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What Happened Miss Simone Essay

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‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’ is a documentary designed to let the audience view the ‘Other side’ of Nina Simone’s career. From her beginning of stardom, to her gradual collapse, this shows that not all music careers are easy. Through being abused to being the abuser, it shows that music can take a toll on anyone. This documentary film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary and was a winner of five awards including “Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary” and “Peabody Award for Documentary and Education”. Directed by Liz Garbus (Also known for ‘Bobby Fischer Against The World’ and ‘The Farm: Angola, USA’), through her journals, interviews, and stock footage, the film covers as the audience watches the downward spiral of yet …show more content…

Nina said she would not perform unless her parents were at the front. That was the first time she felt discrimination. Then on September 15, 1963, Birmingham Bombings triggered something into Nina. She began to make a song ‘Mississippi, Goddam’. This song revolutionized the Civil Rights movement, being the only one to truly express how they feel about these bombings. Nina’s career gradually started to downfall when she started to make ‘Civil Rights Music’. One of her songs during this time ‘Young, Gifted, and Black’ was one of the ‘anthems’ during the Civil Rights Movement to make sure that the female African Americans needed to feel appreciated by society. Playing more political songs took a major blow for her music career. Then she started to become worse and worse as these time went on. Nina was no longer being invited to major tv shows/interviews because of her role during the Civil Rights Movement. She went up to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and told him ‘I’m not non-violent’ and also saying ‘If I’d have my way, I’d been a killer’. Nina became more and more incoherent. The only reason Nina and Andrew were still together was only for the sake of the child, and that they can go and ‘fool around’ with other

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