An irony of existing while Black and male and middle-aged is that as soon as you advance out of the age range where you’re at a wildly disproportionate risk of dying violently, you age into the space where you’re disproportionately at risk of dying from unnaturally fraught “natural” causes. We age out of bullets and into high blood pressure. And this year, more than any year I’ve been alive, has been a ceaseless reminder of the proximity of death. Death in the air. Death at Giant Eagle. Death at the barbershop. Death while hugging your dad.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this while attempting to deconstruct my feelings about Pixar’s Soul. Namely, why I loved it while so many of y’all didn’t.