The Multi-Faceted Mia Mask, Vassar College Professor of Film
By ML Ball

The Mary Riepma Ross Professor of Film at Vassar College. The author of two acclaimed books, Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film and Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western. The daughter of a medical doctor and a biology professor who emphasized education and doing your best. A wife and a mom. An accomplished equestrian.

Mia Mask is all of these and so much more.

Mask’s remarkable path has taken her from Brooklyn (where she grew up), to Tufts University (where she planned on becoming an equine veterinarian), to a Ph.D. in cinema studies from NYU (where she met her husband), to a tenured professorship at Vassar, a position she’s held for over 20 years.

While studying sociology at Tufts, Mask became interested in the questions of equity, social justice, and the representation of women. An English course examining the psychoanalytic readings of Hitchcock’s films changed her direction. “I realized I would love to be a film professor,” she says, “and everything else went out the window.” 

Not only has Mask had a successful career, so have several of her students—the mark of a great teacher. Shaka King directed the 2021 film, Judas and the Black Messiah, whose star, Daniel Kaluuya, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Another student, David O’Leary, created and was the showrunner of the TV series “Project Blue Book.” “You feel so much satisfaction when your students go on to do great things,” she says. “You know that you’ve exposed them to ways of thinking and critical analysis that will benefit them for a lifetime. It’s one of the reasons I take so much pleasure from teaching.”

Not surprisingly, offers from other top-flight institutions have beckoned over the years, but Mask has remained committed to Vassar and the Hudson Valley. “I’m a New Yorker,” she says. “I love New York State and the Hudson Valley. It’s been very rewarding for me to be in an institution like Vassar that values film and film studies, and that has put a lot of resources into our department. Vassar, and the horses, have really kept me grounded in the Hudson Valley and I have really thrived here. It’s rural, somewhat suburban, and it gives me access to the country and riding.”

Wait, horses and riding…how did a girl from Brooklyn become a champion show jumping competitor? 

“I had a grade school teacher, Judy Melnick Brickman, who started a riding group after school in Prospect Park,” Mask explains. “My interest in it was so profound that I begged my parents to let me take riding lessons. My father would take me on his one day off a week all the way to Staten Island to ride. Then I went to a summer riding camp in Buffalo. I gave it up when I went to college and then started riding again when we moved to the Hudson Valley.”

But for Mask, “riding again” doesn’t mean meandering along on a trail. She and her horse Coupon compete in high-level horse shows, locally and in Florida, clearing 1.15 meter (3.9 feet) jumps and often winning, typically as the only African American in the class or even on the entire show grounds. 

Is it tough competing in a predominantly white sport where not only your performance is being scrutinized but also your race? “Yes,” replies Mask. “It is there all the time, but you have to let go and just do your best, in whatever you’re doing in life.” Spoken like a true teacher.

To view Mask’s A Brief Intro to Black Westerns, use this link: https://bit.ly/42VHX2h