Ota Benga - Representation in Popular Culture

Representation in Popular Culture

• 1994, John Strand had his play, Ota Benga, produced by the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.
• 1997, the play Ota Benga, Elegy for the Elephant was written by Dr. Ben B. Halm and staged at Fairfield University.
• 2002, Ota Benga was the subject of the short documentary Ota Benga: A Pygmy in America directed by the Brazilian Alfeu França, who incorporated original movies recorded by Verner in the early 20th century.
• The Brooklyn-based band Pinataland have a song titled "Ota Benga's Name" on their album Songs from the Forgotten Future Volume 1, which tells the story of Ota Benga.
• A highly fictionalized version of Ota Benga appeared as a character in the 2006 fantasy film The Fall.
• Benga inspired the character of Ngunda Oti in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
• Ota Benga Under My Mother's Roof (2012), a collection of poems by the writer Carrie Allen McCray, whose family had taken care of Benga, and edited by Kevin Simmonds, was published by the University of South Carolina Press.
• A theatrical adaptation of McCray's first poems about Ota Benga debuted at the Columbia Museum of Art in 2007 (with McCray as narrator and original music by Kevin Simmonds).

2012, Ota Benga mentioned in "Behind My Painted Smile" by Akala at 2:05.