Black Filmmakers Fail to Connect With White Viewer (Details at Eleven)

Tonight, I watched two movies made by African-American filmmakers, and despite their strengths, neither film worked for me.

Idlewild follows two parallel stories. Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton, who together form the music group "Outkast" in real life, here play best friends whose lives are shaped by a 1930s speak-easy known as the Church. Percival, Jr. (Benjamin) plays a shy but talented pianist and songwriter who falls in love with singer Angel Davenport, and predictably begins to feel conflicted about whether he should leave his unhappy but familiar life in Idlewild and pursue a musical career and romance with Angel. Meanwhile, Rooster (Patton) inherits the Church and immediately runs into trouble with a gangster who wants an ever-increasing cut from the profits.

Both stories hit every cliche in the book, as they almost should, since it seems to be a celebration of movie formula, and of the fact that style can triumph over substance. Idlewild is nothing if not skillfully made. The choreography by Hinton Battle (which inventively incorporates era-specific dance styles), the cinematography by Pascal Ribaud (which captures color so lushly, it becomes a character in itself), the direction by Bryan Barber (who shows a real flair for creative storytelling), and the production design by Charles Breen (which flawlessly captures the period detail) are all amazing. Andre Benjamin also deserves kudos for creating Percival as a convincing and likable character light years removed from Benjamin's persona as Andre 3000 from Outkast.

The film's biggest flaw is that it's a musical, and the musical numbers are terrible. Yes, I've noted that they are choreographed and directed well, but it's the music itself that is so bad. If you're a fan of Outkast, you'll like this movie. Barber cut his teeth directing Outkast music videos, and Benjamin's and Patton's characters perform their musical numbers as if they forgot they're in the 30s. The anachronism of hip hop music is fun for one number, but becomes annoying and distracting as the film continues. Furthermore, Benjamin's falsetto grates like nails on a chalkboard.

Idlewild ultimately fails to connect because it's a musical with bad music, which negates its many other strong points. All of Barber's neat tricks fail to compensate for the music, and Benjamin's strong but subtle performance is lost in the shuffle.

If Idlewild is an exercise of style over substance, it's the conflict between style and substance that forms the very heart of Spike Lee's socially confused satire Bamboozled. Lee tells the story of Peerless "Pierre" Delacroix, a black television writer who works for racist network executive Thomas Dunwitty. Interestingly, Lee has Michael Rapaport play Dunwitty as if he thinks he's black (using stereotypically black mannerisms and slang), and Damon Wayans play Delacroix as if he wants to be white. The Wayans performance is a serious miscall, basically a broad but completely humorless version of the "white boy" character he occasionally played on "In Living Color." It just doesn't work, and just when we're getting used to it, another character actually calls attention to it, outright asking Delacroix, "where'd you get that accent?" If Lee is trying to make a point here, the point is lost in the presentation.

But then again, that's the problem not just with Wayans's performance, but with the whole movie. The story involves Delacroix trying to get out of his contract by pitching a modern-day black-face minstrel show to Dunwitty. Delacroix figures that the idea is so offensive, he'll be fired on the spot, but his plan backfires spectacularly when his show is not only picked up, but becomes a cultural sensation.

The story may sound intriguing, but it's not original by any means; as one IMDb user comments, it's basically "an angry black version of The Producers."

Lee shoots himself in the foot by presenting the viewer with a concept that doesn't work in any capacity whatsoever. It's too absurd to work as tragedy, too angry to work as comedy, too disturbing to work as musical entertainment (despite the presence of dancing wunderkind Savion Glover), and, above all, too confused to work as a message film. What, exactly, is Lee's message? I just can't figure it out. He has plenty of targets in the film: blacks who act too "white," whites who act too "black," a culture that is too quick to embrace racism as long as it's profitable, and even blacks who use racial pride as an excuse for ignorance and violence. Regardless of whether these are worthy targets of satire, Lee doesn't seem to know what to say about these social issues. Lee has always relished in stirring up black anger and white guilt, but here he outdoes himself by perpetuating the very stereotypes he wants to rail against, as if modern audiences need to be chastized for forms of prejucide that are decades outdated.

Of the two films, Bamboozled creates the far greater sin. While Idlewild is steeped in the "black culture" of its storyline's period (there is not a single white character in the film, but one barely notices) Bamboozled presents a world which includes white characters, and, not surprisingly from Lee, every one of them is racist to one degree or another. Isn't this attitude a form of racism in itself?

rebuttal to Susannah Breslin

"The Daily Beast" continued its tradition of questionable journalism today, by publishing a "debate" between two alleged "sexperts," Grant Stoddard (author of the non-fiction book Working Stiff) and Susannah Breslin (author of the blog Reverse Cowgirl). The subject of this so-called debate, which really turns out to not be a debate at all, but rather two opposing but thoroughly undynamic views on a recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, is the question of who "has it worse" when dealing with sexual double standards, men or women. The study allegedly reveals that men feel more constrained by social norms than women do -- or at least that more men report such feelings than women do.

It's worth noting that neither the editor nor the two contributing authors question the validity of the data sampling (140 undergrads from the University of Saskatchewan). It's also worth noting that, judging from the introductory blurbs, the editor clearly either didn't read or didn't understand the content of the opinion pieces written by the authors. The blurbs twice declare that the pieces contrast the problems of "promiscuous women" with those of "men who can't get laid," but this is simply, objectively untrue; in fact, the problems of "men who can't get laid" (also, in a mockery of sensitivity and journalistic integrity, referred to as "losers" in the article's title) are never addressed by either author.

Stoddard's primary observations on sexual double standards are:

1) Men, for the most part, are expected to comply with a woman's sexual requests even if they are different from the norm, while if the man is the one requesting something out of the ordinary, he is labeled as deviant or disgusting. ("While I’m supposed to honor requests to slap, restrain, throttle, and enable any Sapphic whim a woman may wish to actualize," Stoddard explains, "a libidinous digression from me means putting an already tattered reputation on the line. Technically speaking I’m a man, and as such, I’m obligated to keep it simple.")

2) A woman choosing not to have sex is seen as exercising a right, while a man making the same choice is often humiliated by his sexuality being questioned, either through his ability ("can't get it up?") or his preference ("what, are you gay or something?").

I myself am not experienced enough with Stoddard's first point, although his second point can be verified by any man who has ever turned sex down.

While Stoddard's opinion piece is based mostly on personal experience (providing far too much unwanted insight into the author's sex life), he at least uses the Canadian Journal's study as a launching point, while Breslin rejects the study's findings outright without any explanation other than her own subjective conclusions. Breslin's two main points in arguing that "women have it worse" can be summarized as: 1) it's true because I say it is, and 2) it's true because the Internet says it is.

Yes, Breslin's primary argument against the study's findings is an observation that people on the Internet object to female sexuality. I'd counter with my own observation that people on the Internet object to just about everything, but let's look at Breslin's argument in her own words: "Take a look at the young women who write openly about their sex lives online, and what you’ll find is that trailing along behind them is a line of rabid attackers looking to punish them for doing so."

I'm sure this is true. The Internet provides a voice for every opinion that seems to exist, including extremists, Puritans, and others who would strenuously object to depictions of female sexuality. Do these people reflect the views of society as a whole? Such a conclusion, which Breslin jumps to without question, seems problematic at best.

Breslin provides an example so absurd that it completely destroys what little credibility she has left:

"When Lena Chen . . . posted a shot of her face after oral sex, Gawker pronounced it the “Worst Overshare Anywhere Ever”. . . It’s as if when women choose to exercise their sexual freedoms, men can’t quite figure out whether to love them or hate them for it. What, exactly, are these women being ostracized for—being sexual, experimenting sexually, or having the guts to put themselves out there . . . ?"

Astoundingly, Breslin overlooks the more obvious answer, that Chen is being criticized not for being sexual, but for the graphic nature of her "oversharing." This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an example of sexual double standards; if Breslin thinks a man could get away with posting a picture of himself dripping with semen, and not be greeted with cries of disgust and outrage, she is clueless indeed. If, on the other hand, she recognizes that a man posting such a graphic picture would receive criticism as well, then her example seriously undermines her own claim that Chen and other such women are the victims of a double standard.

I am not saying that women do not suffer from sexual double standards. I am saying, however, that Breslin's article -- poorly researched, poorly presented, and VERY poorly reasoned -- has failed to convince me of anything other than her own shortsightedness.