since both of us are poets who have been involved with slam it’s possible I met Chanel at an earlier date, but the first time I really got to meet her was at the Pink Door Writing Retreat in the summer of 2016 (which, hint hint, if you identify with “Black women, women of color, trans women, and gender non-conforming writers” then you should check it out here as there’s been quite a few BNP writers who have attended and loved it). Featured twice in the Huffington Post, I remembered from our group reading that Chanel had a talent for writing honest, evocative work and “Shoulders” certainly lives up to this reputation, depicting the ways in which the simplicity of cutting up with your best friend can set you on the path to cleaning even the deepest of spiritual wounds. I didn’t wait long to message Chanel for more information about the project and even before I was done reading t…