Delivered to my email today from Poets.org, this love poem by Sarah Browning entitled "Praisesong." A contemporary poem about lovers in midlife -- how refreshing. Here are the first seven lines:
At the coffee shop you love,
white mugs heavy on the table
between us, young baristas—
spiky haired and impatient—
cannot imagine how two people
so old to them can feel so wanton,
coffee growing cold between us,
middle-aged bodies growing hot
under the other’s gaze. Even now,
Anyone over 40 knows that seeing poems, movies, and romance novels about mature lovers is far too uncommon. Even more rare are romantic narratives in which one partner is a woman in midlife or an older age group. Fiction in which some man over 40 finds a woman in her 30s or 40s who loves him are much easier to find. Is that because it's also more common in real life. Still, I wonder sometimes that perhaps not only do younger people avoid stories about older people in love but older people also don't care to read or see such stories.
Humans like to identify with their fictional heroes and heroines. Is it possible that as much as we in the AARP crowd like to complain about a dearth of stories about people like us that we, too, don't want to identify with lovers over 40? Is it that we don't want to imagine wrinkled bodies in passionate embrace?
I don't see many romance novels marketed to people over 40. On the other hand, I don't look for them regularly, and I wouldn't want to read anything as formulaic as those I read in my youth. When I was young and dumb, I could suspend belief much more easily than I can now.
In any case, the movie and book Our Souls at Night as well as the Netflix series Grace and Frankie are doing well. And I think Nora Roberts may have a few books with older heroines. There was also the series the Hot Flash Club by Nancy Thayer. I wish she had written more of that series. The women were real and the stories were both poignant and amusing.
My commentary here is based purely on personal observations. I should probably research this topic to see if my intuition proves accurate.
I was so deep in the academic hole for the first six months of the year that I completely missed news about the movie Southside with You, the story of Michelle and Barack Obama's romance. The film pays homage to the president and First Lady's initial courtship and opens in limited release August 26. I.must.see.this.movie. So, I'll be scouting websites, Twitter, creating a Google alert, whatever I can do so I can't miss the film when it comes to New Orleans.
Produced by singer/songwriter John Legend and written and directed by Richard Tanne, the movie premiered with good reviews at the Sundance Festival in January. Based on the trailer, I'll say it's a winner already.
I remember one of the first times I heard a story about the first couple's courtship and said, "Sounds like a romance novel or a romantic comedy." I believe at least one of those times I was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. Their love story made me happy because we don't hear enough, read enough, or see enough stories about healthy, black, romantic relationships.
Tika Sumpter, a young actress who became much more visible after appearing in Tyler Perry's soap opera on OWN, makes a wonderful Michelle Obama based on what I see in the trailer. I don't know much about Parker Sawyers' work (He plays Barack.), but I do recall him in The Assets TV show. He also is believable in the trailer.
The first couple was not consulted about the making of the film, but according to Tanne, they're aware of it, are excited about the movie, but "baffled by its existence." In a Vanity Fair interview, the writer/director says he gathered all his information from public domain sources, probably the Oprah show and other interviews with the Michelle and/or Barack. He thinks his script is mostly accurate. From what I 've seen, he's caught the warmth and humor of the stories as I recall them.
I've already subscribed to Fandango news to make sure I get a ticket. I mean, Southside with You better show here.
Rolling Stone has posted video of Matt Damon telling a great Prince story on the Jimmy Fallon show. Of course, all Prince stories bring me joy except the one about his passing in April.
Damon is out promoting his latest film in the Bourne Identity series, Jason Bourne. I've been disappointed by Damon's politics, but I'm still a Bourne fan, so if you see the new film in the New Orleans metro area, you may bump into me.
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on New Years Day with my daughter, her boyfriend, and their friends. Yes, I enjoyed it. Director J. J. Abrams and co-writers Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan have crafted a wonderful balance between the wit and action of the first movie released in 1977 and fresh material that old fans and new can appreciate. But this post is not a review of this latest entry of the franchise.
This post revives Steven Hart's 2002 essay at Salon.com, "Galactic Gasbag" that slams any promotion of the original Star Wars movie as inspired by Joseph Campbell's works on comparative mythology. As I watched the new movie, I thought often of Steven, an investigative reporter, brilliant man, critic, fiction writer, and friend. He died last year on January 20, a shock and great loss to me, his family, and all who knew him.
According to Steven, Lucas never said anything about basing Star Wars on classics such as The Odyssey or consciously tapping into mythology and archetypes Campbell studied until the franchise had become "a pop culture milestone." The belief that Lucas had created Star Wars with ancient mythologies and literary classics in mind grew as increasingly more critics shoveled similar analyses, and Lucas pushed it further when time came to promote the prequels, Steven argues.
After turning Lucas over a gentle flame about his box office flops, which Steven perhaps implies do not reflect the mind of an scholarly thinker, Steven turns up the fire on Star Wars itself as being not original but a bricolage of old Science Fiction novel images and figures. "More damningly, the real roots of 'Star Wars' are obvious to anyone not blinded by snobbery or the need for self-inflation," he writes:
They lie not in “The Odyssey” or the “Upanishads,” but 20th century science-fiction magazines such as Astounding, Amazing Stories and Galaxy. The “true theology” of “Star Wars” was written not by Virgil or Homer, but Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, E.E. “Doc” Smith and a host of other S.F. writers.
The original “Star Wars” and its sequels are echo chambers of tropes and images from literary science fiction, used in ways that strike a careful balance between affectionate familiarity and outright plagiarism. The first glimpse of Luke Skywalker’s desert homeworld, Tatooine, evokes the setting of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel “Dune”; Lucas even throws in a shot of a skeletal desert serpent reminiscent of Herbert’s gigantic sandworms. The amazing visuals suggest an eye nourished by the magazine art of Frank R. Paul, John Schoenherr, Kelly Freas and Chesley Bonestell.
Even when he was alive, I didn't argue with Steven, so I won't start now. You may read the rest of Steven Hart's article, "Galactic Gasbag" at Salon.
‘Selma’ director Ava DuVernay visits #nerdland
Film director Ava DuVernay, nominated for a Golden Globe for the critically-acclaimed “Selma,” joined host Melissa Harris-Perry Sunday for an extensive interview. Watch the full conversation, on MHPshow.com.
Melissa Harris Perry played clips of her interview with Selma director Ava DuVernay on her MSNBC show earlier today. They discussed Martin Luther King Jr.'s infidelity and how DuVernay chose to explore it from Coretta Scott King's perspective, and the two talked about DuVernay's decision to focus on the women in the movement in her award-nominated film.
Later they discussed the LBJ controversy around the movie, which is an "unfortunate distraction," says DuVernay, from the importance of the film and what Civil Rights leaders accomplished. The film is not about President Lyndon B. Johnson, she declares. I agree.
From the perspective of ethics while crafting creative nonfiction, I can nitpick her decision to misrepresent LBJ as being against voting rights for African-Americans (and I have nitpicked it on Facebook before), but I also think that ultimately this is a minor issue in the shadow of the film's significance and DuVernay's vision.
So, I disagree with former Johnson aide Joseph A. Califano Jr.'s assertion that the film should be barred from awards and no one should see it. That's just petty, old white man pouting. Furthermore, he exaggerates greatly when he says the Selma campaign and the march across the bridge was LBJ's idea. I listened to the recording of the conversation between LBJ and MLK that Califano references, and while it's clear LBJ was not anti-voting rights, it's equally clear he was not the mind behind the Selma strategy.
I think Califano misinterprets King's relative silence as LBJ talks to him as that of an ignorant man being advised to take actions he has not already considered rather than simply a wise man letting the President of the United States of America talk. Plus, the Selma campaign was already underway before King's talk with LBJ on January 15, 1965.
DuVernay, who is up for a Golden Globe tonight, says her goal with Selma was to recreate the spirit of the movement. She was not trying to recreate history in detail.
Notice that I did not step to the "Well, look at Spielberg's Lincoln and that Frederick Douglass was left out completely" argument to support DuVernay's decision. MHP tugged on that one today, but for me, "tit for tat" arguments are usually emerge from small thoughts.
Apparently King is shown in an authentically human way, too, in the movie. We see him taking out the trash, joking about diets with friends, and loving music, say people who have seen the film already. So, I look forward to a more realistic portrayal of this great but humanly flawed man.
The best thing this movie can do is make the current and future generation of young people grasp the cost of freedom for African-Americans. Unfortunately, too many remain clueless about the past that created the present. DuVernay says that as she went around the country with the film she discovered deep ignorance about what happened in Selma. Some people thought the name "Selma" was the name the name of a character played by Oprah Winfrey.
I'd like to say I'm shocked, but in viewing the key words used when people are searching for my Martin Luther King Jr. poem, "Remembering a Life," I detect a great deal of ignorance about King himself. Some people think that King is someone who wrote a famous poem called "I Have a Dream." So, given that people remain ignorant of who Dr. King was despite the spotlight we shine on him, is it any surprise people don't know the actual history of that walk across the bridge in Selma? It's not as though this moment is covered much in schools.
Having run an actual newspaper/magazine before, I was fascinated when I saw the first Paper.li paper tweeted to me on Twitter. I don't remember who tweeted me all those months ago, but before long it seemed that every other day someone sent a tweet directing me to his or her Paper.li paper.
Since I had already been thinking about narrowing my focus to books, publishing, entertainment, and politics, in that order, I began to toy with the idea of creating my own Paper.li paper that curated just those topics. Now, I've done it.
My paper is called Bell, Book, and Scandal, a play on the name of a movie I loved in my youth, Bell, Book, and Candle starring Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart.
The movie is about a witch (Novak) falling in love with a mortal (Stewart) after casting a spell on him to make him fall in love with her. She initially goes after him, however, because she doesn't like his fiance. The spell backfires, and as a result she falls in love and loses her magical powers. Her mind-reading cat plays a big role in the film. You can see how she uses him to cast her spell in the video below.
The movie's title may itself be a play on another use of the phrase. According to multiple sources, an obsolete ceremony for excommunication from the Roman Catholic church was also called "bell, book, and candle" because those three items were used during the the ritual. Phrases.org.uk says, "In the excommunication ceremony officials close the book, quench the candle and toll a bell, as for someone who had died. The phrase is old and first appears, in Old English, circa 1300." The entry adds that the phrase appears in Shakespeare's King John: "BASTARD: Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on."
I've found a few articles on the excommunication ritual, which was done in secret, but here's an overly-dramatic video with graphics that explains it, albeit with sensational music.
While my paper, Bell, Book, and Scandal, may occasionally curate articles on paranormal activities and events (I live in New Orleans, so how can I resist?), it has nothing to do with witches or secret religious rituals. The bell in its name represents the Liberty Bell (politics), the book, all things literary, and the scandal, arts and entertainment coverage that happens to favor ABC's Scandal. But I will also have my eye out for news of How to Get Away with Murder and science fiction and fantasy-oriented shows such as SyFy's Helix and HBO's Game of Thrones.
It's my hope that by narrowing my focus, I'll hunker down, read more books, and devote more time to creative writing.
In this Katt Williams clip, the comedian plays a prison inmate named Darren who asks, "Who's goddamned white baby is that?" The clip's been circulating on Facebook without the movie's title but the caption "When a woman tries to put a baby on you that you know ain't yours."
Williams sneaks in a sociopolitical observation, and the scene is so funny that I had to look up its origins. The clip comes from the new movie School Dance, directed by Nick Cannon. Posted by Lionsgate Unlocked on Youtube, it's simply titled there "Prison Visit."
Complex.com indicated in June that the movie was soon-to-be released, but this is the first time I've heard of it. It was released July 2, says IMDB.
If this clip is evidence of its humor, then the movie should be hilarious, but if the whole thing is as funny as this Katt Williams clip, then wouldn't someone have been talking about it before now?
Paste Magazine says the movie (Cannon's directorial debut) is not funny, but full of offensive stereotypes, so maybe that explains the film's low profile.
The more I think about it, the more I think that I may have heard something about this movie and ignored it thinking the news was about Spike Lee's old movie, School Daze. Last year that movie was 25 years old, and Spike has been talking about a sequel.
Cannon's movie should have gone for a name that didn't sound so similar to Lee's classic movie.
I just heard about Shirley Temple Black's death. I am an African-American woman who associates the child star with my childhood. Apparently she passed away last night, Monday, February 10, on my birthday. At age 85, she was almost 30 years older than I am now, born one year later than my mother. But in my mind, she's still around 6 years old, the symbol of a sweet little girl who can make it through any crisis.
Perhaps, even, she is the first media image I encountered that seemed to prescribe what a perfect female child should be according to Hollywood: cute and curly-headed, sunny and pleasing. How was I to know then that girl was myth?
During the 1960s, it seemed almost every week one of the television stations was running one of Shirley Temple's movies, usually on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes I'd sit with my cousins around the black and white television in my grandmother's home in New Orleans's Gert Town. Sometimes I'd watch alone in my 7th Ward childhood home. Reruns or not, we'd watch her adventures as one character or another. And after the studios colorized the black and white films, we watched again.
This was pre-800 channels, pre-cable. It was either the Little Rascals with Buckwheat, Cowboys killing "Indians," the Three Stooges, or Shirley Temple. Thank goodness for books, but even in those we were hard-pressed to find positive images of people like us.
Most of her films were more than 20 years old when I first saw them, and although my favorite was The Little Princess (1939), when I hear Shirley Temple's name, I see her walking down that airplane aisle singing "On the Good Ship, Lollipop" in Bright Eyes (1934). That may be the image that pops up first because that's often the clip played when anyone discusses Shirley Temple in a documentary or child stars in general from that era.
I link Shirley Temple with happy times. She was innocent, I was innocent, often the center of attention in my family because my parents had struggled to have a child. I had a grandmother, a nurturing aunt, a father and mother all in the same town who I saw daily, and sometimes relatives from California or Tennessee would visit. They made me feel special, too. For the first eight years of my life, I was spoiled. After that is another story.
Back then it was common to coif little girls with "Shirley Temple curls" for holidays and other special occasions. She was so popular that a child's drink, a non-alcoholic cocktail, was named after her. Sometimes, when my parents took me with them to Dooky Chase Restaurant, I'd have one. But now, oh, what creepiness, the symbolism of a little black girl in the 1960s South imbibing Shirley Temple.
And yet, I was not fascinated with Shirley Temple the way the fictional character Pecola Breedlove is in Toni Morrison's classic novel The Bluest Eye. I had no Shirley Temple dolls, no cups with her blond curls shining and her blue eyes staring at me. In fact, I'm not even sure I registered that Shirley Temple had either blond hair or blue eyes because I first watched her in black and white. To me, Shirley Temple was just another white face on television in a time when black faces rarely appeared.
However, by the time I was six years old in 1966, I was aware that many white people did not want black people around them. After all, the ugliness of racism revealed itself on the nightly news. I doubt my parents removed me from the room when the footage rolled of dogs let loose on black teens and high pressure water hoses blasted black bodies during the marches. And these scenes played again over the years as the Civil Rights struggle remained in the news.
Also, I had a personal experience when I was about 4 or 5 years old that I still recall. My mother and I boarded a public bus in New Orleans. It was the mid-sixties, so the buses had been desegregated for at least six years by then. There must not have been many window seats because I did not sit by mother. I sat by the window in a seat next to a white woman. I guess, now, the woman must have been in her late fifties. Soon after I sat next to her, the woman huffed, got up and moved, clearly angry. My mother, watching, called me to her and said loudly, "That's okay, baby. Anybody who doesn't want to be by you is missing the opportunity to know a wonderful little girl." But I was not a dull child, so while I did not yet know the word "rejected," I recognized disgust and knew the woman thought something was wrong with me.
As a child then, for me, the measure of whether a white person was "nice" or "mean" was, Will they let you be near them? I had seen Shirley Temple dance with Bill Robinson in The Littlest Rebel and Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm, so she must be nice. At 5 years old, that was as close as I came to today's critical race theory.
It was not until later that I understood the movie's racialized images and the racism that produced them. Bill Robinson, Uncle Billy in the movie, was the slave of Shirley Temple's character Virgie. Yes, Virgie's family was on the wrong side, but I didn't know that when I was 4 or 5 or 6 because I was not old enough yet to have learned in class that my people were once owned by white people. That's not information black parents share before they have to. And Shirley, when she filmed the movie, didn't know that either, according to what she said in interviews during the 1990s. Still, I knew more about racism when I was 6 than she did when she was 6.
Back then, I also did not know how seeing Shirley Temple on television had begun to shape my understanding of what it meant to be an adorable girl. I don't recall trying to emulate her. According to an older cousin, I was more likely to imitate an adult, but I do recall hearing my mother say to my aunt before she straightened my hair with the hot comb, "And give her Shirley Temple curls."
I recall as well at age 5 that I walked down the aisle of New Orleans's old Municipal Auditorium to the lofty sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance," a train flowing behind me, my body covered with a white, pearl-encrusted gown, a fake piece of hair to hold my tiara in place, and my own hair bouncing at my ears in those desirable curls. I was the princess of my dance school because my parents had raised the most money for my age group. A teen was the school's queen. But I was not very sweet or adorable that night, my mother told me. I didn't want anyone to stand in the pictures with me.
Did I think I was like Shirley Temple? I don't remember thinking that. Did I ever want to be Shirley Temple, no. Like Claudia in The Bluest Eye, I was not impressed with my white baby doll. I recall holding a black doll, and later I think I begged my parents for a life-sized doll (3 feet tall) that only came in white. Of course, it had blue eyes. But once I had it, I didn't like it. It scared me, and I hid it in the closet. The next year, I gave it away.
Was my mother trying to make me Shirley Temple? No. She was the one who made sure I had a black doll and the one teaching me black history facts, telling me about George Washington Carver and the story about my grandmother meeting him. She was the one who taught me about Phyllis Wheatley and had me memorize James Weldon Johnson poems. She was also the one who made black history intimate. Not only were W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Nat Turner important, so were my grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-grandmother, so were my great-uncles and aunts.
As for my father? He liked Westerns, war movies, and every sport on the planet. He had stories about cows, Gypsies, snakes, his grandfather's horse, and Mount Vesuvius erupting as the Germans bombed because he was there. He didn't watch Shirley Temple. He kept an ear out for The Platters and an eye out for Lola Falana.
Eventually, I no longer watched Shirley Temple movies. I moved on to swashbuckling tales, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Dracula movies, and Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney teen flicks. I liked those more than the teen Shirley Temple in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.
But I could never really get away from Shirley because America kept talking about her, so sometimes, I'd see one of those late night commercials from Time Life or something like that, selling The Shirley Temple Collection, and I'd wonder, What's she doing now? What's it like to no longer be a little darling? Did that make her a nobody? Hardly. She became a public servant, unscathed even by her ardent support for Richard Nixon. So, she'd show up in the news occasionally.
Her name filled the airwaves again when I was 14. President Gerald Ford appointed her the American Ambassador to Ghana. That may have been when I noticed that she'd married, and her last name was Shirley Temple Black. With that appointment came the great controversy. It was the mid-seventies. African-Americans were still riding the "Black is Beautiful" high, and the segregationists' flight to the Republican party remained fresh in black people's minds. So, some argued that because Shirley was a conservative, white Republican, she should not be an ambassador to an African nation. And due to the hostility African-Americans sensed from the Republican party, the belief spread that she was also "a racist."
I was in high school then, and not paying attention to why people were calling her that. All I heard was, "Hmph!" and "Shirley Temple racist." Typical teenager, my attitude was "Blasé blasé, par for the course." By that time, I had become more acquainted with disappointment and the personal wounds of racism.
With her death, these accusations have arisen again and where else other than on Twitter. Is the controversy worth anyone's energy? I have strong doubts. At this point, isn't it really about what Shirley Temple represented to those who were aware of her or influenced by her icon status in society?
I went for years without thinking about her unless her work appeared on television. Next, my daughter was watching The Little Princess and Bright Eyes. Honestly, I thought that Shirley Temple had passed away already sometime while I was in the middle of divorce.
When I had to do a presentation on The Bluest Eye two years ago, I didn't even bother to look up Shirley Temple despite her presence in the book because I felt I already knew what I needed to know about Temple's reach. I knew enough to understand Pecola Breedlove's obsession with the star, with her desire to drink milk from a Shirley Temple cup. After all, Pecola's story unfolds during the 1940s when the blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel was still everywhere, probably on billboards towering over towns, and her movies were in theaters on a big screen, not small in a little box.
And Pecola didn't have a mother teaching her black history or a decent father or the Civil Rights Movement and "Black is Beautiful" posters. She didn't have Diana Ross and the Supremes on the Ed Sullivan Show or the Julia sitcom on television or anyone to crown her "princess" for a night and counter the forces of her self-hatred and destruction. I count myself blessed as Claudia was blessed.
And yet, six years before I conducted my presentation, I wrote a poem, "Ducks and Swans on the Lagoon (at City Park in New Orleans)." In it, the spirit of Shirley Temple appears. I pulled that poem out today and studied it. Then I posted it to my blog. So much stuff is there: the heaviness of navigating race as a child, of steering around demeaning images of the self, the idealization of whiteness, and rising above America's tragic racial history. Somehow, I had processed it and made something for myself.
No, I don't hate Shirley Temple as Claudia did. Neither do I love her madly. She was part of the scenery of my childhood, and like it she, too, now is gone.
Elmore Leonard had a good run, a career other writers can envy. He brought pleasure to readers with his crime novels and westerns, his sharp wit and edgy characters, his ear for the way Americans talk.
Born in New Orleans, October 11, 1925, Leonard, 87, passed away this morning. at his home in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. according to his website. The New York Times, CNN, and other media outlets have published his obituary.
He was a prolific novelist as you can see by his list of works at Amazon, and many of his books and stories made it to the screen. Some people know of him only through movies, Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma, Be Cool, Jackie Brown, and more. Perhaps others love his television characters, such as Raylan Givens of FX's Justified, but they haven't known that Raylan sprang from Leonard's mind.
I wasn't particularly shocked to hear of his death because Steven Hart posted a link last week or so to an article about Leonard suffering a stroke and given Leonard's age, I knew to brace myself. But I am saddened nonetheless. Hart, a novelists himself, has also posted links today to different Leonard obituaries, such as this one by novelist Thomas Pluck. He also posted this gem, a 2002 book review by Margaret Atwood of Leonard's novel Tishomingo Blues.
And I love this tidbit/photo I found, "So Elmore Leonard and Walter Mosley stopped by . . ." And this video of 10 Questions for Elmore Leonard from Time Magazine. In it he talks about growing up in Detroit and which movie based on his books that he liked the most. Also, he wrote all those books by hand and didn't use email or have a computer. What I found most interesting is that he said that the characters must tell their own stories: "I can't write in a literary way where my sound is what you're reading." That statement intrigued me because I know some MFA professors who would immediately say, "That' not what literary writing is!" The difference between "literary" and "popular" fiction is an old debate.
What more can I say? Leonard could write. I loved the way he used language. His dialogue crackled, and his characters make me laugh, wince, and sigh. Many of us are also familiar with his book Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules for Writing. Of course, lots of writers have rules for writing, but it never hurts to pay attention to writing advice from a man who's managed to earn a good living from his writing, pleased even critics, and written so many strings of words well. May he rest in peace.
In a recent interview with his close friend Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry compared Langston Hughes's negative criticism of Zora Neale Hurston's work to Spike Lee's negative criticism of Perry's work. I think Perry could use a better example when it comes to contemporary black writers downing his movies, plays, and television shows. (The timing of Perry's interview with Oprah coincides with the premier of his new drama, The Haves and Have Nots, on Winfrey's OWN channel tonight.)
Unlike Lee and Perry, Hughes and Hurston were friends who later had a falling out due to a bad collaboration. After that, Hughes became more critical of Hurston's work and once said of her: "To many of her white friends, no doubt she is the perfect 'darkie,' in the nice meaning of the term--that is a naive, childlike, sweet, humorous, and highly colored Negro." Those who've studied the lives of these two black artists will catch the pointed, personal dig Hurston's old friend leveled at her there.
Hughes knew that other than colorful and funny, Hurston fit none of the labels he placed on her, definitely not naive and sweet. In fact, Hurston's letters reveal she could be duplicitous, even, and so sassy in the way we love. Indeed, with Hughes's qualifier "to many of her white friends," he reveals that he was aware that Hurston wore a mask for white patrons. She was not the woman they saw. Furthermore, by his earlier praise of her work and his willingness to collaborate with her, it's clear he saw something valuable in her art. His negative criticism did not begin until they'd had a spat.
Perry would make a better case for negative critiques of his work by other African-American artists, in particular Lee, if he referenced Richard Wright's criticism of Hurston. Wright's objections were not personal but political, steeped more in ideological and aesthetic differences. He seemed to have an aversion to Hurston's work, and his own work was much darker. In general, he was an angrier black man than she was a black woman.
. . . critiques [of Perry's work] may be observed as evidence of a class struggle issue between the upper class Spike Lees of the black community and the blue-collar, church-going folks with southern sensibilities. Tyler began and continues to build his empire through the southern-style, church-loving drama tradition that still thrives in African-American culture. . . . What this writer sees in these debates is that Perry faces the same kinds of criticisms African-American novelist, folklorist, and archaeologist Zora Neale Hurston received from the "intellecutal" black writers of her era, including Richard Wright.
Some people took issue with my Perry-Hurston-Wright observations, as you'll see in the comments section. At least one person seemed mildly offended that I would compare Perry with Hurston in any way. My observation, however, does not argue that Perry's work is equivalent to Hurston's work. All I have said is that the debate about his work is similar to the old debate about Hurston's work among black writers of her era.
A big difference between Perry and Hurston (beyond her being a black scholar as well as a writer) is that Hurston's audience included many white readers during her lifetime while black people are the primary consumers of Perry's movies and shows. Hurston died penniless, too, unfortunately, and I don't think there's any chance of Perry doing that.
For the record, I am neither a fan of Perry's work nor a vocal detractor. Sometimes I'll see his movies, and sometimes I won't because I find his work too formulaic and predictable. However, I admire him for being so productive and making it on his own. Like many artists, in my opion, Perry will benefit from more study of his art and time maturing. This is the same opinion I expressed when I wrote a critique of For Colored Girls for BlogHer.com.
I'm happy that he's found a way to earn real money doing what he loves. I wish Zora had been able to do the same. But I do wonder when he started comparing himself to her. Did Oprah have any influence there? She is, after all, a Zora fan, too.
Phenomenal movie critic Roger Ebert passed away today. I knew he had cancer and had been suffering with the disease for years and that he was older than I am, so perhaps I should have perceived that he may pass away soon. Yet even when I saw in my news feed yesterday a headline saying that his cancer had returned, I did not expect only two days later to hear of his death.
Why would I expect to have some inkling that Roger Ebert's death was so near? I didn't know him personally. I had no way of being privy to how sick he was, and yet, like many Americans of my era, having encountered his work and appreciated his shining intellect, I thought that somehow I knew him well.
I watched his show with Gene Siskel, Sneak Previews on PBS, and then, when the pair went to commercial television, I watched At the Movies and later Siskel & Ebert At the Movies. I tuned in religiously for a time and supported their decision to leave PBS. I liked watching the rivalry between the two, and yes, I always favored Roger over Gene. For some reason I suspected that if ever met Roger, he and I would get along well.
Even after I married and began running about with a child in tow and my trips to the movies became fewer, I still followed Siskel & Ebert. I remember when other movie critics popped up to get in on their action, I resented these interlopers. And later, as I became too busy to catch Siskel & Ebert on television and as the Internet became easier to use, I'd look up their reviews online if I thought I might escape to see a show. After Gene Siskel died, I continued to looked up Ebert's take on new films. As I said, Roger was always my favorite.
I recall when he showed up on Twitter. As soon as I saw he had an account and was actually tweeting himself, I followed him. It as as though I had spotted an old friend. This is when I discovered that he had opinions about more than movies, and I often agreed with him on political matters as well.
When I learned of his death, I immediately thought of society's loss and then of his wife, Chaz (with him in the picture up top), a woman of whom I have been secretly envious at times because she lived with a mate who loved movies, art, and literature and who, though ill, still had a keen mind and retained his sharp wit. Now I see that there was something else appealing about him: he did not feel threatened by strong women. The Chicago Tribune reports:
An enthusiastic and self-proclaimed aficionado of beautiful and accomplished women—he had a bit of a crush and a friendship with Oprah Winfrey for a short time—Ebert married trial attorney Charlie “Chaz” Hammel-Smith on July 18, 1993.
His affection for her and her extended family peppers the book, and his love for her is palpable: “My life as an independent adult began after I met Chaz.”
So is his gratitude for her indefatigable devotion during his operations and rehabilitations, writing: “I was very sick. ... This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. ... Her love was like a wind pushing me from the grave.”
A talented critic, a gifted writer, and apparently a romantic as well, Ebert will be missed. We have lost a treasure.
I could not get the idea out of my head that one of Tyler Perry's lines in Alex Cross was a tip of the hat to Oprah Winfrey's portrayal of Sofia in The Color Purple. When Tyler Perry says, "I will meet him at the gates of hell before I let him take another person from me that I love," does the line ring any bells?
I have not yet seen Beasts of the Southern Wild, but bell hooks's negative review of the film is the first negative review I've seen. I respect her and suspect that if she sees in the film what she's written here, then that's probably what is in the film. You can read her entire review at New Black Man (in Exile). What struck me most was her assertion that movie smacks of conservative ideology and how she likens that agenda to a dog-eat-dog life philosophy.
Ultimately this film expresses a conservative agenda. Before audiences had a clue about its content, the notion that it was somehow a radical response to Katrina circulated. But there is nothing radical about the age-old politics of domination the movie espouses – insisting that only the strong survive, that disease weeds out the weak (i.e. the slaughter of Native Americans,) that nature chooses excluding and including. If Wink represents the dying untamed primitive then what does Hushpuppy represent. Her fate is unclear. Given all that she endures she may just end up being the mad black female, talking to herself, wandering in a wilderness of spirit so profound that she is forever lost.
Lately, watching the presidential election coverage, I've been attuned to this aspect of conservatism: although many of its proponents who profess to be Christian promote the philosophy, the philosophy flies in the face of aspirations to love, compassion, justice, concern for the poor, and cooperation to achieve the goals of a more noble existence, New Testament ideals.
The odd thing is that I did not have the film on my list of must sees before (it was on the "see if I get the chance" list), but now I want to see it to see if I see what Ms. hooks sees. Like me, hooks also perceived problems with the movie and book The Help that others did not see (I really got tired of people telling me I had to see The Help as though it was something fresh.), so I suspect my assessment of this film may be similar to hers when I see it. The trick will be to divorce myself from her view so that I can make my own assessment.
Via Morris Chestnut's Facebook page, I just learned of actor Michael Clarke Duncan's death. I have not been watching news much lately, so I did not hear of it sooner.
Chestnut said in his FB post, "RIP to Michael Clarke Duncan. A man with a tremendous spirit and great talent. It was an honor to have known you. You will be surely missed my brotha!"
I never saw Duncan in person, but whenever I saw him on screen I always had that feeling that he had a beautiful spirit. This news shocked me because to die at age 54 is to die too soon, and he always seemed so healthy and content. I even watched Fox's show The Finder a few times just to see him. He was a fine actor with a great voice.
According to CNN, Duncan, who was nominated for an Oscar in for his performance in The Green Mile, never fully recovered from a "myocardial infarction" he suffered earlier this summer.
This blog gets hits daily from people who think it's about shoes, but as I've said many times before, "This blog is not about shoes." Nonetheless, sometimes I can't resist an intriguing shoe photo. Today, it's a great picture of the succulent actor Idris Elba that his fan page shared on Facebook.
The photo is a three-for-one prize because it features first, Elba, and second, he is holding what appears to be a cute, white Pomeranian dog in an apartment, and behind him, third, is a rack of women's shoes, mostly sexy shoes.
Elba, newly nominated for an Emmy Award, may be on set the of the new movie he's now shooting. Responding to his Emmy nomination, he issued this statement:
”Thank you everyone. I'm completely ecstatic for this nomination. It’s a great accomplishment for my team, BBC and as well as myself. I'm currently filming in South Africa but can’t wait to see everyone in September. Also congrats to everyone in my category as well, and a special thank you to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Cheers!“
According to IMDb, Elba is rumored to be playing the role of Nelson Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom. The Tomboy Films blog says it's not a rumor; it's true. So, although the ladies on Facebook express (tongue-in-cheek) concern about the sexy shoes in Elba's photo, more than likely the pumps and stilettos belong to a movie character. Maybe . . . *clears throat* . . . I'm not TMZ, but that decor in the photo is dated.
I also thought it could be from the set of his hit show Luther, but I don't think that's in production right now. In any event, all you Idris Elba fans out there, enjoy! And here he is with Jill Scott from last year's BET Awards.
So, I'm home, working on my thesis . . . again. With the death of my father in late April, completion was postponed, but I'm almost done with some rewriting and editing. My thesis is on the diary of Marcus Bruce Christian, a self-trained African-American historian, poet, and writer who was born in 1900 in what is now Houma, Louisiana. When he was 17, he moved to New Orleans. Eventually he ran the "Black unit" of the Louisiana Writers' Project at Dillard University, part of the Federal Writers' Project of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
You can't really study Marcus Christian without also studying race, identity issues, the effects of oppressive hegemony, and resistance, which means you also read a lot of postmodernist theory. So, when I heard this song "Nothing I Would Rather Be" from part of the Australian musical Bran Nue Dae," I had to stop and laugh.Here are the lyrics:
"There's nothing I would rather be than to be an Aborigine and watch you take my precious land away. For nothing gives me greater joy than to watch you fill each girl and boy with superficial, existential sh|t.
Now you may think I'm cheeky
But I'd be satisfied
to rebuild your convict ships
and sail them on the tide.
I love the way you give me God
and of course the mining board,
for this of course I thank the Lord each day.
I'm glad you say that land rights wrong.
Then you should go where you belong
and leave me to just keep on keeping on."
The scene in the video above is fun, too. Great satire. My daughter was watching it, and although I tried, I could not ignore it. And now she's moved on to Asian films. Maybe I can get some work done since I won't understand the language in those dramas.
If you're from New Orleans, you know what this post indicates. It suggests that I am about to do something and what you see now is preparation for whatever it is that I'm about to do. In this case, I mean that I'm getting ready not for a post at this blog, but something more organized with a little more thought, perhaps, that I will post and another Internet publishing location. Procrastinators Anonymous, here I come.
Anyway, I drop this note here as a reminder to myself that I am supposed to write about Charles Jolivette, a New Orleans author (debut novel Étouffée). And I hope I get back to it soon.
Mr. Jolivette requested on his Facebook page that people view his audition video for a Tyler Perry movie and to vote. I took a look. He does a good job, and he's easy on the eyes as well. His audition video is embedded below, and below that I've posted more information about Perry's contest. The deadline's near (June 29), so if you'd like to enter as well, hop to it.
Earlier today, movie mogul Tyler Perry posted this announcement on his Facebook page:
For a long time now, people have been asking me how they can be in one of my movies, plays or TV shows. Even as I read through my message board, the most popular question I see is, "How can I be in one of your movies?"
So… this one's for YOU! Now's your chance to earn a walk on role in one of my upcoming productions!
I've created this competition to give my entire online family a chance to showcase their talent, and I expect to see some future stars. Even better, you'll be responsible for picking the Top 10 finalists. That's right… you get to vote for your favorite videos! Then, I'll personally choose the winner from your Top 10.
The competition starts NOW, so go to http://youtube.com/tylerperrystudios
and follow steps 1, 2 & 3 to participate.
Voting closes and the Top 10 will be announced on June 29th – the same day MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION hits theaters.
Then, I'll personally choose the winner on July 6th.
I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THESE AUDITIONS!!!
Good luck!
The YouTube link for Perry's contest takes you to a promotional page for his latest movie where you will find another link for the audition information.
I'm pretty sure what was bleeped out on Michael Ealy's interview with Wendy Williams was that he's an "a*s" man so (breasts) cups "don't matter" to him. He said he used to date older women, but now he's more open-minded (as though any ordinary woman reading or writing this blog would ever have a chance with him). The interview was cute, and it seems his co-star from Think Like a Man, the hilarious Kevin Hart, must have rubbed off on the delectable Ealy, age 38. When Williams asked him about his relationship with Taraji P. Henson, a question driven by their sizzling on-screen chemistry in Think Like a Man, he joked that Henson stalked him after the movie and he had to explain to her, "It's just a movie." That banter was quite amusing.
I saw Think Like a Man, despite not caring for the book that inspired the film, and it was funny, mostly thanks to Hart's comedic talent and the timing of the other actors. A woman in the row behind me laughed so hard at one point that I thought she might have stroke. I, too, more than once, laughed to the point of my eyes watering. And seeing Ealy half-naked in those hot scenes with Henson were worth the price of admission as well (This blogs often gets hits from people looking up Ealy because of his blue eyes.). Otherwise, the movie's ending was too much like a fairy tale, too pat. According to Williams, there's talk of a sequel. Now, that will be dangerous water.
I try to keep up with Ealy, ever since Barbershop, because in addition to being easy on the eyes, the young man is a talented actor. So, I'll have to make time to look at his new series on the USA network, Common Law.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won best animated short last night at the Oscars. (You can see the winning film in the video above.) It was created at Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, La., by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. According to the AP, the studio held its own Oscar party last night, and that same article describes the film as follows:
The 14-minute long film follows Mr. Morris Lessmore during the aftermath of a storm in New Orleans. Through the power of stories and books, he finds happiness. It beat four other short films in the category including Pixar's "La Luna."
The Shreveport Times reports the following statements from Joyce and Oldenburg given after the pair won.
"Look, we're just these two swamp rats from Louisiana," Joyce said in his acceptance speech. " We love the movies more than anything. It's been a part of our lives since we were both kids."
"It's been a part of our DNA since we were children, and it's made us storytellers," Oldenburg added.
The video below documents the reactions of the folks at Moonbot when they found out their work had been nominated.
Here are 10 Reasons from Roland Emmerich that explain why he would make a movie that questions whether the man history claims to have been William Shakespeare was actually the bard we know and love. The movie, Anonymous, opens this Friday.
