By Guest Contributor Jaymee Goh, cross-posted from Silver Goggles

I’m currently re-reading Angela Davis’ Abolition Democracy, and her interviewer, Eduardo Mendieta, in response to her reiteration that “we need a new age–with a new agenda–that directly addresses the structural racism” (30) about multiculturalism: “very smart strategies are being used, ones that displace attention from issues of racial justice…

The catchphrase, what that was all about, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” that was about the fact that the first change that takes place is in your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. So when we said that “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,”

…

By Arturo R. García

In the post-Airbender era, it’s more important than ever to talk about questionable casting decisions, and outright white-washings like the Akira remake is shaping up to be.

But it’s also important to keep an eye on who’s not talking about it.

With time running out ’til filming starts – GeekTyrant says shooting is…

Often compared to such short-story masters as Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O’Connor and Grace Paley, Yamamoto concentrated her imagination on the issei and nisei, the first- and second-generation Japanese Americans who were targets of the public hysteria unleashed after the Japanese From LA Times:

Often compared to such short-story masters as Katherine Mansfield, Flannery O’Connor and Grace Paley, Yamamoto concentrated her imagination on the issei and nisei, the first- and second-generation Japanese Americans who were targets of the public hysteria unleashed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Yamamoto was 20 when the attack sent the United States into war and her family into a Poston, Ariz., internment camp. Her most celebrated stories, such as “Seventeen Syllables” and “The Legend of Miss Sasagawara,” reflect the preoccupations and tensions of the Japanese immigrants and offspring who survived that era. Among her most powerful characters are women who struggle to nurture their romantic or creative selves despite the constraints of gender, racism and tradition.

….

Yamamoto was born in Redondo Beach on Aug. 23, 1921. The daughter of immigrant strawberry farmers from Kumamoto, Japan, she was a voracious reader and published her first story when she was 14. At Compton College, where she earned an associate of arts degree, she studied French, Spanish, German and Latin. She wrote stories for Japanese American newspapers using the pseudonym “Napoleon.”

During World War II, she wrote for the Poston camp newspaper, which published her serialized mystery “Death Rides the Rail to Poston.” She briefly left the camp to work in Springfield, Mass., but returned when her 19-year-old brother died while fighting with the U.S. Army‘s 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy.

After the war ended in 1945, she returned to Los Angeles and became a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Tribune, an African American weekly. Her experiences there deepened her awareness of racism to a point of nearly unbearable anguish. She wrote a story about the intimidation of a black family named Short by white neighbors in segregated Fontana. She attempted to hew to journalistic standards of impartiality, cautiously describing the threats against the family as “alleged” or “claims.”

After her story ran, the Shorts were killed in an apparent arson fire. Yamamoto castigated herself for failing to convey the urgency of their situation.

“I should have been an evangelist at Seventh and Broadway, shouting out the name of the Short family and their predicament in Fontana,” she wrote decades later in a 1985 essay called “A Fire in Fontana.” Instead, she pronounced her effort to communicate as pathetic as “the bit of saliva which occasionally trickled” from the corner of a feeble man’s mouth.

She left the newspaper and rode trains and buses across the country. “Something was unsettling my innards,” she wrote of her dawning multiethnic consciousness. “I continued to look like the Nisei I was, with my height remaining at slightly over four feet ten, my hair straight, my vision myopic. Yet I know that this event transpired within me; sometimes I see it as my inward self being burnt black in a certain fire.”

She drew from this well in the burst of writing that followed. Her breakthrough came with the 1948 publication in Partisan Review of “The High-Heeled Shoes, a Memoir,” a shockingly contemporary story about sexual harassment. She weaved intercultural conflicts and bonds into “Seventeen Syllables” (1949), in which a nisei girl’s blooming romance with a Mexican American classmate offers an achingly innocent counterpoint to her issei mother’s arranged marriage. “Wilshire Bus” (1950) explores a Japanese American woman’s silence during a white man’s racist harangue against a Chinese couple on the bus they are riding.

 

Image credit: goodreads.com

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2011/02/16/quoted-hisaye-yamamoto-short-story-author-dies/feed/ 0 http://www.racialicious.com/2011/02/14/bad-feet-will-traveloedipus-el-ray-provides-a-chicano-take-on-faith-love-and-tragedy/ http://www.racialicious.com/2011/02/14/bad-feet-will-traveloedipus-el-ray-provides-a-chicano-take-on-faith-love-and-tragedy/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:00:48 +0000 Latoya Peterson http://www.racialicious.com/?p=13120

by Latoya Peterson

I thought I knew Oedipus Rex.

The first time I read Sophocles’ masterful Greek tragedy was in the 11th grade.  There, scribbling out an analysis as part of a 40 minute timed writing, I focused on what epitomized Oedipus for me – the struggle between fate and free will. After hearing from the Oracle that…

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by Latoya Peterson

I thought I knew Oedipus Rex.

The first time I read Sophocles’ masterful Greek tragedy was in the 11th grade.  There, scribbling out an analysis as part of a 40 minute timed writing, I focused on what epitomized Oedipus for me – the struggle between fate and free will. After hearing from the Oracle that he was fated to murder his father and to sleep with his mother, Oedipus does what any rational person would do – he tries to put as much distance as he can between himself and the only family he knows. Unfortunately, prophecies are not so easily averted – Oedipus never knew he was adopted, and thus did not know the man he slew on the road to Thebes was his father; nor did he know the beautiful widow he would eventually marry was his birth mother.

Back then, I wrote about the icy hand of irony in Oedipus’ journey -  how he closed himself to what would have revealed the truth because of his hubris, but once he finds out he literally blinds himself.  But what really stuck with me was the idea of fate.  If your life is predestined – and all roads will lead to your eventual path – what is the point of having free will? Life never promised to be fair, but the fates are needlessly cruel, especially in Greek mythology.  And so, when I heard about a retelling of Oedipus Rex, set in the barrios of LA with a Chicano protagonist, I could immediately see the connection.

Indeed, the idea of being trapped by larger, unseen forces makes a lot of sense when thrust into a modern context. Oedipus El Rey bases its narrative in California’s penal system, with the title character Oedipus (also nicknamed patas malas due to the torture inflicted by his father at his birth) growing up in juvenile detention.  At one point, Oedipus confesses that after he was released at the age of seventeen, he robbed a Costco without a gun, just so he could be returned to jail.  It was a powerful admission – that so many boys who go into the criminal justice system at an early age come out without any sense of what it means to function in society, that there are people who come to prefer the steady monotony of incarceration than be forced to cope with the unstructured chaos of real life. The idea that regardless of your own intentions, one might still end up ensnared in forces beyond your control resonated with me. I could understand that.

So, playwright Luis Alfaro threw me for a loop when he replied to one of my questions, saying the play, at its core, was “about love.”

I stumbled over my next question, mind reeling. Love? Oedipus isn’t about love! It’s about the cruelty of the Gods! Man vs. spiteful assholes who would happily smite you to punish your father! It’s about hubris! Incest! Patricide! Defilement! What the fuck is love in the time of oracles?

But there is a reason why Luis Alfaro won the MacArthur Genius Grant. Having delved deeply into the works of Sophocles before, producing the Electra send up Electricidad, he knew the source material – and saw more than the obvious message.  Alfaro explained to me that the whispers of longing, of need, of separation and pain in the text were all about love.  From what I remember, Oedipus married Jocasta as a sort of thank you – “We, the people of Thebes, appreciate you killing the Sphinx, and hey, here’s our king’s widow! She’s a total MILF!” But Alfaro’s take was informed by the time he spent learning about the toll that California’s penal system had on people.  In an interview on the Woolly Mammoth blog, he explains:

Recidivism, it seems to me, is a symptom of a larger issue. Why is it that more than half of all Americans who end up in jail, when released, go back? A lot of times this happens within hours. My state, California, has the highest recidivism rates in the nation. As a playwright, interesting facts like this sort of lodge in my brain when I hear them. When they are coupled with some fascinating images or one’s own history—I have worked in the Juvenile Detention System as a poet and writer since I was young—they start to form the thread of an interesting story. When I think about recidivism among prisoners, I wonder not about what’s ahead, but what one leaves behind when they get out. The comfort of a family one never had, a structure where one might not have lived with rules, the need for protection in a world that seems unsafe. What fascinates me most about prisoner recidivism is that there might be an alternate society out there—actually in there—that functions differently from the one we live in, and for some this is a better place. [...]

I studied with Maria Irene Fornes, who in my first day of workshop asked me what kind of plays I wanted to write. I had already been arrested for civil disobedience a number of times, and I said that I wanted to write political plays. She laughed and said that she hated political plays! I was ignorant and didn’t know her work, so I didn’t realize she was lying. She said I should stop writing and go live these political ideas and then come back and write a play about nothing, a rock, and she promised me it would be political. So, I did just that. I spent over ten years protesting, working with at-risk youth in the California Youth Authority. At one point, I even worked for the ACLU teaching protesters how to get properly arrested! But sure enough, I came back to writing and wrote from my heart, and politics and humanity were simply part of a larger organic mix. People who have made really big mistakes in their lives are very complicated people. They represent the complexity we are looking for in our work. Incarcerated children are missing elements that many of us take for granted—a notion of family, security, love, or even intelligence about the world. The first gig I had in a youth prison was a poetry workshop with teen felons, 12-17 years old. Five minutes into it I realized that none of them could read and few could write—which didn’t seem to matter because I couldn’t use pencils or pens anyway. No one told me this beforehand. Out of sheer terror and desperation, we stood in a circle, created a rhythm with our hands and bodies, and each student had to tell their life story through rap. I set some parameters about language and violence, and they were able to adapt. I could not ask them to write down their lives and crimes, but there was no law saying that they could not say out loud their histories. And they did, and the stories were extraordinary and sad and full of regret and fear and lack of hope. And that is when I realized that everyone is a playwright. Some of us just have training.

Alfaro infuses this complexity with wit, heart, and inside jokes – definitely intended for the Chicanos in the audience. Oedipus El Rey has been produced before in other cities – here is a clip from an earlier production:

Still, the beauty of live theater is that you never truly see the same performance twice. The clip above is not familiar to me – the Oedipus El Rey I watched was a bit slower in pace and delivery. Michael John Garcés, directing this version chose a more contemplative mood, shot through with music and sound director Ryan Rumery’s selections of eerie, single voice a capella renditions of classics like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” providing the background for Oedipus and Jocasta’s ill-fated tryst. Andres Munar’s Oedipus flows through yoga poses, holding plank while other men do chin-ups, balancing in shoulder stand until his body gives out, conscious of, but not defined by his disability, which Jocasta likens to “a cholo walk.” (Side note: I would love to see a PWD analysis of Oedipus El Rey.) And this interpretation marks the only tragedy where I’ve seen the chorus break to deliver a physical beat down to match the verbal one they normally spout from the sidelines.

Still, Oedipus El Rey isn’t quite perfect.  I never felt as if I connected with Jocasta, in all of her grief and sorrow.  Her character has the potential to be rich – and yet, Sophocles’ original also left her as a question mark, a tragic, devoted figure, but with little else underneath.  This may be due to Sophocles’ to the societal norms in his age.  In Aristole’s treatise on writing, Poetics, he refers to Oedipus, as well as other classic works. Being a fan of Sophocles, it is interesting that Aristotle makes a point to note (emphasis mine):

In respect of Character, there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second type of thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate.

If Aaron Sorkin is correct in his assertion that Artistotle laid out all the rules of writing in Poetics, then it kind of makes sense that representations of women on screen and stage are still stuck in the hookers-victims-doormats loop, so eloquently exposed by Shirley MacLaine.

Other than those minor gripes, the update just works, providing a beautiful retelling of the quintessential tragedy. But still, I found myself sitting in the theater and relating most to Creon – brother to Jocasta, next in line for the throne before Oedipus showed up. While Alfaro’s interpretation revolved around the love between Oedipus and Jocasta, it is Creon’s anguished cry protesting the idea of a pre-destined life that stays with me:

If it is all simply fate, then why not me?

Oedipus El Rey, written by Luis Alfaro, is currently playing at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, DC. The show closes March 6th.

(Image Credit: Luis Alfaro)

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2011/02/14/bad-feet-will-traveloedipus-el-ray-provides-a-chicano-take-on-faith-love-and-tragedy/feed/ 1 http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/21/disgrasian-of-the-weak-liveblogging-the-karate-kid-remake-with-jen%e2%80%99s-hardass-asian-mama/ http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/21/disgrasian-of-the-weak-liveblogging-the-karate-kid-remake-with-jen%e2%80%99s-hardass-asian-mama/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:00:05 +0000 Guest Contributor http://www.racialicious.com/?p=8612 By Guest Contributor Jen, originally published at Disgrasian

Spoiler Alert + Any use of inappropriate cultural terms or conflation with the original movie is entirely intentional.

The Karate Kid (Jaden Smith) and his Mom (Taraji Henson) are leaving Detroit. Lest you think this is a single black mom/deadbeat dad scenario, we’re told upfront that the Karate Kid’s Dad is dead…period.…

]]> By Guest Contributor Jen, originally published at Disgrasian

Spoiler Alert + Any use of inappropriate cultural terms or conflation with the original movie is entirely intentional.

The Karate Kid (Jaden Smith) and his Mom (Taraji Henson) are leaving Detroit. Lest you think this is a single black mom/deadbeat dad scenario, we’re told upfront that the Karate Kid’s Dad is dead…period. Detroit is portrayed as a gray, dismal city full of shuttered storefronts. This is America in our continued state of joblessness, America in the 21st century, America on the decline. But China, where they’re headed for Mom’s work, is the land of opportunity, the land of now, the land on the up-and-up, or, as the Karate Kid’s Mom puts it, “a magical new land,” like unicorns live there or something.

The Karate Kid tries out his Mandarin on the Asian dude sitting across the aisle from him on the plane. “Dude, I’m from Detroit,” the Asian dude says. Light laughs from the audience, which is mostly made up of families with tween children and some creepy older loners who probably wanted to be Daniel-san back in the day. My Hardass Asian Mom (HAM) approves of this joke: “Not all Chinese or Asian looking guy speaks Chinese, this is true.”

Meanwhile: Where is my Bananarama remix???

When the Karate Kid and his Mom arrive at the airport, their lady driver is holding a sign for “Mrs. Packer.” Mom corrects the lady driver, telling her the name’s “Parker.” Ah, Engrish!

After settling into their new flat and discovering that they don’t have hot water, the Karate Kid goes looking for their super, who turns out to be Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan ignores the Kid and, instead, picks up a dead fly with his chopsticks, chucks it on the ground, and keeps eating his cup o’ noodles with the same chopsticks. (Which my HAM says would totally happen in China although she told me not to write about it, so, of course, I had to write about it.) The Karate Kid leaves to check out the local park, where we meet his love interest, Meiying. Meiying, aka Mini-Tamlyn Tomita, has the jankiest hybrid haircut–a bob with pigtails–which is sorta cute if you’re into mullets.

And what is Mini-Tamlyn doing in the park? Tuning her violin! And listening to Bach! NATURALLY.

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT: Speaking of hair, Mini-Tamlyn asks to touch the Karate Kid’s cornrows. Eep.

That’s when the Chinese Billy Zabka comes over, all jealous, and tells Mini-Tamlyn that she should be…practicing the violin. OMG NERD!!! Then Chinese Billy Zabka beats the Kid’s ass, upping his badass quotient considerably. At which point, my HAM takes off her glasses and covers her eyes.

The next day, the Karate Kid covers up his bruises with his mom’s makeup. He looks like he knows what he’s doing. Something tells me his real-life mama Jada’s taught him a trick or two in this department and he may be a few years away from “guyliner,” which means he may be a few years away from being a total Hollywood douche-nozzle. But for now, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s kinda adorbs.

At school, the Karate Kid flirts with Mini-Tamlyn, despite the previous day’s ass-beating.  Even though you can practically smell Chinese Billy Zabka’s RAGE COLOGNE coming around the corner.

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT #2: She touches his hair again.

But, hey, at least the cultural exchange cuts both ways: Mini-Tamlyn then helps the Karate Kid use chopsticks at lunch. A plot point that my HAM finds unconvincing: “School cafeteria should have serving spoons. Chopsticks is not the only thing Chinese uses.” (Yes, Hollywood, she is available for script fact-checking.) After all that, Chinese Billy Zabka comes over and throws the Karate Kid’s lunch on the floor. Oh well, there was no way he was going to eat that without a fork anyway!

On another day, the Karate Kid and his Mom walk by a kung fu school, where the Karate Kid rushes in, hoping to pick up some mad skillz to battle Chinese Billy Zabka. Little does he know that he’s walked into Chinese Billy Zabka’s lair–aka the Cobra Kai Dojo 2.0, where his Sensei preaches, “No Weakness, No Pain, No Mercy.” The Karate Kid runs out, dejected. His Mom doesn’t get his reaction, but mine does: “Kids usually do not want tell parents what happened in school, sometimes they do not want to worry the parents and try to prove to the parents they can solve their own problem.”

Meanwhile, I’m kinda inappropriately crushing on Chinese Billy Zabka’s best friend, Liang (pictured right), and thinking he’s my Taylor Lautner?

AWKWARD MOMENT ALERT #3: Some Chinese kids at the kung fu school want to touch the Karate Kid’s Mom’s hair. OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.

One day after school, the Karate Kid decides to get back at Chinese Billy Zabka by throwing a drum of dirty water on him while he’s hanging with the other Cobra Kai. The Cobra Kai give chase until they corner the Karate Kid in an alley and beat his ass. My HAM takes off her glasses again. Even when Jackie Chan appears out of nowhere to save the day, she’s still got her eyes shut. At one point, Jackie ties up three guys with one jacket. Jackets, as it turns out, are very important in this movie.

Jackie takes the injured Karate Kid back to his house and uses, and I quote, “Ancient Chinese Healing” on him. Calgon, take me away! And then, I shit you not, fire comes out of Jackie’s hands! FIRE. OUT. OF. HIS. HANDS. Maybe this is a magical land?

So WHERE ARE THE UNICORNS?

And WHERE IS MY BANANARAMA REMIX???

When the Karate Kid is better, an angry Jackie takes the Kid to the Cobra Kai Dojo. Jackie explains to the Karate Kid: “No such thing as bad students, only bad teachers.” HUH?! Try using that excuse on your HAM when you bring home less than an A. Sorry, Jackie, I am not understand the words that are a-coming out of your mouth. Meanwhile, the Cobra Kai 2.0 Sensei turns out to be a real baaaaaaaad teacher. Or, in the words of my HAM: “What an asshole.” Brava, Mama.  Jackie makes a deal with the Asshole Sensei that if Sensei’s boys will leave the Karate Kid alone, the Kid will enter this Open Kung Fu Tournament thingy.

Then, they train. Basically, Jackie makes the Kid take his jacket on and off for months. It’s the new Wax On, Wax Off, only it’s as tedious to watch as it looks to do, and it doesn’t get anyone’s car all nice and shiny. Jackie and the Kid then climb a mountain together, where they see a lady doing some kind of freaky-deaky mind-control martial arts on a cobra–as in, snake–on top of a cliff, a move that looks a whole helluva lot like the Crane from the original movie.

Oops, did I give away too much?

Back in Beijing, the Karate Kid and Mini-Tamlyn play hooky together, which involves them running all around the city with her violin. OMG IS EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE A NERD??? But that almost makes her late for her big audition for the Beijing Academy of Music, which pisses off her parents, which makes them give the Karate Kid funny looks when they meet him. (Or is it because he’s black? Hmm.) Anyway, my HAM thinks the ambiguity of Mini-Tamlyn’s Hardass Asian Parents’ disapproval makes Chinese people look bad (and by bad, she means, “racist”). Meanwhile, what’s up with Mini-Tamlyn’s white violin teacher only wearing PJ’s all the time? It’s just…creepy. After her audition, Mini-Tamlyn is forced by her parents to tell the Karate Kid: “We can no longer be friends. You are bad for my life.” At which point I just want to hug him and say: Dude, don’t take it personally. Asian parents NEVER like their children’s friends, you know?

Anyway…

One night, Jackie Chan gets shit-faced on the bai jiu. We find out his wife and son were killed a few years back in a car accident and it was kinda his fault. DUDE. This is when the solution to all of these people’s problems dawns on me. Jackie’s wife and child are dead. The Karate Kid’s dad is dead. Eff Karate…the Karate Kid’s Mom and Jackie Chan should totally make out and get married!!! Instead, the Karate Kid and Jackie share a good cry together. Then another thing dawns on me: these two are horrible actors. Awkward tingles ensue as a result of witnessing bad fake crying. I turn to my HAM, who’s holding her nose and sniffing. “Are you crying?” I ask her. She nods yes.

The kung fu tournament is almost upon us. The Karate Kid has been jacketing on and jacketing, er, off this whole time and he’s gotten riiiiiiiiipped. But still, against Cobra Kai, he’s totally effed. Before the tournament, Jackie tells the Kid that “Win or lose, doesn’t matter.” Again…HUH?! Did an Asian person just say that? My HAM isn’t buying it either: “No, no, no, this is so un-Chinese. It matters every thing. Winning is so important to competition, crucial for survive and to have face!” Amen, Mama!

The Karate Kid has one thing to do before the Big Day, and that’s apologize to Mini-Tamlyn’s Hardass Asian Parents for being black. Kidding! Or not. Anyway, he apologizes for something, and Mini-Tamlyn’s parents seem to get over their racism it quickly, and promise that their daughter will be at the Kid’s tournament to cheer him on.

And then, finally, the tournament is here! And even though we know what’s going to happen…OH THE SUSPENSE. As a montage of fight scenes begins, my HAM covers her eyes over her glasses. Chinese Billy Zabka fights this punk with a bitchin’ Mohawk who smooths his own hair instead of bowing at the beginning of each fight. Needless to say, Chinese Billy Zabka totally effs up Mohawk’s shit. Then my Tween Boyfriend, Liang, has to go up against the Karate Kid, and his Sensei tells him to break the Kid’s bones. Some time during that fight, my HAM’s glasses come off and she leans back in her chair like she’s the one who just got kicked in the face. My Tween Boyfriend does some illegal move on the Kid’s leg, gets DQ’ed, and the Kid gets carted off the mat. Mini-Tamlyn and the Karate Kid’s mom follow him and Jackie Chan into the locker room.

A doctor examines the Kid and tells him he’s done, but that he brought honor to his family. The Karate Kid then asks the women-folk to leave. At which point, Jackie repeats the lie, “Win or lose, doesn’t matter.” OMG JACKIE I’M TAKING AWAY YOUR CHINESE CARD FOR THAT. Then he adds, “I cannot watch you get hurt anymore.” Awww. But the Karate Kid wants back in. So Jackie does his Ancient Chinese Healing again, with a little less fire coming out of his hands this time.

There’s only one fight left, and it’s the Karate Kid versus–who else?–Chinese Billy Zabka. As soon as the fight starts, my HAM’s glasses are off again. The Kid somehow gets things tied up at 2-2, at which point, the Evil Sensei tells Chinese Billy Zabka to break the Karate Kid’s leg. “No mercy,” he says. Now that right there, that shit’s Chinese. I resist the urge to whoop.  My HAM takes off her glasses, shuts her eyes and leans back in her chair again. Then Chinese Billy Zabka kicks the shit out of the Karate Kid’s leg. My HAM’s freaking out at this point, her face is in her hands. As the Kid writhes on the ground and tries to recover, my HAM twirls her glasses in her hand like she wants to put them back on, but she can’t. She’s in as much agony as the Kid. Even as he gets up, my mom can’t look. The Karate Kid’s crying from the pain, my HAM’s massaging her chest like she’s feeling his pain in the center of her ribs.

It’s only when a gimpy Karate Kid busts out that Cobra mind control thingy, aka the Crane 2.0, that my HAM opens her eyes a little, and then finally, almost reluctantly, puts on her eyeglasses. Just in time to see the Karate Kid do an impossible backflip thingy into a kick right to Chinese Billy Zabka’s face.

YAY AMERICA!!! AMERICA WINS!!! USA! USA! USA!

The Karate Kid’s Mom and Jackie make out. (Actually, no.)

My Mom, despite spending half the movie with her eyes shut, gives the Karate Kid remake a thumbs-up.  Her final analysis?

“At the end the Evil Master from Kung-fu school, no matter how dirty he wanted his student to do to win, his student lost, and He loss his face big time, but don’t expect he will learn the lesson. He will never change I can guarantee it.”

And my final analysis?

WHERE IS MY GOT DAM BANANARAMA REMIX???

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/21/disgrasian-of-the-weak-liveblogging-the-karate-kid-remake-with-jen%e2%80%99s-hardass-asian-mama/feed/ 41 http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/10/soul-full-of-heat-zane-and-the-trajectory-of-black-womens-literature/ http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/10/soul-full-of-heat-zane-and-the-trajectory-of-black-womens-literature/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:00:49 +0000 Guest Contributor http://www.racialicious.com/?p=8268 By Guest Contributor Regina Barnett, originally published at Red Clay Scholar

Can’t you see Zane, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison swapping stories of sexual conquests at a Black Chippendale Review?

Zane intrigues me because not only does she write scripts and vignettes (yup, quickies. I couldn’t help myself) but she writes novels. Novels. Those make up the canon, right?…

]]> By Guest Contributor Regina Barnett, originally published at Red Clay Scholar

Can’t you see Zane, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison swapping stories of sexual conquests at a Black Chippendale Review?

Zane intrigues me because not only does she write scripts and vignettes (yup, quickies. I couldn’t help myself) but she writes novels. Novels. Those make up the canon, right? Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou are a given, but could Zane make the cut?

My students, especially my womenfolk, were all for Zane being considered the next generation of black women’s literature. “She goes there and puts it all on the table,” one commented. “Zane talks about women and sex like they aren’t taboo subjects. She talks about it like it actually happens,” remarked another. On the flip side of that, my academic peers and professors gasped in horror and disgust:

“She’s not a writer, she’s a smut pusher!”

“As a burgeoning scholar, Ms. Barnett, I am appalled you would include her in this type of conversation…”

“Zane? A Writer? Get the hell outta here and come back when you’re sober!”

There is a critical need to include an angle to discuss the role of these recent women writers and their novels into the conversation about the trajectory of African American literature and the construction of its narrative from the perspective of a woman of color. The Noires, Zanes, Sister Souljahs, and even the vixen formerly known as Superhead (she’s retired) are battling it out for spaces on bookshelves against the Zoras, Tonis, Alices, and slave women narratives. Frighteningly, instead of putting these sisters of the quill in concert with one another, there is an imbalance and even a dismissal of one type of narrative for another. Ironically, which narrative that is dismissed depends on its audience – in academic circles, staple texts of the likes of Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Nella Larsen are given top priority. In lay audiences, Zane trumps Zora like a big Joker in a game of Spades. Let the record show, however, that the erotic scenes brought to life in the pages of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker make Zane’s sexcapades look like episodes of Sesame Street. Questions of the relationship between sex and the erotic, agency and pleasure, and self expression and subjection entangle themselves in black women’s discourse.

Often inextricably linked, these questions are the framework for discussing and presenting the peculiarities of African American women’s experiences in American society. In similar fashion to their male counterparts, black women often endure sex as a primary lens to their identities. And, parallel to black men, women of color are in a constant search to speak to the often traumatic experiences that frame our existence. Agency and social practice reflect the era and thus the writing it produces.

In slave narratives, black women’s primary audience was white, Christian, and frequently a northern abolitionist who wanted to hear specifically of the horrors of slavery. Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), for example, only hinted and alluded to the magnitude of the rape and physical abuse complex slave women suffered and endured. Reflecting on her use of sex as not only a bartering tool but a coping mechanism – she uses sex to retaliate/rebel against her slave master by taking up with a white lover – Jacobs, out of a need to be heard and considered human, often apologizes for her experiences and those of fellow slave women; not because she is at fault but to maintain standards of polite society. Later books that speak to the slave women’s experiences and sexuality, like Morrison’s Beloved (1987), add the dimension of erotic grit that Jacobs could not (refused?) to achieve.

Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone (2001), which parodies Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936), discusses the eroticism surrounding black women as a form of power instead of tragedy. Randall’s protagonist Cynara talks about Mammy’s coldness towards her in favor of Scarlett, being sold off, and later taking Rhett (referred to as “R”) as a lover just to piss Scarlett off. Gangsta. Cynara, while still existing within the primary lens of eroticism and its stigmas, problematizes the general understanding of slave women’s actions by utilizing her sexuality to her advantage. The Wind Done Gone recognizes how slave women not only acknowledged their heinous state but, when necessary, utilized it to their advantage for survival or, in Cynara’s case, to extract revenge. Randall’s inversion of African American women’s sexuality is shared with the likes of Terry McMillan, Sister Souljah, Sapphire, and Zane. In similar fashion to the narratives of their predecessors, women writers of the 1990s to the present attempt to speak to the unique situations that frame black women’s existence (i.e. the Post Civil Rights, Post Soul, and Hip Hop eras).

Zane’s protagonists are successful, independent women of color with an often insatiable appetite for and enjoyment of sex. She has often stated in her interviews that her intent of her writing is to encourage women to embrace their sexuality. Zane’s use of sex teters between reaffirmation of preconceived notions of sexuality that women of color wistfully face on a daily basis and an outlet for erotic expression that is constructed by a black woman for women of color. On the surface, Zane’s characters suggest a move towards a more open and liberated expression of black women’s sexuality. Upon further deconstruction, there is an alignment with her predecessors about the epicenter of that sexual expression. There is often a traumatic sexual experience (Addicted and Nervous’ sheroes deal with abuse and incest at a young age) that triggers their hypersexual expression. Thus, sexuality is a coping mechanism that masks the damaging effect of such traumatic experiences. The difference is not in its conceptualization, but rather presentation and context. While Jacobs would probably roll over in her grave faster than a Luke Dancer (or Kat Stacks, whatever floats your boat) at the language used to convey such suffering, her experiences and those that Zane constructs blend, blur, and parallel.

So, how do we as critics and readers incorporate these texts as part of the on going conversation surrounding black women’s literature? What approaches are helpful in bridging the tropes and thematic reconstructions seen in today’s African American women writers with their predecessors? How do we update the critical framework necessary to address these writers’ bodies of work? One tiny step to addressing such questions is the removal of the stigma attached to these writers because they do not satisfy an outdated black women’s literature checklist or aesthetic. Another suggestion is to couple the established African American women writers with those of the present – i.e. Sapphire’s Push (1989) with Ann Petry’s The Street (1946) or Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever (1999) and Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973).

The black woman’s existence in America isn’t linear. The literature that captures those experiences shouldn’t be either.

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2010/06/10/soul-full-of-heat-zane-and-the-trajectory-of-black-womens-literature/feed/ 36 http://www.racialicious.com/2010/03/12/revisiting-the-canon-for-love-of-ivy/ http://www.racialicious.com/2010/03/12/revisiting-the-canon-for-love-of-ivy/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:46:42 +0000 Guest Contributor http://www.racialicious.com/?p=6719 by Guest Contributor shani-o, originally published at Postbourgie

(The whole thing is on YouTube, who knew?)

I don’t expect you to have ever heard of For Love of Ivy. I hadn’t heard of it until a couple of years ago, one night when I was hanging out with my dad and we were trolling On Demand for something…

]]> by Guest Contributor shani-o, originally published at Postbourgie

(The whole thing is on YouTube, who knew?)

I don’t expect you to have ever heard of For Love of Ivy. I hadn’t heard of it until a couple of years ago, one night when I was hanging out with my dad and we were trolling On Demand for something to watch.

So, as we resurrect “Revisiting The Canon” here at PB, I realize this is an out-of-place choice. This movie isn’t actually in the black canon, like previous entries Boyz In The Hood, Eve’s Bayou, and Idlewild. But it is a black movie, in the sense that it features two black leads, and was cowritten by one of the greatest stars of the 60s, Sidney Poitier. Also, it’s old, and definitely worth revisiting.

Spoilers ahead.

Allow me to lay the scene. The story revolves around the Austin family that owns a department store and lives in a beautiful home out on Long Island. Father, mother, hippie son Tim, and popular daughter Gena. And their maid, the titular Ivy Moore, played by Abbey Lincoln.

The plot is a simple twist on The Taming of the Shrew. Ivy, an uneducated woman in her late twenties, has been with the Austins for nearly 10 years. She wants to move into New York City to attend secretarial school, which would force them to hire another maid. The Austin patriarch, a pre-Archie Bunker Carroll O’Connor, couldn’t care less (“Hire another maid!”), but the mother, and two adult children are devastated, and try to convince her to stay.

The children, Tim (a very young Beau Bridges) and Gena, who seem to live at home and work in the department store, decide that what Ivy really needs is a man. Tim comes to this conclusion after figuring out what the biggest difference between Gena and Ivy is (“What’s color got to do with it?” Gena wonders): male suitors. Gena has several boyfriends, and Ivy none. The implication here, of course, is that a woman like Ivy doesn’t need any education if she gets some attention from a man. (As an aside: at one point, when the attractive Gena enters the stockroom of the store, all the men look up in admiration. Tim says to the room: “Alright guys, you’ve all seen Gena naked before.” This is never explained, and Gena’s sexuality is played in an odd, but nonjudgmental, way later in the film, as well.)

Tim blackmails Jack Parks (played by Poitier), a trucking business owner who has an account with the Austins, into taking Ivy out. Parks runs the day operation — shipping goods — while his partner runs the night operation, a casino truck for illegal gambling. But Parks doesn’t want the night operation exposed, so he very reluctantly agrees to meet Ivy. He’s educated and sophisticated, and looks down on Ivy as just another ignorant colored girl who wants to get married. Tim selected Jack precisely because he knows Parks will never propose and take Ivy away from the family.

When Jack, strongarmed, comes to dinner, there’s this nutty bit of dialogue that I just had to transcribe. It’s about 10 times more awkward than it reads:

Gena: Tell me, Mr. Parks, what do you think of the Black Power Movement?
Jack: I think about it…a lot.
Gena [awkward smile]: Ah. And do you approve of it?
Jack: I don’t…talk…about it.
Gena [awkward smile]: Ah.

[Tim enters with coffee.]

Jack: Thank you.
Gena: Ivy goes to a lot of civil rights meetings, don’t you, Ivy?
Ivy: Once in a while. It’s a place sometimes to meet people.
Tim: I was in an elevator once with Ralph Bunche. He stepped on my foot.
Jack [disdainfully]: That can be a problem when you don’t wear shoes.
Tim: No, he said “excuse me.”
Gena [proudly]: I’ve been on a lot of picket lines and things. In fact, I was even in jail once overnight, because I refused bail.

[Awkward silence.]

Gena: Ivy belongs to the NAACP, don’t you, Ivy?

At this point, Ivy excuses herself, and Gena follows her out. Saying what we’ve all been thinking, Ivy snaps at Gena, “Just because he’s colored, do you have to talk about colored things?” She adds: “Why did you make me sit in the living room like that? You know I never do that!”

But Ivy warms to Jack, and ends up going out with him, on the grounds that a date with him will be an ‘interesting’ experience for her to remember. By their second date, the magical properties of her vagina have led him to fall in love with her.

Abbey Lincoln, a truly underrated jazz singer, is compelling as Ivy, the maid who doesn’t want to die “ignorant and alone.” The privileged Tim and Gena are both amusing in their seeming goodwill, and frustrating in their selfishness. The parents fall a bit flat, but the story isn’t really about them.

But, of course, the real star in this film is Poitier. He gets to stalk the sets while being scored by Quincy Jones. He gets to be hostile and superior — something he does very well — and he gets to say things like “I got news for you, Charlie: slavery’s been abolished, maaaan” and “When you’re not thinking of me as the uppity spade with the trucks!” *finger snap*. And he gets to be the best-dressed man in the film. Also, I freely admit, this is the first Poitier film where I cocked my head to the side and said to myself: “yeah, now I get his, um, appeal.”

It’s clear that For Love of Ivy is trying to be progressive. And for its time, it mostly succeeds. The freedom for Gena to date whomever she wants is contrasted with the idea that loneliness is Ivy’s problem. Tim’s acknowledgment that he’s not good enough for Ivy himself gets played against the fact that he calls Jack Parks a “spade.” Ivy’s desire for independence is eventually solved by Jack’s marriage proposal, in which she leaves the Austin’s home for Jack’s.

I don’t know that this film could’ve been any better. In many ways, it’s a strange little piece of celluloid, and it speaks to its time in a way that’s very similar to Poitier’s great race film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner did. But it serves to remind me that little has changed in Hollywood in the last 40 years. And in fact, I’d argue that things have regressed a bit. For Love of Ivy is a romcom from 1968, when Poitier was one of the biggest drama stars in the world. Today, Will Smith is the arguably the biggest action/drama/romcom star in the world. But I doubt Smith would or could create anything so bizarre and forward-thinking as this.

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2010/03/12/revisiting-the-canon-for-love-of-ivy/feed/ 13 http://www.racialicious.com/2010/02/18/complex-magazine-the-50-most-racist-movies-you-didnt-know-were-racist/ http://www.racialicious.com/2010/02/18/complex-magazine-the-50-most-racist-movies-you-didnt-know-were-racist/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:00:16 +0000 Thea Lim http://www.racialicious.com/?p=6279 By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

I had a great time with this article sent to us by reader mra: Complex Magazine’s run-down of the 50 Most Racist Movies You Didn’t Know Were Racist.  The list spans not just time but also ethnocultural group – I was happy to see that Complex pounced on movies offending all sorts of people…

]]> By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

I had a great time with this article sent to us by reader mra: Complex Magazine’s run-down of the 50 Most Racist Movies You Didn’t Know Were Racist.  The list spans not just time but also ethnocultural group – I was happy to see that Complex pounced on movies offending all sorts of people of colour.   (They even include White Chicks as token movie that offends white people, though I don’t believe in reverse racism.) As you know, cross-community-of-colour solidarity is something we really prize here at the R.

Some entries were obvious – like #47: Big Trouble in Little China:

It’s hardly an ancient Chinese secret that the most populous country in the world, with a cultural legacy thousands of years old, really only excels at doing laundry talking funny marshalling inscrutability and mysticism for untold evil. But you know what’ll stop them? Knocking down their fuckin’ BUDDHA statues. Take two Jesuses and call Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) in the morning!

or #31: Jungle 2 Jungle:

A direct adaptation of the 1994 french film Little Indian, Big City, Jungle 2 Jungle changed the title but kept everything just as racist. Tim Allen meets the son he never knew he had, a 13-year-old who grew up native with his ex-wife and a tribe in Venezuela, and takes him to New York City, where his backward customs simply don’t fly! It just goes to show, video games don’t turn good little white kids into savages—brown-skinned savages turn good little white kids into savages!

But some surprised me, especially the ones that I saw as a child and have not since revisited.  Like this classic of my youth, #23: Adventures in Babysitting:

When a lily-white babysitter (Elizabeth Shue) journeys to the ghetto to rescue a runaway friend who’s stuck in the heart of darkness, she and the kids she’s caring for encounter the full spectrum of black people, from car thieves to gang members, and even the kind that sing and dance! And they say Hollywood doesn’t grasp the diaspora!

While I was puzzled by their numbering system (after all, how do you rank racism?), I really enjoyed this list.  Though of course, as is the nature of lists, they missed some films that would’ve made my top 10.  For example any number of  movies by my ex-friend Wes Anderson (other than Bottle Rockets), or Lost in Translation, which to this day I continue to argue about with Sophia Coppola devotees.  Apart from the overt racism – like the scene with the Japanese escort that is deeply offensive to both Japanese/East Asian people and sex workers on multiple levels – the whole point of the movie disgusts me.  As in, the nauseatingly self-indulgent focus on the deep, brooding subjectivity of two Anglo-Americans, against a backdrop of depthless Japanese people who, with their hilariously absurd subcultures, bizarre language and affinity for bowing, are all exactly the same.

Or taking it one step further, our friend Restructure! recently articulated this superb critique:

One movie that disgusts me is Lost In Translation (2003) and its associated white perspective and white privilege. A typical white liberal may assume that the problem with the film is that existential ennui is an alleged “white” problem, and that white existential angst is trivial to the harsher, material struggles of people of colour. This critique is partly true, in that if existential ennui is your only problem, you have it easy.

However, what disgusts me about Lost In Translation is that it centres on the lives of white people in a country where they are the minority, and it suggests that the social isolation that comes from being a minority is something that could only happen to white people.

This notion makes absolutely no sense, except to self-absorbed white people who are completely oblivious to their white privilege, to the point where being a minority in a non-white country only amplifies white navel-gazing, and leads to zero empathic recognition for the condition of people of colour in white-majority countries.

What about you? Did Complex remember your most hated racist flick, or do you have one to add to the list?

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2010/02/18/complex-magazine-the-50-most-racist-movies-you-didnt-know-were-racist/feed/ 124 http://www.racialicious.com/2009/07/14/i-shut-off-my-pen-light-for-this-afterbirth-of-a-nation/ http://www.racialicious.com/2009/07/14/i-shut-off-my-pen-light-for-this-afterbirth-of-a-nation/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:00:50 +0000 Andrea http://www.racialicious.com/2009/07/14/i-shut-off-my-pen-light-for-this-afterbirth-of-a-nation/ By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid and Guest Contributor Fiqah

Fiqah:All right, full disclosure. I loathe Birth of a Nation. L-O-A-T-H-E, my friends. In my short time on this planet, I have been forced to endure two (!) viewings of the flick–twice the Recommended Lifetime Limit for Black people. The last time…

]]> By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid and Guest Contributor Fiqah

Fiqah:All right, full disclosure. I loathe Birth of a Nation. L-O-A-T-H-E, my friends. In my short time on this planet, I have been forced to endure two (!) viewings of the flick–twice the Recommended Lifetime Limit for Black people. The last time I watched this film in its entirety was in college for a film class. Attending the screening was mandatory: you could not pass this class unless you watched it. Please believe me when I tell you that if my professor had not essentially dangled that tasty degree carrot in front of me, I would never have watched this movie again. I got through it by taking extremely-detailed notes: not my usual style (I am a scrawly doodler) but I wanted to make sure that I would never, ever have to refer back to anything in that movie that would require me to watch it again for as long as I lived. After it was done, I wrote a paper contrasting the placement of female archetypes in the film, collected my “A”, and put all the unpleasantness behind me.

So when Latoya posted about Rebirth of a Nation, I was quite intrigued and more than a little excited. “A remix of that piece of racist cinematic self-flagellation?” thought I. “What a concept! I am SO down! Put me in the game, coach!“ I skipped my happy ass on down to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where I met up with the always fabulous Mizz AJ Plaid. As the theater filled (Fridays at MoMA are free, so it was packed), AJ and I chatted about what we hoped the film would showcase. What was a remix in relation to a film, anyway? How would DJ Spooky’s take be viewed in a post-Obama context? Why the hell don’t the people behind us just sit closer together instead of carrying on a fifteen-minute shouting conversation across a row of empty seats? Answers to all these questions were delivered swiftly.

Andrea:  DJ Spooky’s conceit: a director is a type of DJ, remixing reality. In D.W. Griffiths’ case, he remixed the ugly, lethal reality of the Ku Klux Klan into a hero’s narrative, that of the white-supremacist group saving The White Race from the emancipated Blacks and biracial folks. Furthermore, we’re still seeing the rippling damage from that piece of work to this day, not only in film but in various interactions between Blacks and Whites.

The master mixer does damage to his project by overstating the obvious. And what I mean by overstate is: moving geometric shapes framing certain characters and gestures; red-tinting war and rioting scenes; the trip-hop soundtrack. That ^%&%$ trip-hop soundtrack.

Spooky should have lost the trip-hop and the triangles and remixed Birth… with current examples of the images it spawned, e.g. the scene in which a white woman leaps off a cliff to avoid the sexual advances of a Black(faced) man and its direct descendent in 1992’s Last of the Mohicans. And splice that with news footage of how the Black rapist still plays in the popular imagination (most famously Bush the Elder’s use of Willie Horton). After all, the original was a 3-hour epic…mess.

Such length offers such a perfect opportunity.

Fiqah:  From my notes–”About 15 minutes in, I realize with mounting horror that this supposed remix is actually a play-by-play retelling of the original with little innovation. This is Birth of a Nation.”

Some other observations:

• My stomach starts to ache as I realize that the man sitting directly behind me is laughing at all the slave caricatures on view for “comic” relief. He’s particularly happy about a shucking-and-jiving scene in the slave quarters. I take a TUMS.
• From my notes: “Okay, Spooky, all your ass has to say about the slave workday is that it was a 7 to 7 with a two hour break? Really, Spooky? Did we forget that these were UNPAID hours? SIDE-EYE!”
• From my notes: “Lydia. Oh shit. He left in Lydia. And with a dry-ass voice over about slave rape. Like it’s just some footnote instead of being so prevalent that it changed the way we all look. This is some bullshit.”
• From my notes: “Remix my ass. This is like what happens when you unclog a backed-up toilet and it belches.”
• From my notes: “Ya know, I’m starting to think that there aren’t a lotta anti-racists in this crowd.”
• Someone actually fetches the usher and makes AJ shut off her pen! I’m so irritated. Tattling! I take another TUMS.
• From my notes: “Okay. People. You are watching a propaganda film. For the Klan. Stop oohing and aahhing.”
• From my notes: “Oh, a Confederate soldier got bayoneted. Cry me a river.”
• From my notes: “DAMMIT, Spooky! Speak up!”
• From my notes: “Okay, Black people in charge are NOT interested in ‘getback’. So funny how that racist projection persists even today, especially with Black POTUS.”
• From my notes: “Are these people laughing at Mammy?! SIDE-EYE!!!!”

I have to admit that at this point, I put my pen away. I know, y’all – I dropped the ball. But the point was, I didn’t HAVE to take notes. I wasn’t watching a retelling, repositioning, or re-anything. I was essentially watching some Cliffs Notes, trip-hoppy nonsense that may have been more aptly titled Afterbirth of a Nation.: Same Shit, Different Decade. And maybe I‘ve been in the anti-racist echo chamber for too long, but I really did not expect the audience‘s reaction.

Andrea:  About that audience…and the turning off of my pen light. Fooligans.
 

Fiqah:  OKAY? Outrageous. And I knew when that [woman] got up that she was gonna “tattle.”

Andrea:  Gurl, so missed the rising of that woman. But again, it was cool that the audience was drinking and eating and laughing at Mammy and the dancing Negroes.  But my pen light was a problem.
 

Fiqah:  AAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The tying and whipping of Black folks onscreen passed without comment. But your pen was a problem. Anyway, when you said to that [woman] behind us when she asked would the pen always be on, “Yea,” I was TOO happy.

Andrea:  But back to the audience–serious disconnect with what Spooky was tryna get at–film manipulates reality–and the audience’s reaction to seeing Mammy (laughter), the whipping, (nada), and my pen (tattling). It’s as if the (mostly) white audience proved his point..

Fiqah:  But yeah, it was like watching the White audience react was part of the art experience. Because when we all sat down, I didn’t see fellow film attendees as a potential lynch mob. But after all that, when those lights went up…Oh, wow.

…

Fiqah:  Let’s say not active participants. But if something obviously racist and unjust was happening these people would let it. They would not speak up or out. Collusion is…I dunno.

Andrea:  But they were active–active in participating in the laughter at racist imagery. Or acting out in a racist manner, like Miss Tattle-tale.

Fiqah:  My soul felt flattened by the end, ironed out by the undeniable presence of post-Obama entrenched racism.

Andrea:  Like my pen light was that big of a distraction to the film experience.

Fiqah:  Seriously. If you were White she woulda let it be–I truly feel that. Plus people next to me were texting through whole film, with LCD devices, and no one said a word.

Andrea:  Of course, because her brain would have said, “Oh, journalist or film student taking notes. Not defiant Negress giving her attitude. But her mind didn’t say, “Negress who is a journalist or film student taking notes.”

Fiqah:  I was annoyed that you were called out.  Seriously, next time, we are playing dumb.

Andrea:  No, next time, I should tell whoever that I’m a film critic taking notes.

Fiqah:  Yes.

I mean, they swallowed all of it: the racist caricaturing (seriously, EVERY slave-era caricature was on display in Birth of a Nation: the genteel Southern family wrenched from their lives of comfort by this pesky, divisive war; the erosion of White privilege – and therefore, the breakdown of the social order, ‘cause you know Black folks can’t be trusted to govern ourselves., and the necessary violent reinstitution of White order via the Klan).

SIGH.

On the upside, whenever the audience would laugh at something blatantly racist, Andrea would exclaim “What the HELL?!“ and/or huff loudly and collapse in her chair, which made me chuckle. Seriously, in a difficult situation, you want to have an AJ with you…

Still, by the time the film ended (longest two hours of my life) I had developed what I was sure were permanent cases of roaring agita, twist-mouth, and side-eye.

Andrea and Fiqah: Sorry, Spooky–your remix is just a little bit too much like history on repeat.
—
Latoya’s Note

I also received this review from reader Qispoon:

Creating a trip hop soundtrack to the flick, turning the screen red when the Klan shows up and superimposing thin white animated lines to highlight and isolate certain images onscreen like the stitching on a hipster T-shirt do not a remix make.

The kid gloves that critics seem to wear when dealing with this project says much more interesting and troubling things about where the intellectual/arty class is with Art and Race in this country than That Subliminal Kid’s freshman undergraduate treatment of the material. Because the one thing DJ Spooky is very good at is promoting his brand. People want him – or someone just like him – to exist so badly because he’s the got all the trappings of the person-of-color artist of the moment.

Granted, DJ Spooky’s genius is that he also tapped into our desire to see “Birth of a Nation” not just torn down and put in its place, but remade for our times. He just didn’t have the chops to pull it off. Where he fell short of showing, he tried to make up for in telling. But he knows telling is lame so he has someone else – the PBs narrator — do it for him.
I went to see the screening because over the years a number of (Black) writers and artists I know have offered similar critiques of DJ Spooky’s rise to fame. It may be easy to write this off as professional envy – but frankly every ethnic group, Asian, Latino, etc., has their own version of the DJ Spooky Effect – an artist who is very good at gaming the system and is rewarded for it.

Easily the strangest aspect of “Rebirth” is the didactic, PBS-style scaffolding around and within the piece in which the voice-over narrator explains to us the clever thing Spooky is doing as a DJ to disrupt the propaganda of the original film. Indeed, he keeps reminding us what a genius Spooky instead of letting the piece speak for itself. But that’s the problem – the narrator has to do this heavy lifting because otherwise the piece itself would collapse in a milk toast heap. My friend and I joked how great it would be if we had such a narrator following us around letting folks know how amazing we were.

Ultimately, you can’t grudge the Kid for his success – he’s just hustling like anyone else. But you can take the apparatus that props him up to task. “Rebirth of a Nation” proves not only does the emperor have no clothes, he practically begs to be dethroned. Will someone please remix the remix?

Image Credit: Rebirth of a Nation Ad/Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)

]]> http://www.racialicious.com/2009/07/14/i-shut-off-my-pen-light-for-this-afterbirth-of-a-nation/feed/ 37 http://www.racialicious.com/2009/01/12/classic-film-review-imitation-of-life/ http://www.racialicious.com/2009/01/12/classic-film-review-imitation-of-life/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:00:31 +0000 Nadra http://www.racialicious.com/2009/01/12/classic-film-review-imitation-of-life/ by Special Correspondent Nadra Kareem

*Warning: Spoiler Alert*

If there’s a classic film on race that gives “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” a run for its money, it’s 1959’s “Imitation of Life.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the film, which stars Lana Turner and Juanita Moore. There’s no denying that this film is chock full of…

]]> by Special Correspondent Nadra Kareem

*Warning: Spoiler Alert*

If there’s a classic film on race that gives “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” a run for its money, it’s 1959’s “Imitation of Life.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the film, which stars Lana Turner and Juanita Moore. There’s no denying that this film is chock full of stereotypes and relegates its black characters to the sidelines—even on the DVD cover. So, why today is this Douglas Sirk film still regarded as ab fab? A few reasons come to mind—both shallow and serious.

For starters, Lana Turner’s wardrobe is to die for. Mahalia Jackson sings her ass off, and the acting in this melodrama reaped Academy Award nominations. To boot, the movie’s emphasis on mother-daughter relationships gives it mass appeal. Mix in a couple of failed romances and an untimely death, and you have all the ingredients needed for a tearjerker.

“Imitation of Life” inspired a 2001 R.E.M. song of the same name and the 2002 film “Far from Heaven.” Also, in ’02, a scene from the film was featured in Eminem’s star-making vehicle, “8 Mile.” Its enduring popularity made it no surprise when the film debuted on DVD in 2003.

The Lana Turner version of “Imitation of Life” is a remake of the 1934 film of the same name starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers, based on the book Imitation of Life by Fannie Hurst. (Both films were released together in a DVD set in 2008.) In the first film, white actress Colbert and black actress Beavers hawk a pancake recipe together. In the 1959 version, the focus here, Lana Turner (Lora Meredith) runs into Juanita Moore (Annie Johnson) on Coney Island after their daughters become playmates.

At first, Lora has no idea that Annie is the mother of little Sarah Jane. “How long have you taken care of her?” she asks Annie. Annie is brown-skinned, and Sarah Jane is “light, bright, damn near white,” as the saying goes.

Lora looks like she’s going to crap her pants when she learns that Annie isn’t SJ’s mammy, prompting Annie to tell her that Sarah Jane’s dad is “practically white.” This explanation is good enough for Lora, who likely would’ve needed smelling salts had SJ’s dad been actually white instead of practically so. Still, there’s no way for us to know his race for sure because he took off before Sarah Jane was born, leaving Annie to fend for herself and young daughter alone.

Now Annie has fallen on hard times. She’s jobless and apparently homeless and begs Lora to take her and Sarah Jane in. Why she wants to move in with Lora doesn’t make much sense. Lora’s a widow who’s not only broke but behind on her bills. It takes a stretch of the imagination to believe that Annie would insist on moving in with her instead of a more prosperous white woman or that Lora would take Annie in. Still, the two women move in together. To Sarah Jane’s chagrin, Annie assumes the role of maid and mammy, her payment being room and board.

“I don’t want to live in the back. Why do we always have to live in the back?” Sarah Jane objects when they move in with Lora and her little daughter, Susie.

Sarah Jane is none too happy about her station in life, a station she blames on her mother’s dark skin. Accordingly, she wishes Lora were her mother. She takes Susie’s white doll away from her because she doesn’t want to play with a black doll. Later, she pricks Susie to find out if their blood is the same color because she’s heard that black blood is different from white blood. Sarah Jane also wants to know what color Jesus was. When no one answers, she fills the silence by declaring, “He was like me…white.”

The discord Sarah Jane brings to her new household follows her to school also. When Annie shows up during the middle of class one day, she finds out that Sarah Jane has been passing for white. (This is the scene featured in “8 Mile.”) Her cover blown, Sarah Jane has a temper tantrum, stomping defiantly in the snow with Annie chasing her.

A major stereotype in “Imitation of Life” is that of Negro as saint. Annie is ever patient with Sarah Jane. She never raises her voice or backhands her, as you can bet some parents would do if their daughter pulled the stunts that Sarah Jane does. Because Annie is so Christ-like in the face of SJ’s ingratitude, it’s difficult to sympathize with Sarah Jane, who comes across like an evil brat. Yet, this child has clearly been through a lot—a father who abandoned her, a mother society tells her is a mismatch and a Gypsy-like existence due to the limited resources her mother has to draw on to survive. As she matures, one would hope that Sarah Jane would develop a more three-dimensional perspective, transferring the anger she has with her mother to the racially stratified society they live in. This doesn’t happen, though.

Fast forward a decade, and Sarah Jane is still furious with her mother for being black. It doesn’t matter that Lora Meredith is now a movie star and that she, Sarah Jane, Susie and Annie live in a house that could be on MTV’s “Cribs.” Sarah Jane remains surly. She doesn’t want to date a colored boy, objects to helping Annie serve Lora’s guests and to enrolling in a colored teacher’s college.

On one count I agree with Sarah Jane and that’s to do with serving Lora’s guests. We find out that, while Lora has spent her money carelessly, Annie has saved every bit of hers, so why is Annie content to remain Lora’s maid? Rather than invest in creating a life of her own, Annie puts aside cash for Sarah Jane’s schooling and for the lavish funeral she’s probably planned for before her daughter was born. It’s as if the only thing this black woman has to look forward to is death, a misconception, I believe, even in 1959. Since Sarah Jane refuses to go to teaching school, Annie won’t need to drop any coin on her education, though. Instead, she spends her money tracking Sarah Jane down when she runs away.

Sarah Jane decides to bounce when her mother’s presence makes it impossible to pass for white. First, Sarah Jane’s white boyfriend (Troy Donahue) dumps her and beats her up after finding out who her mother is. Then, Annie shows up to the dive bar Sarah Jane has been performing at in secret and blows her cover there. This leads SJ to pack her bags and head to California.

Am I the only one who cringes at this plotline? It’s common knowledge that blacks pass for white to obtain the opportunities denied to them in a racist society. Sarah Jane herself says, “I want to have a chance in life. I don’t want to have to come through back doors or feel lower than other people.” Yet, she’s passing for white to work in clubs? She could have remained black and landed such a gig, which entailed not only dancing but also taking off with clients after performances. Rather than give Sarah Jane any worthy motive for passing, the filmmakers chose to exploit the stereotype of the mixed-race woman as whore. Perhaps as a white woman, SJ could be an Ashley Dupré level whore rather than a Divine Brown level whore, but a whore she’d remain. Adding to my concern is that the storyline emphasizes how Lora Meredith refused to lie on the casting couch to be a movie star. In short, the white woman has integrity. The tragic mulatto, not so much.

While SJ is “dancing,” Lora Meredith has some personal drama of her own. She’s recently reunited with her former flame Steve (John Gavin) after dropping him years ago to pursue her acting career. This time around, however, their relationship faces another challenge when Lora’s daughter convinces herself that she has fallen in love with Steve. What a silly plot twist. Susie knows that her mother and Steve were once more than friends, so it’s pretty absurd that she deludes herself into thinking that now Steve has the hots for her and not for her mother.

Susie (Sandra Dee) is the character who most makes me want to hit “fast-forward.” Equal parts bratty and giddy—when she’s not pouting, she’s squealing—Susie is completely self-centered. She shows limited empathy for Sarah Jane and Annie, which is saying a lot given that she’s grown up with them. Then again, one can’t blame Susie too much for being self-absorbed. The woman who gave birth to her is such a diva she makes Mariah Carey look humble.

Don’t get me wrong. Watching Lana Turner being fabulous is junk food for the eyes. After Lora makes it big, we see her in her dressing room wearing a curve-hugging metallic gown and a matching jacket trimmed with fur. The next scene finds Lora in her luxurious new digs wearing a sheer floral piece that ties at the waist over a rose bodysuit. Even at home, she’s fierce. Other ensembles include a flared shimmering tube dress with a luminous pink shawl and a bustier cut Grecian gown halved by a turquoise sash. Turner is knee deep in jewels throughout the film. Pink gems, turquoise gems, platinum.

Beyond the wardrobe, however, Lora can be hard to swallow sometimes. How full of herself she is comes to light when she tells Annie that she didn’t know that Annie had any friends. Annie’s response: “Miss Lora, you never asked.” And when Annie grieves because Sarah Jane has disowned her, Lora is beyond callous, arguing that Susie’s crush on Steve is the bigger issue at hand. “This is a very real problem,” Lora says of Susie’s feelings for Steve, which are about as deep as an episode of “The Hills.”

So, let’s get this straight. Annie’s 18-year-old daughter hates her, hates her black blood, is a chronic runaway and is exotic dancing to make ends meet, and Annie’s problems aren’t “very real.” Seriously?

Although I’ve told you what happens in the movie thus far, I won’t give away the ending. Suffice it to say that, in the conclusion, we’re led to think that the characters have gotten the reality check they need to stop being hateful bitches. The ending features Mahalia Jackson singing with such emotion that you’ll get chills. If you’re the weepy sort, have a box of Kleenex on hand. Also, if there’s anyone you need to make peace with, prepare to make amends.

The 1959 version of “Imitation of Life” has been criticized for being an over-the-top departure from the novel. Moreover, the casting of Susan Kohner as the older Sarah Jane has been criticized because she’s not black, as was actress Fredi Washington, who played the role (but with a different name) in the 1934 version.

I thought that the Mexican-Jewish Kohner did a convincing job as Sarah Jane. Acting and looks wise, she’s believable as a light-skinned black, which wasn’t at all the case for Anthony Hopkins in 2003’s “The Human Stain.” Perhaps she drew upon her experiences with real-life mother (dancer Lupita Tovar) in playing Moore’s daughter in “Imitation of Life.” Whatever her method, the onscreen chemistry between the two earned both Kohner and Moore Oscar nods. Kohner won a Golden Globe as well. Compare this to Turner and Sandra Dee, who weren’t acknowledged for their acting in the film.

In addition to criticism about the casting, “Imitation of Life” has rightfully been targeted for fueling the stereotype of the tragic mulatto. The film makes it clear that Sarah Jane doesn’t have a chance because she’s racially mixed. “How do you explain to your child she was born to be hurt?” Annie asks Lora. However, what’s been overlooked at times is that Annie is a tragic character as well, and not just because her daughter rejects her. A strong black woman before the phrase was in vogue, Annie is everyone’s “Rock of Gibraltar,” as Steve describes her. Although she’s tired and weary, Annie takes time to give Lora a foot rub, a gesture Lora would never deign to make for her. In the beginning of the film, both Lora and Annie are broke, but Annie assumes the role of maid, doing Lora’s laundry because she likes “taking care of pretty things.”

Juanita Moore, interviewed by The Black World Today in October 2005, made it clear that saintly, self-sacrificing Annie in no way represented her. “Annie was nothing like me…,” Moore told the publication. “I have been in a lot of pictures. However, most of them consisted of my opening doors for white people.”

And such was the fate of a black actress in the 1950s.

If you’ve yet to see “Imitation of Life,” become initiated by catching airings of it in January and February on Turner Classic Movies.

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