This blog is a visual articulation of MY views of the world around me. I will present various sides of arguments, and always sum them up with my own personal take.
My more entertaining/diverse/ridiculous/lovable blog can be found at http://mrjdjude.tumblr.com/ and I'll do all of my following from that blog as well!
Thanks and enjoy!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Have Truer Words Ever Been Spoken?
So I’ve been dying to get into Mad Men. I was encouraged to watch this show from season 1 but resisted. I set my DVR a few months back to get me ready for the new season and these recent articles (one and two) have my interest level at 11 on a scale of 1-10!
While I’m excited for the new season, this post is about a quote from the first article I read (which was actually the second in the series. Yea, I read them out of order. Sue me!). Here’s the quote (the italics are from the article, I’ve emboldened parts for emphasis):
Cooper is smart enough to be a coward. He knows what was true then and, sadly, is still true today. Will white consumers abandon a product once its brand is too black? Yes, they will. Will black consumers abandon a product once its brand is too black? Yes, not wanting to be stereotyped, they will. Even as multicultural image campaigns rightly lobby for more and better black representation in commercials, and as much as America now embraces the endorsement of certain black celebrities, the politically incorrect truth is that there’s a tipping point. The moment a product is “ghetto,” white consumers are gone—and then black consumers are gone, too.
Is that not the most true set of statements you’ve ever read? I mean, let’s think about some products, Tommy Hilfiger, Crown Royal, Chevy Impala?!?!
I’m speaking out of hyperbole, a little, but I think that shit is so true. How about you?
Article Share: "Ethnic Notions"
Sometimes you come across something that blows your mind and you wish that you had time to explore it further. Well this is mine! This documentary produced/directed by Marlon Riggs and narrated by Esther Role discusses the early commerical/social images of Black people in American culture and how that has created the America we live in today.
As a progressive Black, the images were troubling at first view and progressed into undefinable pronouncements. As an artist, it continues to fuel my passion to challenge and question current concepts on race and build a new vocabulary when discussing work from people of color and, more specifically, Black people.
PLEASE take the 5:00 minutes to watch this clip and be as entertained/enthralled/enraged/encouraged as I was.
P.S. If you have time, check out this clip from another Riggs documentary called “Color Adjustment” that tracks the history of Blacks on television over a 40 year span.
Article Share: "White Women Do It, Too: 8 Things Black Women Can’t Get Away With Doing"
Let me start off by saying I’m SICK AND TIRED of this conversation. It’s the same rhetoric over and over again. If it isn’t a story about why Black women are single, or why Black men don’t want Black women, it’s a story on how the “other” side has it so much easier in the dating world. Everyone is looking for someone to blame or someone to yell at for “making” them a victim.
In the most recent “I’m a victim of society” news, here is another post by LaShaun Williams. I railed against a previous article of hers (unfortunately/fortunately I can’t find it). Generally I think she misses that mark and fails to take in the whole story when she writes. She has her right to do that, I just hate it when she uses her opinion to speak for the whole…
This article is yet another example of her style of broad generalizations and making those generalizations examples for the whole.
In the article she states that Black women can’t get away with sex on the first date (or within the first three months). Speaking only for myself, (trying to refrain from falling into the same trap I’m mad at her about) sex too soon isn’t a turn-off. Sex too late can be. There are no separate rules for Black women as opposed to the other races of women I’ve dated.
I don’t think I agree with either her sex tape or nose job comments. I’m sure if [insert Black celeb here] “leaked” a sex tape, she wouldn’t get too much backlash (depending on who she was…). It’s not about what race the person is on the sextape fiascos, it is all about the personal persona. If they’re a socialite or someone that others want to see naked, it won’t have a negative affect. As far as the nose job piece, plenty of rhinoplasties go wrong, Black and white, and many go well, Black and white. Plastic surgery is a whole other conversation (body image, European standards of beauty, access to the best doctors, etc…).
Her commentary on loud talking and low-rise jeans are real weak. DON’T TALK LOUD ON THE PHONE. Nobody wants to hear that shit. Black, white, Asian, male, female. That shit is always unattractive. Regardless. DON’T WEAR CLOTHES THAT DON’T FIT YOU! Also, not all Black women look bad in them. How can she forget about the diversity in body structures of Black women?! Another example of her myopic view of the world.
Without even commenting on her “Black women and angry faces” I have to say I am really annoyed by her commentary. Most things are repetitive. They come from a complete victim mentality. They are broad claims but she leaves out a large section of the people whom she is supposedly defending. What is most upsetting is this antiquated view on sexuality.
I talk about sex, a lot. I like love it. It’s important to me. I would venture that it is important to others too. All of Williams’ comments about sex support sexual suppression. Sexual liberation is a good thing. Why should Black women keep themselves from that? Who is asking for that? No one that I know.
Again, I’m really tired of this type of story. It saddens me that this is still part of the current dialogue. Not sure what it takes to get past it, but I hope we figure it out soon. My sanity depends (slightly) on it.
Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea
Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea was by far my favorite play of the entire festival. Was it the most well written script? Probably not. Did it feature the best direction? No. Was I blown away by the performances? Not really? So then why was it my favorite? Because it spoke to so many experiences and it seemed like the only play that asked me questions without answering them before I had a chance to.
In the story, Buffalo born Devon and Simone have a sister’s weekend in Martha’s Vineyard where Simone has become the personal assistant to a woman who has married into her wealth. Devon’s first day in the Vineyard everything seems to come to a crashing halt when Simone’s boss, Michaela Kell, finds out she is getting a divorce. Questions about class, race, and the cost of “perfection” are all brought to the front and Molly Smith Metzler asks the audience to draw their own conclusions.
One of the best moments in the play is when Michaela reveals that she had a late term abortion and that decision is what is behind her husband wanting to get the divorce. She reveals that the reason she choose to have the abortion is that after finding out the baby would be a dwarf the husband was insistent on forcing the child to undergo surgeries that would make him “normal” and fit in to the “Martha’s Vineyard Society.” She was unwilling to put her child through that type of pain and scrutiny, so she decided to abort the child. She couldn’t bring up a child in a world that forces you to live up to this false sense of “perfection.” Up until this point, we’ve only seen Michaela as a bitchy, over-indulgent, self-rightous woman who we shouldn’t feel compassion for although Simone insists that she’s a good person.
Not only did I appreciate the play, I really appreciate all of the material they provided about the writer. Here are a few excerpts:
On her seemingly sterotypical characters:
I think if you only read the first half of the play, you might think it was just a stupid, rich-person comedy. These people aren’t the stereotype you think they are at the top of the play- or that I thought they were at the top of the play. All three of these women surprised me in interesting ways as I got to know them.
Some of my colleagues stayed in the mindset of the first 10 pages. Yes, the broad style in which she chose to (and I don’t think the direction helped out much either) introduce us to the characters did make it hard to like/appreciate them so when the play goes to those emotional places later on, a lot of the audience was there with her. I think Metzler may also speak to another issue; script submission policies, especially first 10 page reads. If someone only read the first few pages of this work, they may (or already may have) passed on it.
Talking about the play’s concepts and why she wrote it:
…I’ve been thinking about you gain entry into that world; what you give up to be in that world; what it feels like to wake up and live in the houses I saw
The theatre world. Being of that world. What do I have to give up to be there? Am I there? Am I sleeping and waking up in the same glass houses I’ve been throwing stones at? Already? Am I on that path? Do I want to be?
Responding to why she has minimalist stage directions:
I don’t want to be too specific. I’ll write something like “the couch is very confident” and let them figue out what that looks like. I love collaborating; that’s why I’m not a novelist. I love the idea that the four or five of us sit down and realize this world, and I fund that thrilling.
Speaking about the parallels between Simone’s perception of herself as more than an employee and Michaela’s position as a wife but more as a contractor:
One of the things I observed [the summer she worked on Martha’s vineyard] is that if you are magnificently beautiful, like Michaela, you can get in. But if you come in on that boat, it’s a very different game. The “trophy wife” is very different than the “moneyed wife.” It is kind of like being hired because you have a very specific skill set: you have to do four hours of Pilates every day and be gorgeous. It’s very lonely to me because you don’t actually get to make any friends; you don’t have anybody’s respect. It seemed to me a very sad and lonely gig.
She wrote about her experiences and those around her. Why do people of color get demonized when we do the same thing? When majority writers do it, they are “emphasizing the specific in order to highlight the universality” but when POCs do it, they are being too “culturally specific” and not speaking to the greater human race. Explain that too me!
