Original: I Spoke to Her (2012)

I Spoke to Her

 

I spoke to her with the sound of

Bashful grass-blades

Sidling from the earth

And lifting their chloroplasts

To the light.

She replied with the tone

Of hoarfrost,

That leaves traces of its silver breath

On every blade

That hears.

Trevor Noah: That’s Racist (2012)

From what I gather, this is the first big standup show Trevor Noah did in South Africa after he began working in the American comedy scene.  Coming home is a definite theme of the show, relishing everything he missed about South Africa while he was away and filling his audience in on American perspectives of Africa.

One thing I like about Noah’s standup specials performed in South Africa is how he does routines reflecting on his fame there.  It has a different tone to his American standup – there, his fame is much more newfound and Daily Show-related, thrust into a spotlight that he still can’t quite believe, but in South Africa, he’s a true household name.  Here, I like his bits on reading about his excursion to the States in South African newspapers (“Trevor Noah Flees to Hollywood!”) and sharing about his experiences with Afrikaans fans.

There are only a few bits I’ve already heard before, and even then, it’s not full routines, just elements and individual jokes I’ve seen in other specials of Noah’s.  I remember his story about being introduced in standup sets in the U.S. as an “African comic” (with the audience expecting him to come out dressed in leopard skins and telling monkey jokes,) although there’s much more of an insider slant to the humor as he tells his fellow countrymen and women about how Americans react to him.  I also recognize bits about the N-word in a larger routine on derogatory slurs (he focuses more on the K-word, a slur used in South Africa) and what people can do to reduce the power of ugly words.  In addition, there are a couple of anecdotes I recognize from Born a Crime, including his grandfather calling his “mastuh” and his grandmother being afraid to whup him because of how his light skin would bruise.

As seems to be common in Noah’s standup specials, the strongest material is in the last half-hour.  After warming things up with a lot of fun stories and snarky insights, he ends the show with several extended, hard-hitting routines about racism.  I love his explanation of B.E.E., a post-apartheid government program that aims to increase equality in employment between races in South Africa.  As with affirmative action, there are white people in South Africa who argue that B.E.E. gives Black people an “unfair advantage,” but Noah draws a smart analogy using Paralympic/Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius (this was before the murder and subsequent trial/imprisonment,) explaining that apartheid “cut the legs off” of South Africa’s Black population and B.E.E. is an attempt to get them fitted with and acclimated to prosthetics.  And I really adore how he covers a news story about a white DJ who got in trouble for racial slurs (the aforementioned K-word.)  Trevor takes him to task, along with anyone else who’s ever offered up anger as an excuse for racism.  To illustrate his point, he uses a fantastic, darkly-funny story about getting a whupping from his mom and how, as furious as he would get with her over it (praying for Jesus to please kill his mom for him,) it would never “make him” call his mom the K-word – instead, he insists, the racism is inside the people who say these things and anger only brings it to the surface.  I also like his spitballing on the idea of having a Racists Anonymous for recovering bigots.

Warnings

Language (including discussion of racial slurs,) sexual references, and thematic elements.

Further Thoughts on Rogue One

In thinking about Rogue One and its ragtag band of rebels made up of a white woman, four men of color, and a deadpan droid, different things come to mind.  There’s the regrettable, like, “Jyn is great and all, but one complex heroine doesn’t even out the gender imbalance here,” or, “How long before we see women of color in Star Wars?”  However, there’s also the positive, like, “Can I get a whole prequel about Chirrut and Baze?” or, “A movie about women and PoC working to fight against fascist oppressors is just the type of movie we need right now” (well, the reasons why we need it aren’t positive, but given that those reasons aren’t going away anytime soon, I appreciate the movie’s existence even more.)  One thing, though, that really struck me about Rogue One and its place within the Star Wars saga is the parallels it draws – intentional or otherwise – to our relationship with history, race, and gender (premise spoilers.)

The original films are classics for a reason, but they’re also products of the time in which they were made, as we essentially have one prominent PoC and one significant woman in the span of three movies.  Now, I don’t really want to bag on Leia here – for all the gold bikinis, she’s still a very rootable character who stays strong in the face of immense hardships.  That said, she doesn’t get the volume of big Action Hero moments that white guys Luke and Han do, and while there are obviously many different ways to be strong, these are the moments that speak the loudest in series like this, and so the films do tend to push Luke and Han forward as the “heroes” more visibly than they do Leia.

The prequel trilogy does little to improve on this front.  In place of Leia and Lando, we have Padme and Mace Windu, surrounded by the white guys who are the main movers of the plot.  The prequels also add Jar-Jar, which certainly can’t be considered a win for diversity.  (Not that a lack of racial and gender diversity is the only reason the prequels don’t deliever – there are many, and plenty of fans can enumerate them far better than me – but it doesn’t help.)

The Force Awakens, on the other hand, feels like a conscious shift.  With our new trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe, the film seems to carry the unspoken brand of “a new Star Wars for a new era.”  A galaxy far, far away with room for everyone, where the new heroes you see onscreen don’t necessarily have to look like the heroes you’ve seen before.  Even showing General Leia in a key role feels like part of the same thread, a pioneer from the past seeing the fruits her labors have borne for the new generation.

But then, we have Rogue One.  It was made after The Force Awakens and adds to the gender and racial diversity of that film (though, as I’ve said, the movie still has a huge gender imbalance and has yet to really recognize WoC,) but it’s set just prior to A New Hope.  And even though A New Hope comes narratively after the prequels, it was obviously the first film made in the whole franchise, and Rogue One’s tie-ins with that film – particularly its impact on A New Hope’s third act – make it feel like a genuine precursor to the movies that came before it.  In light of that, what does it say that our heroes in this movie are a woman and people of color?  It says, “We’ve always been there.”

Not in a way that feels like kind of a copout, a la, “Dumbledore was gay the whole time!”  No, not like that.  To me, the film seems to say, “These stories have existed all along, but this is the first one you’ve been given a chance to see.”  Because the Rogue One mission does tie directly into A New Hope climactic space battle.  That movie gives us the Death Star plans that reveal the tiny flaw, allowing for Luke’s big heroic moment, but Rogue One gives us the story inside the story, the one of the people who fought to get those plans in the first place.  We’ve always known about the white guy who blew up the Death Star, but this is the first we’re hearing and the woman and PoC who got him the intel he needed to make that happen.

It reminds me of a sentiment I’ve seen online surrounding the anticipation for Hidden Figures.  Aside from, “This looks amazing!”, I keep seeing, “Why haven’t I already heard this story before?”  Why didn’t I know about these incredible Black women who helped allow a white guy to orbit the Earth, and what other stories from our history haven’t been given their proper due because they don’t star the more acceptably-packaged straight white able-bodied male protagonist?

The diversity in Rogue One is progressive, but in this way, it also feels like an unspoken acknowledgment of a past to make up for.  Rather than merely congratulating itself for its diversity, the film seems to recognize that it isn’t just moving forward.  It’s also making up for lost time, almost apologizing for the stories it could have been giving us all along.  Whether or not this was anything put into the movie consciously, I still really appreciate this thread and hope other beloved fandoms that aren’t as diverse as they could be take a page from Rogue One’s book, making amends for stories they’ve left untold.

Favorite Characters: Mariah Dillard (Luke Cage)

(Spoilers ahead.)

One thing I appreciate about Marvel’s TV properties is that there are often so many female characters and characters of color that there’s room for a wider range of roles within the story.  In the films, the ratio is drastic enough that all the women and PoC pretty much need to be firmly on the side of the good guys, but on TV, we have a plentiful enough selection that, in addition to the heroes running around being awesome, we’ve also had female villains and villains of color.  And even, as here – gasp! – female villains of color. 

Councilwoman Mariah Dillard is all about reinvention.  She works tirelessly toward a new Harlem Renaissance, giving the neighborhood a revamped image and showing the rest of New York what Harlem can be.  She wants people thinking about urban development and community initiatives, not crime and violence.  She’s about power, yes, but she’s also really, genuinely about helping the people of her city.

But for Mariah, that crime and violence is never far away.  She was raised by the notorious crime boss Mama Mabel, and her cousin Cottonmouth carries on the family business to this day.  Despite Mariah’s desire to be the respectable face of Harlem, willing the public to forget about her ignoble background, she’s also fiercely loyal to family and continually agrees to lend Cottonmouth a hand in his criminal enterprises.  She lets him launder his money through her real estate projects, and though she’s well aware that any carelessness on his part risks everything she’s worked for in a major way, she can’t bring herself to cut ties with him.  Both because he’s family and because she’s knows she’s gotten in deep enough that she can’t untangle her fate from his, she can’t wash her hands of him.

Mariah likes to think that she’s the responsible, ethical one cleaning up Cottonmouth’s messes, but he’s not the only one who chooses to go down dark roads.  Mariah’s drive – to succeed for the sake of Harlem’s residents, to seize the power she wants – leads her to plenty of sketchy decisions on her own that Cottonmouth has nothing to do with.  Her actions get darker and darker over the course of the series.  Whether she’s trying to cover the tracks of her past sins, create a rallying point to make the people follow her, or hold her own against the family’s rivals, Mariah proves ruthless in her ambition and ingenuity.

While Mariah has many talents, her greatest one is perhaps her ability to create a narrative.  It’s a gift that’s served her well in politics and long helped her maintain the appearance of distance from her unsavory connections, but she employs it to excellent effect as a weapon against Luke.  In her hands, Luke becomes a symbol of all the problems that have emerged in the world since Tony Stark revealed himself as Iron Man.  He’s the powered freak wreaking havoc on the lives of the good, hard-working people of Harlem.  Look at the police who are so powerless to stop this monster, profiling honest citizens in their bungled attempts to bring him down.  Mariah’s the only one who can effectively neutralize the threat of this superpowered menace, while at the same time taking on the police who’d rather harass Harlem’s people than keep them safe.  (And if it just so happens that Luke is the man who’s been trying to disrupt her family’s operation, what of it?)  This is what people mean when they say “mastermind.”