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Black people excuses to hang up

Exploring the Science Fiction Genre

In the process of searching for my voice, I keep returning to the genre of science fiction. In those rare moments when I am able to *finger quotes* hear myself, I am calling out from the balcony of a high rise in a gritty manhattan overrun by pollution, wealth division and awe inspiring tech. Or from the mineral mines of an inhabited Mars, the assembly line of an unscrupulous factory, or the cockpit of a spaceship. I have my judgments about this genre. It can sometimes be corny, campy, too abstract to be interesting. Plus, it’s usually weird, and black people, my core audience, generally distrust weird. We are a collective people: unity, code fluency, style, and common sense are part of our values. We don’t connect with the fear of aliens because we know implicitly that we are the aliens. The average life of a slave in a slave state makes mundane work of Kubrick’s slow reveal of man’s inherent brutality. I will be discussing space films as a part of the science fiction genre because, since black people don’t often get to go to space irl, and les sso on film, (and if so they are one token on a State sponsored mission). Space Travel for us is a bit of a fiction.

For me though, any story I tell must be grounded. It must be medicine, in the sense of a balm to the eyes of people who are exhausted of seeing ourselves disrespected and defamed on screen. See: The Wiz, Moonlight, Black Panther. It has to ooze black realness, like Boys in the Hood, Love and Basketball, Atlanta (TV). It has to land emotionally in a rich, honest way. See all of the above. It has to be a battle cry for the oppressed. See Parasite, Bacurau, City of God, Get Out. It has to be beautiful, and subtly told, with mystery and revelation throughout.

To begin my exploration I started pretty arbitrarily with this WIRED list of the best sci fi movies of all time. I developed a set of categories based on my expectations from the synopsis, word of mouth, and in some cases having seen the film. The categories are Story- these are films that I think hinge on taking full advantage of the setting and plot possibilities of the genre. The synopsis reads like a crazy story. About half of the films on the list I categorized as Story. Then (in no particular order) there’s Aesthetics only. Very few in this catefory. I noticed as I was reading about the films that some of them were noted because of their gory, graphic, visceral imagery. Cringey and scary. The thought of it repels me and for that reason I am curious about it. I am always watching out for things that have a visceral impact, but I don’t want to go for cheap thrills. My next category is Emotional Appeal. These are stories that tug at the heartstrings, using sci fi backdrops to play out universal human dramas. I have always believed this to be a strong approach to storytelling, and ET is included among these movies. I also anticipate that the writing of these films, the set up, relationships between characters, and the acting all had to be strong. I think that this is a favorable alternative to relying on expensive VFX/elaborate set design that sci fi often demands. I also suspect that there are class undertones to sci fi set design as they will be derived from what was considered modern or futuristic at the time of their creation. Black people, (the slave, the alien) uses what is handed down, when it comes to infrastructure at least. Pop Significance I plan to watch this section last. These are the films whose social impact I hope to meet and exceed. I am sure they fall into the other categories so once I have gathered info on the categories I will review where these stand.

Death Proof

I really paid no mind to this film when it came out, and almost considered skipping it, but that would be cheating. I’m glad I didn’t cheat though, because it was actually fun to watch. The structure was unexpected; you followed one group of girls up to the point where they are unceremoniously dispatched by a serial killer, then you switch to another group of girls, but this time the killers messed with the wrong chicks. I can see why the movie wasn’t as popular though, it was sort of tough to watch. The first episode sets up who the killer is and what he wants, but the suspense is built up in a sort of indirect, sort of sexually creepy way, not in a wow this plot is thick sort of way. So if you brave the first hour of truly mundane “girl talk,” trite romantic drama, and ham-handedly placed references to old Hollywood. You are rewarded with: “this is the killer’s MO and somebody could’ve stopped him but they didn’t.” I can’t help but wonder what could this film have been if he messed with the wrong chicks up front. If we had spent the entire 2 hours with the second group of women, Tarantino building the suspense among them as he does best, and truly earning the satisfying finale of them beating the killer to a pulp. I admit I enjoyed the movie for it’s purpose. I got to see a creep get his ass kicked by three badass women. But besides that, it felt very phoned in and deepened my suspicion that people with penises simply are unable to concieve of women as fully human. Why else would you create three main characters, kill them off, and then substitute them with almost identical characters? I often find myself in the position of hoping that I’m seeing sophisticated irony or coded meaning, but I think Tarantino’s female characters from Death Proof onward were completely disposable and cookie cutter. His range of female dialogue, situation and characterization is as narrow in this film as it is broad in his period films involving male protagonists. I am not surprised that I heard no mention of this film, despite my undying devotion to Rosario Dawson.

#film #quentin tarantino #death proof #art #black #screenwriting #feminism #chick flick #horror #thriller

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Inglourious Basterds

This is the third installation in my archeological dig into Tarantino’s work. At this point my understanding of Blaxploitation has developed to understanding the Exploitation film genre more broadly.

An exploitation film is a film that attempts to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies".[1] They sometimes attract critical attention and cult followings. Some of these films, such as Night of the Living Dead (1968), set trends and become historically important

Through this lens, Tarantino’s racial and gender politics take a back seat to the genre’s foundational property of exploiting “trends, genres or lurid content.” The question of why Tarantino is drawn to this type of content is probably the same as the question of why I am drawn to this type of content. It’s fun, entertaining, and people love it. I think the reason that Tarantino is the first filmmaker I have put under this type of magnifying glass is because I am fundamentally fascinated by the question of what do people love? what do people want to see? where do they want to be transported? Especially during the Apocalypse. Where I may (or may not) differ from Tarantino is in the urgent need to know How can movies trick people into being better? For me, what makes movies magic is their ability to spellbind, to suspend reality in favor of a sublime experience. If a movie does not have that quality then it has failed as a movie, though it may succeed as a work of intellectual or emotional expression. “High Art” filmmaking that snubs its nose at the appetites of the general population is perhaps a microcosm of the same failing suffered by political activists of which I consider myself one. The vision of utopia becomes convoluted, oppositional with no independent foundation, and requiring of so much intellectual labor, and subordination of instinct and primal appetite that it is only a matter of time until the lay-person must, for no other reason than having other shit to worry about, throw up their hands and throw on a flick they can forget to. Tarantino’s films do just that and yet, I still reserve the sneaking suspicion that within each of his stories there is a kernel of poignance, a simple and fundamental grain of social truth or courageous speculation that elevates these films past the level of mere entertainment and stirs the mind in that place where rebellious thoughts and underdog victories are born.

Both the first and second times I watched Inglourious Basterds it struck me that this is one of my favorite Tarantino films. The thing I love most about this movie is the idiosyncratic ensemble cast. There was the unmistakable feeling that everyone was having a lot of fun. The story flew by as I got wrapped up in the individual stories of Aldo, The Bear Jew, Hans Lando, Frederick Zoller, Shoshanna, Stiglitz, and Bridget von Hammersmark, not to name any of the memorable but more minor characters. It is rare that I leave a film remembering the names of seven fictional people.

One of Tarantino’s signature moves is giving people fitting and names which are fun to say and repeated gratuitously. Beyond that, each of the names is connected to its own personal legend; a legend which puts the characters at odds or in alignment with one another which has the effect of creating both dramatic tension and emotional investment in the characters.

Another of my favorite things about Inglourious Basterds is the Shoshanna storyline. It is a beautifully poetic historical fiction in that it symbolizes all of the tiny acts of defience which will not be recorded by history, but without which we would have even less freedom. Tarantino affirms more eloquently here, than in his two following works, the case for self defense in the face of abuse.

Tarantino makes films about the good guy (or girl) kicking the bad guy (or girl’s) ass. Revenge, sweet and simple.

Ok duh, that’s not that deep. But it does make the Hateful 8 a bit more interesting. Everybody’s a bad guy, pretending to be a good guy; everybody dies.

I won’t belabor this point, I think it really sells itself. Revenge is a human impulse. Who among us hasn’t abused an inanimate object as punishment for stubbing our poor big toe? Tarantino gives people opportunities to feel a version the feeling of exacting bloody revenge on our enemies. All the while winking at the reality of how similar we are in nature, regardless of what side of a conflict we fall on.

Having arrived on foot and in shackles, Django rides off into the night with his bride on horseback, the master’s house ablaze behind them. The Apaches carve a swastika into Lando’s forehead, a satisfying crunch to the opening scene, where a French father of three who is sheltering Jews chops wood in the sun. But every single person involved does horrible things and the ones we’re rooting for triumph, however marginally, in the end. There is something brutally honest about this take on life. “Just make sure you root for the right guy!” his films seem to grumble belligerently before taking another swig of beer.

Inglorious bastards also offered me an inroad into another (surprisingly obvious) way to approach politics in fiction; like an adult. Backing up a bit.

I find it extremely juvenile and obnoxious when a fictional story attempts to dramatize a social reality, presumably with the intention of generating “empathy” among the power wielding sociopaths (The same ones who create and uphold the “adversity” of the human condition -which happens to make mediocre but sellable TV and film). I wonder whether or not the main reason people watch these films is as a reflex of their guilty conscience; or simply to break up the monotony of their safe, comfortable lives. But I digress.

Tarantino’s characters have political and social stances. I wonder if this dose of realism was spawned from a reaction to the restrictions of politeness which relegate religion, god, and sex to the realm of the taboo, and whether or not social media culture risen up to meet him, by creating the illusion that everyone has a political stance and opinion? Whatever the case may be, I like this about his films. People articulate where they stand, even if it’s neutral, and their stances drive their actions.

On the personal side, in Hateful 8, Django, and Inglourious Basterds, no one demonstrates being overwhelmed with personal emotion about someone that they are in direct contact with, although love often proves to be the excuse that makes the various social and political conflicts possible. Django’s bride is mostly apart from him, and when she’s with him, she just as the Domergue siblings are separated and in disguise most of the time; Shoshanna and her black man are barely seen together, him being more of a symbol and tool to her ends than a real character. Tarantino’s are not emotive, intimate stories. Instead they are moving ideas with funny voices and great costumes, each with his or own proud folklore.

#film #screenwriting #quentin tarantino #inglourious basterds #action #wwii #nazis #blackgirlmagic #black

The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained

This was my first time watching The Hateful Eight for some reason, though I like Tarantino, nothing about the film drew me in while it was in theaters. To be honest I found it difficult to stay engaged throughout the film and frequently found myself wondering why they had presumably spent so much money on horses, just to add window dressing to a series of conversations inside a wood cabin. Unlike Django which I had seen before, and which was action packed from the beginning, The (nearly three hour long) Hateful Eight was all talk until the final showdown. I suppose the casual and wonton abuse of the female captive, a murderer named Domergue, was meant to offer a steady diet of action throughout the film. But something about her psycho-bitch appetite for abuse left me wondering if she wasn’t just a half baked vehicle for a bit of acceptable anti-lady violence, considering her wholly unnecessary lack of lines. My suspicion about Tarantino’s disdain for this female character was reinforced by her inability to stand up after cutting herself free from the now dead bounty hunter she is chained to. Nothing about the prior scuffle indicated that she could no longer walk, and her appetite for abuse up until this point suggested that she would have the sheer will to stand, once physically free from his lifeless body. Instead she stumbles, staggers and sputters her way over to the gun, missing her opportunity to save herself. Now you may think that because I’m writing this while on my period, my uterus may have jumped out of my body and taken over my keyboard, directing the line of this inquiry toward wholly unnecessary feminist nitpicking. And while I do physically feel like my uterus is trying to escape from my body, you would be mistaken in that thought. I am talking about the critical moment. The climax of the film when all of the tensions come to a head. Domergue realizes she is not going to earn the allegiance of the white sheriff (who then faints) and she goes for the gun. Samuel L. Jackson has been castrated by rifle and is defenseless (I’ll come back to that part, don’t worry.) But this woman, who has for two hours been full to the brim with vinegar, and who has taken fist after elbow to the face without losing her cheeky grin, stumbles and sputters her way through the opportunity she has spent the entire movie waiting for, giving the sheriff just enough time to regain consciousness, shoot, and hang her, watching nostalgically from the comfort of Samuel L. Jackson’s lap (having somehow overcome his lifetime of racism) as the life drains from her body. I am not judging Tarantino’s relationship to female characters at this point; after all he did give us Kill Bill. I resist the impulse to draw some conspiratorial allegory about allegiance between Black and White men vs all women. But I will say that the inconsistency in Domergue’s character which allowed for the sputtering climax was only made possible by the gloss of misogyny which has prepped audiences to believe that at any time, any woman (even a career murderer with unrivaled blood thirst) may simply feel too faint to stand.

Looking The Hateful Eight in relationship to Django, the two are in some ways almost the same film, and in other ways, night and day. Much as Jodie Domergue’s love for his sister is an invisible hand shaping the first story, Django’s love for his bride Broomhilda, discussed but almost never visualized on screen, drives the second. Broomhilda is the beauty to Domergue’s beast; they are both fiery; Broomhilda in a way that earns her the nickname “Lil Troublemaker” from Django, and abuse from white slavers. Domergue in a way that earns her a black eye, a bloody nose, and a death sentence in the post Civil War west.

The films also share bounty hunter protagonists, and racism as a central point of conflict. In each there is the matter of vigilante justice v.s. making sure the Hangman gets a chance to do his job; and characters frequently pretend to be something they aren’t. Both films open with battered and hopeless men traversing desolate landscapes (a beleaguered crucifix and a lone traveller on a snowcapped mountains v.s. battered slaves marching through the desert). The travelers meet unexpected companions which set them on a collision course with destiny. The films end very differently though; in Hateful Eight the lawmen end up dead, while Django makes off with his bride, having killed the transgressors without even being shot once. There is a begrudging acceptance of death on behalf of most of the characters in The Hateful Eight, presumably due to life being so precarious in the Wild Wild West. For me this was somewhat disorienting, and I didn’t realize that I had arrived at the climax of the film until I was halfway through it. In Django however, life is much more precious, and the affront of a free black man on a horse heightened the life and death stakes, each murder being a serious and gratifying transgression of Django’s prescribed social statement. I am now eager to watch Inglorious Bastards again and consider the irony of the German being an ally to the Negro in Django, and the enemy of America in his WWII film.

Castration: In Hateful Eight, Samuel L. Jackson is castrated by rifle, at the hands of Domergue’s brother Jodie who has been lying in wait under the floorboards. If we are talking about suspense and gratification, this castration is the gratifying payoff to the question of whether or not Sam Jackson will get away with making (everyone vividly imagine) a Confederate General’s son perform fellatio on him and subsequently murdering that General. By parallel, an overseer threatens to castrate Django but he is saved by the bell, in the form of Samuel L. Jackson’s character who arrives to inform him that he has been sentenced to a fate worse than death. One could say Sam Jackson is politically castrated in Django, but I as yet reserve my judgement as to whether or not Tarantino intends to articulate this level of allegory. These facts together however do beg the question; what is Quentin Tarantino’s relationship to black men’s genitals?

There is much more to be said about Tarantino’s work on these two films. The camera work on Hateful Eight alone will certainly bring me back to it, although it wasn’t my favorite, and to be honest I am a bit perturbed to find myself leaving jewels of cinematic beauty and craft unexamined in favor of questioning the sociological implications of his work therefore, je vous laisse, for now.

#film #movies #quentin tarantino #django #hateful eight #foodforthought