This was one of Harriet Tubman’s common refrains:
“If you are tired, keep going; if you are scared, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going.”
We all need to hear that message all the time, regardless of who delivers it. I wrote about my thoughts on the movie, Harriet, on Medium. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve seen it.
I took myself to a matinee Friday to see “Widows” because I love all things Viola Davis. I was expecting something along the lines of “Oceans 8” but, like, elegant. And “Widows” is something more complex. Not in a bad way. It’s good. It’s just different. Quiet. Intense.
If you’re going to see the movie, I ask that you bookmark my review on Medium and feel free to disagree with me vehemently (but respectfully) there or here. Curious to know what fellow movie lovers think or will say.
I loved talking about acting and craft with John David Washington for Backstage magazine in what I hope will be the first of many cover stories. He’s humble and wise, and I especially appreciate how thoughtful he is regarding process — how important it is to honor yours as an artist. It’s true for actors and true for writers. He’s also excellent as the leading man coming into his own in Black KkKlansman which is one of Spike Lee’s best.
John David Washington has been eyeing the big leagues for years.
First, it was the NFL. At Morehouse College, he received a full athletic scholarship and set records as a running back. Later, he would play for the United Football League and excel as an undrafted free agent for the then–St. Louis Rams. But even after two years of training with the pros, come Sunday game time, he’d still never touched the field. He had the chops, but never managed to move off the practice squad to reach the star-making level of a pro.
To be clear, Washington is not the kind of person who craves undue credit. He’s humble, driven, and, above all, enjoys doing the work. So when an Achilles tendon injury during a New York Giants tryout put an end to his football career—after a number of already ego-crushing rejections from the NFL—Washington decided to take his work ethic elsewhere. Surgery was an option, but the time out of commission had him on the brink of depression, and he had already cleared space in his mind for another industry: Hollywood. After this summer, it seems the switch will have paid off; Washington is on the path to being a bona fide star.
In case you wondered if we were making any progress on media diversity in entertainment criticism as storytellers, directors and actors of color in Hollywood start investing in a wider range of stories, the answer is no, according to a new USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report.
White critics authored 82% of reviews whereas critics from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups authored 18%. This point statistic is substantially below (-20.7 percentage points) U.S. Census, where individuals from underrepresented groups clock in at 38.7% of the population.
Looking at reviews through an intersectional lens, White male critics wrote substantially more reviews (63.9%) than their White female (18.1%) or underrepresented male (13.8%) peers. Underrepresented female critics only wrote 4.1% of the sample. The ratio of White women’s reviews to those of their underrepresented female counterparts was 4.4 to 1.
I wrote about this in my book in 2015, but it bears repeating: Diversity is a business imperative, not a moral imperative. It’s not just “nice to have,” it’s important to keep your business profitable.
I seek out the work of Wesley Morris and Hilton Als and Doreen St. Felix because they are talented writers and reporters and because I know they understand my worldview as well as the aesthetics and aspirations of the world builders who are working to center Black narratives. Bless Anthony Lane’s heart, I love to read his thoughts on anything else, but I give a damn what he thinks about Black Panther or Girls Trip or even Get Out.
The companies that hire and retain a diverse cadre of writers are the ones that will be around for the long haul. If most of the world doesn’t look like the critics who are supposed to be the experts on cultural products they don’t really get, how long do you think you’ll keep your audience?
In 2004, when She Hate Me came out, I was assigned to write a story about Spike Lee for the San Francisco Chronicle, where I was a young features reporter at the time. The movie’s tagline was: “One heterosexual male. 18 lesbians. His fee…$10,000 each.”
Like a lot of Spike Lee’s work, I thought the concept was interesting, but I was worried about the execution. I missed one screening of the film, possibly two, and felt like my spirit was subconsciously trying to protect me from seeing the thing all the way through. (Roger Ebert, bless his soul, was probably the only person who wrote anything nice about the movie, which included animated sperm. )
The best thing about the movie was that it provided an opportunity for me to interview Spike Lee in person. His Malcolm X biopic is one of my favorite movies of all time. I wouldn’t see them until later, but When the Levees Broke and 4 Little Girls are two of the most important and beautiful documentaries ever made about black people in our country.
I respect Spike Lee because he has fought for and maintained against all odds complete and utter control of his artistic vision. He is not afraid to take risks, which makes me love him loyally and even more, because there is perhaps no bigger challenge for black artists in America than to take risks.
In the realm of creativity and imagination, black art is always cast as political, created in response to or because of oppression. Black art, like black genius, that is beautiful on its own merit, absent of political sensibilities, is not a concept that is understood, which is why most critiques of black cultural products that are not composed by people of color miss the mark. They cannot conceive of a blackness that is not self-conscious, reactive and that exists for its own sake or to encourage more of the same.
Anyway, even though I was intimidated by Spike, it was still an honor to speak to him and a very young Kerry Washington (also a Bronx girl). I rambled and he was patient but I had two burning questions:
There are likely some exceptions in Spike Lee’s work — of mothers, or sisters or women who are based on real-life characters — but by and large, women in Spike Lee’s films are rendered as caricatures instead of complex characters like male protagonists. It is always the men who have full and complete narrative arcs in his films, motivations that make sense, pragmatic drive and passion. Maybe because he is closer to them, he understands what motivates them, what they desire.
The women, though, tend to be caricatures. Troubled beauties. Whiny plot devices with a good line or two, amazing bone structure. This is them as love objects, as wives and lovers. As with all cultural products that are not meant to be humorous, maternal respect protects black motherhood from the same kind of flat rendering. But all other women are mysterious and odd.
When I asked Spike Lee about critiques of one-dimensional female characters in his films, he said that his wife and some time collaborator Tonya Lewis Lee helped him flesh out the women in his films. He didn’t say it but the look behind his thick framed glasses after suggested his answer should quell any critiques.
I thought about that again when I watched the She’s Gotta Have It Netflix series this weekend, for whom Tonya Lewis Lee is the show runner and for which there was reportedly a robust women’s writers room. This is the part you shouldn’t read if you haven’t watched it yet. SPOILERS BELOW.
In the end, I enjoyed She’s Gotta Have It more than I expected, and I’m curious to see where it will go from here. If you’ve seen it, what did you think?
Joshunda Sanders 