A Review of “What Happened Miss Simone?”
The film “What Happened Miss Simone?” is a documentary on the life of Nina Simone. Nina Simone was an American pianist, singer, and civil rights activist. She performed many different ranges and types of music. She was best known for her take on classical, gospel, jazz, blues, folk, soul, and pop music. This film can be found on Netflix. It first debuted at the Sundance Film Festival as an independent film in 2015. The film’s director, Liz Garbus, had the respect of Nina Simone’s estate and family to portray Nina’s life and story. When writing the film, Liz was aware of the spousal abuse that Nina experienced at the hands of her husband/manager, but she was not aware that Nina was also on the
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In those chapters, you discover that psychological abuse is the worst and has the longest lasting effects. We also know from reading the chapters on child abuse that persons who are abused often abuse others. I do believe that this is what led Nina to abuse her daughter Lisa. From a very young age, Nina had not control over her life. She showed great skill and talent at playing the piano. Because of this, she missed out on her childhood and felt responsible for taking care of her family. At the very beginning of her career, she met another person who would dictate her life to her, her husband. When she did leave Andy, she had to leave the country. She went to Africa and stated that those were her happiest memories. She was finally free. She was free, but with no money. Her mental disorders caused her to have drastic mood swings. She began to feel angry. Her anger at her past and current situation and her anger at the world that black people had to live in moved her to points of rage. Nina took out her anger and lack of control on her only daughter, Lisa. Her physical and psychological abuse on her daughter caused Lisa much pain and anguish to the extent where she knew she had to leave to save her life. Psychologically, Nina suffered for many years. The long lasting results of the abuse that Nina experienced caused adverse consequences in her adult life and spilled over into her relationship with her