higher-thoughts:

Blackness.

I really enjoyed not only working on my own and my friend’s creative projects, but also those of my peers who shared in class about theirs. Whether it was a piece of their short story or watching their film it was incredible to see where everyone went with their takes on afrofuturism and how not one topic was ever the same. For my own story, I wanted to comment on the fact that African Americans, if not all Black people affected by slavery, should be given reparations. My story developed from the question of “what if the hair of all descendents of African slavery held an untapped power that scientists say has the ability to control the minds of white people?” With what I had decided to write, I briefly explored how white people always seem to want what they simply cannot have or be, white tears, and the power that is being Black.

What makes my story Afrofuturist despite the fact that it’s set only a few months from now is that it shows Black people having the upperhand, being in control, and ultimately changing the world for the better. The three Afrofuturism thematic elements I’ve addressed were race, retribution, and coveting Black bodies. Race is key in this story because it is what determines who has the power. This power is only afforded to those who are descendents of US African slavery. Retribution shows up in two forms. The government is allowing African Americans to wield this power as reparations or, in another word, as revenge. Then, the ending shows this as well as is explained after the last theme. Lastly, the coveting of Black bodies is part of the ending where Petunia puts on Devin’s hair in an attempt to steal her power and wield it as her own. But, it doesn’t work because it’s not her power. It’s not her hair, not her soul, not her history to take and to claim. So the mind control doesn’t work. I wanted this story to really speak on how people, specifically white people, always try to steal from African Americans, but they can never be us.

Although there were others who had stories that gave Black people some kind of superpower (a short film from Tuesday’s lecture showing creative projects, for example), there were also creative projects that just showed Black people being in space, being the majority of the population, fighting against a corporation, etc. All of these were different and wonderful takes on the various avenues of what afrofuturism can look like, and how limitless it truly is.

This week we discussed District 9 which, I found out, was based on a true story minus the aliens. The film alluded to District Six, an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, declared a “whites only” area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed to Cape Flats during the apartheid era. In this alternate reality film, instead of it being the segregation of humans it was that of refugee aliens being set apart from humans. The film “explores themes of humanity, xenophobia and social segregation when an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa.” A population of malnourished aliens are found within the ship and the South African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9.

I thought it was an interesting point for Professor Due to bring up the question of whether or not this film should be considered afrofuturism. Her reasoning for bringing it into question was that 1) the film didn’t follow a Black protagonist and most of the cast were white actors (yes, it took place in South Africa where there are a lot of white people but the point still stands) and 2) making social commentary by equating Black people to aliens is definitely not in the self interest in uplifting Black people but rather the opposite and giving white people a pat on the back. This film, though assigned to our class to watch with the assumption that it was afrofuturistic, was in fact merely science fiction with an off hand attempt at making racial social commentary.

I think what could have made this film truly afrofuturistic would have been the swapping of characters. For every white person, it should have been a Black person. Changing the setting of the movie as well. Or, also, letting the aliens win/succeed in their venture.

In Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” music videos, both of these artists play to the tune of the Black Horror aesthetic by making direct comments on gun violence, police brutality, and slavery all the while having an unexplainably magical element. In “This Is America,” Gambino repeatedly makes references to senseless gun violence from start to finish. Immediately after the opening scene there is Gambino pulling out a gun and shooting as masked man with his back turned towards him. This mask was more of a sack that was tied over this man’s head, alluding to the past/slavery but instead a Black man, Childish Gambino, was the culprit rather than a white supremacist. Then, there’s Gambino imitating a mass shooting at a church by taking an assault rifle and shooting done his choir, speaking more on gun violence (that was done by white supremacists but, again, it’s Childish Gambino committing the crime).

In “Alright,” Lamar is singing “we gon be alright” while simultaneously flying around the city, hovering above everyone as if he were some benevolent being. He’s floating by scenes of power plants, usually found in lower income cities, and above crows of Black folks both young and old. Then towards the end of the video, Lamar is finger-gunned down by a white cop while floating atop a light post. After he’s shot he’s seen floating gently back to the ground, not bleeding. In his “final” seconds, Lamar is seen smiling/smirking as if to say “we gon be alright.”

I think that there is an over-fetishization of Black horror (in a non critical way) that desensitizes many Black people to the realities of our situations. Yes, a lot of it is true for many but at the same time, for those with influence (ie. Gambino, Lamar, etc) when and where can they draw the line and help flip the narrative?

The film Sorry to Bother You came out during the summer of 2018 and starred actor LaKeith Stanfield. I always suspected that LaKeith was a “weird” actor, that he was someone who wanted to create mind-fucking work. I was first introduced to him in Danny Glover’s show Atlanta which came out in 2016. This show was weird, mind-fucking, and meta. I absolutely loved it. Then, LaKeith reappeared in Get Out in early 2017. Though his role was short it definitely lived up to the expectation of being out of the box, which I suppose wasn’t too difficult seeing as it was a Jordan Peele and MonkeyPaw production. It was no surprise for me then seeing LaKeith taking on the spotlight in Sorry to Bother You and continuing down his path of afrosurrealism and Black horror aesthetics acting and breaking into afrofuturism.

First and foremost, I’d like to make the distinction between Black horror, afrosurrealism, and afrofuturism for both myself and others who’re following. Simply put and to my understanding, all aforementioned worked are afrosurrealism as they deal with absurd real world problems with just as absurd solutions. Get Out, however, falls more into the Black Horror aesthetic as it is actually terrifying. Atlanta is plainly afrosurrealism. Then there is Sorry to Bother You which is the true afrofuturistic (Black Horror could be argued) aesthetic as it deals with technological advances that concern Black characters.

In the film Sorry to Bother You, the technological advances that the protagonist (LaKeith/Cassius) faces is that of human-horse hybrid “horsepower.” By having an individual snort a cocaine-like substance they are they slowly transformed into a horse hybrid that grants them the strength of a horse, allowing them to work harder, longer, and tougher. I think it’s also important to note the kinds of people who are being targeted for this kind of DNA alteration in order to exploit human labor. These people are lower income folks who are in need of a job, a place to stay, stability, etc as they are promised living wages, shelter, and sustenance. Since this movie takes place in Oakland, CA it’s also not hard to surmise that these lower income folks are most likely Black and Brown individuals, further making commentary on how corporations exploit Black/Brown labor for profit.

The mind-fucking and afrofuturist aspect of the film was this concoction in order to drive production and exploit Black bodies. To genetically change people into horse hybrids through the ingestion of a drug was not only a plot twist but insane and unethical science. I think what sets this film apart from Black Horror was that it was meant to be dark humor and satirical so you could breathe and laugh it off despite it being horrible unlike Get Out.

Before the start of the class, I came in thinking that Afrofuturism was just the idea of Black characters doing things in the far “future.” Kind of like the Jetsons where technology was advanced and there are holograms and teleportation devices etc. After having attended the first few weeks of this Afrofuturism course (taught by Tananarive Due at UCLA) my understanding of Afrofuturism has evolved to see that it’s essentially Black characters addressing absurd world problems by being or using just as absurd solutions. Professor Due said it best that you cannot rationalize through them or else it won’t make sense. You have to take it the way it is in order to see the bigger picture and meaning that the use of Afrofuturism is doing. However, after her first lecture of week 2 I’m unsure of how Afrofuturism differs from Afrosurrealism so I’m looking forward to diving deep into both of these concepts as the course goes forward. I know that both are a means to better understand contemporary Black life, but do these means overlap in practice? Or is Afrosurrealism more of a dream-like reality? Either way, I think Afrofuturism is amazing and needed, and I can’t wait to explore the subject more.

I really enjoyed the short film Pumzi from our first week’s viewing list. I didn’t know what it was about when I first started it but it was easy and fun to figure it out as the film went on. It’s definitely a little scary just because of the fact that we know that climate change is happening all around us and yet we aren’t doing enough/anything to slow it down or prevent it so the world that the main character is living in is desolate of water and trees. The fact that they have to recycle their own body water in order to survive and contribute to their society is wild but also very cool. I thought it was very telling, and relatable, how when the main character tried to tell her superiors that she had soil capable of growing trees that she was instantly shut down and silenced (since they busted up her lab). It just reminded me of how a lot of people are afraid of the truth and of taking chances, never wanting to really support somebody else. I do wonder though how life played out for the main character, and others, once she’d grown that tree from her soil. Was she crucified? Was she praised? Did she die before anyone found her out all alone in the desert?

Blog #6

Likewise, in Candyman, the depiction of Helen as being psychotic from everyone else’s perspective to  her believing in Candyman himself as being the murderer/kidnapper also made me question what was real and in a good way. I felt like because I was not explicitly shown that Helen was wrong or right that it made the film much more exciting to watch. Specifically, the scene where Bernadette is killed by what Helene presumed was Candyman as he had first attacked her then moved on to her friend whereas everyone else took Helene into custody because it was obvious that it had been her and that she needed help. What made me believe Helene was not truly, at this point, responsible was the fact that she had been stabbed in the neck and I could not believe that she did it to herself. Even now, this films makes me think of so many different possibilities and that is what makes it so enjoyable yet scary to me.

After having read all the stories and watched all the films that this class had to offer, I feel like I have learned a lot about Black horror and what I truly find scary. I never thought of jump scares as scary, because they are not, and gravitate more towards psychological thrillers. Works that make me repeat “oh my God” to myself with a rapidly beating heart as I half hide myself in anticipation is what really gets me. Stories and films that throw my sense of reality off make me feel this way because I do not have a confident sense of what is real and begin to question everything that I thought was true. This happened in Get Out, Candyman, Eve’s Bayou (kind of) and “Please Momma”.

The short story “Please Momma” by Chesya Burke is, from the start, suspicious in the fact that the formatting adds to the confusion of what is real and what is not. It gives you enough information to follow the story but not enough to paint a perfect linear progression of what is actually happening until you read it a second time. It was not until I got to the end where I started repeating “oh my God” to myself and was completely shocked, and kind of scared, after learning what had happened with the twins Baby and Sissy. By Burke’s choice to not be very descriptive it helps to build this cloudy picture of what is happening. She is not leaving anything out, but leaves it open for interpretation until it is time to reveal the full truth of the situation.

Blog #5

In the 1998 film Eve’s Bayou, we are face to face with the ugly that one family has to deal with. This ugly being the infidelity of the father, the trauma inflicted upon the daughters, the mother’s silenced pain, and others outside the nuclear family who were also affected such as the father’s sister and the husband of the woman the father had been seeing behind closed doors. A prominent theme within this film would be manipulation and a struggle for power/authority, which we see most notably between the father and his daughters, between the daughters themselves, and the mother and the daughters. I see manipulation, which I consider being more accurately as emotional abuse, as something we see across various Black films such as in any one of Tyler Perry’s films and Precious (2009) and wonder why that is. Why is Black love and the representations of it filled with abuse of this kind that can quite literally follow you for the remainder of your life? I understand this as being the reality of many African Americans, but then the question also becomes ‘why is this our reality?’. Why does pain subsequently follow African Americans, especially within the familial unit? When this is where we turn to in times of need, what has made it such a hub for immense emotional abuse? And, most importantly, why is it always the Black woman the one being represented as the most harmed? (Not to overlook the fact that young Black males are subject to the same manipulation, growing up to then possibly become the abusers themselves as this is a cycle of pain within the Black community).

To draw an example using the latest film that was discussed in class, in Eve’s Bayou there was a construed scene between the father Dr. Louis and eldest daughter Cisely. Following a heated argument between Dr. Louis and his wife Roz, Cisely goes to her father in an attempt to cheer him up. In Cisely’s account of what happened between them she accuses her father of basically trying to take advantage of her and when she did not comply he hit her. Up until this point, the relationship she thought she had with her father was merely seen as an innocent one where she was the favored daughter. They were close and shared intimate moments that seemed perfectly reasonable. In fact, it is this relationship that Cisely shares with her father initially that brings her to to twist Eve’s recount of their father’s affair with Mrs. Mereaux. From the start of the movie, Dr. Louis was manipulating his daughter so that she would always be on his side and love him. When this finally backfired, it changed Cisely and she disassociated with reality for awhile in the film as this emotional/psychological manipulation finally revealed and manifested itself.

Blog 4

In this blog post I will be discussing the 1998 film Beloved. I think it is one of the more scarier and horrific films we have watched, mostly because it takes place during and after slavery beginning in the 1870s. Additionally, it has some very uncomfortable scenes which I think add to its horrificness, but in a needed way. I do not think the film was bad although for the reasons mentioned I understand why it did not perform as well as it could have as a film as opposed to the original novel. My biggest critique of the film was that I found it hard to follow in some parts, but I think that was because the novel had so much more room to elaborate than did the film. I know that movies have to pick and choose what parts to include to get the overall message across, which I believe was achieved, but I wish I could have been shown better how some parts were important rather than feeling like I had to piece together this puzzle when this film was not that kind of movie.

In terms of what scenes were necessary no matter how difficult to watch, I want to solely draw attention to the lynching and Beloved with Paul D although there were more uncomfortable scenes in the film. Any humane person would never want to see a lynching, let alone watch the lynching of various Black men and women in a film. But that is exactly what happened in Beloved, and in other films to create a sense of reality and historical accuracy. Not all Black horror is relative to possession and vodou and, unfortunately, the scariest things are the real horrors that African Americans have faced.

The part of the movie when Beloved, in my opinion, rapes Paul D is one of the uncomfortable as well as confusing scenes. We did not address this scene in class so I especially want to express my views on it. The scene itself shows Beloved forcing herself onto Paul D and, even though you can clearly see he does not want her and feels awful before, during, and after, I cannot understand why he did not push her off of him. I could not tell if it was because she was overpowering him or he just did not want to hurt or upset her. Following this, towards the end of the movie we see Beloved is visibly pregnant which also reminds the viewer that she and Paul D had sex and that he probably got this young girl/poltergeist pregnant (which is weird and unsettling) when he expressed from the start that he wanted to have a child with Sethe. By this point, it became clearer to see that Beloved was trying to be as much like Sethe as she could manage (ie. Paul D, children, etc). I could not figure out why she wanted to be like Sethe though, which also leaves a weird feeling after the movie. But, overall, as a Black horror movie Beloved does that.

Blog #3

In regards to what Black Horror is, I understand that there are various ways to depict all the horrors that affect Black people and what we, as a group, may go through. It is our pains, sorrows, hopes, and fears manifested whether that be through vodou, white supremacy, retaliation, or what so have you. Regardless, the horrors that we face are faced by us alone and bring chills to our bones because they are real, relatable, and therefore terrifying more often than not. My only reservation about some horror works are when there are white protagonists. In the films that we have at least seen in class thus far, such as The Serpent and the Rainbow and Candyman, both protagonists were white and each took something from Black communities in their own way, each having no real benefit to those communities directly affected. Although I find this unsettling for more reasons than one, I do believe that it adds another element of horror by producing these kinds of feelings, too, by showing how detrimental the white savior complex can be. However, in this post I will only address my perspectives on the former film.

In the 1988 film, The Serpent and the Rainbow, the protagonist is white American Dennis Alan who is on a search to find a vodou drug in Haiti that could be used to save theoretically millions of lives as the replacement to anesthesia. Although his intentions sound pure enough, and the film even attempts to make Dennis out as a heroic victim through the many trials he faces as to create a feeling of sympathy (mutilation, becoming cursed, his life being threatened on more than one occasion, etc), Dennis should still not be considered a hero. He is the classic depiction of white colonialism in every aspect. He travels to a seemingly uncivilized country attempting to save those who have become undead, learns how to make the vodou drug and brings it back to the United States (this is not necessarily stealing but it did not benefit the people of Haiti either), and he repeatedly saves and has sex with his Haitian researcher and companion in a manner that feels a little too “I’ve just conquered your entire brown body” which is synonymous to the countless historical accounts of white soldiers/men in general raping colored women of civilizations that were not Americanized. These are the issues I take with this white protagonist in this film because they unearth a feeling of terrible, repeated history and that is what is also scary. Dennis Alan is not the villain in the film, but I cannot say without a doubt that is the hero either.

Blog #2

Having watched Tales from the Hood for the first time this week, I find myself asking a lot of questions, as well as having made connections between class and the film’s intentions. First and foremost, I thought this movie, like a lot of the Black Horror movies we have been watching in this class, was legitimately scary in how accurate it felt to reality. Although this movie was released in 1995, its different stories were all still very relevant to contemporary US despite it being 22 years later. It is concerning, since the similarities are all either white supremacists boldly showcasing their beliefs or Black violence in the community; all of which are present today with the current President unfortunately.

I found the politician story to be the scariest of the movie, followed closely by the gang violence story at the end. The reason the politician story, “KKK Comeuppance”, was scariest to me was because of the creepy, vodou dolls that ultimately brought upon the politician’s demise. Seeing the end, the trapped/saved souls of the past slaves in these dolls, I thought of noted slave uprisings such as Nat Turner’s Rebellion or the Haitian Rebellion where the Black/Haitian slaves retaliated against and attacked their white slave owners and conquerors. I thought of these rebellions because it was a team effort: every suppressed person had to be on the same page about what they were about to do and therefore had to be an unbreakable community in order to succeed. And community, as we have learned, is an aspect of Black horror. Likewise, we see the lack of community in this story between the Black campaign manager and his fellow African Americans as he chooses to be a sellout. He worked to strategically help his racist politician win his campaign by advising him on what exactly to say to reporters regarding his views so as to not sound like a blatant racist towards the Black people he would be representing, who obviously already hated him. Because of the manager’s efforts, the dolls murdered him as he did not express comradery with his own people, instead choosing the whiteman and the privileges that came with that.

Along with this, I found myself curious as to some minor detail one of the three remaining stories. I do not clearly understand the character that gave Walter the tools to vanquish his monster step father. The little girl in his class was never named nor cited as being his friend, so I am unsure of how she was realistically incorporated into the plot. Her only role was to give Walter an answer, but she is nothing more than a whisper in his ear. As a story that that also draws upon magic, I would just think that this important aspect would have been displayed more realistically, as in maybe Walter stumbles upon vodou readings where he discovers this method himself or something more than just a girl telling him what to do to discard of people he does not like.

Blog 1

Although there is not necessarily a magical or science fiction aspect to the tv series “Grey’s Anatomy,” the show still possesses other Black Horror aesthetic aspects. These aspects include: history, morality tales, community, visibility, and the fear of white supremacy. In the series’ latest episode (season 14 episode 10, Personal Jesus), the show comments very loudly on police brutality and the misuse of guns towards Black Americans, particularly young Black boys. Without spoiling the episode, I will say that this storyline felt like true horror because it was mimicking what has been actually happening in America and is still happening today. The Black boy, who was 12 years old, was shot by a white police officer who reacted hastily and without justifiable reason. Upon the boy’s arrival to the hospital via ambulance he is handcuffed to the gurney because the officers saw him as a threat and criminal, despite him being 12 years old and injured.

Their negative bias towards the boy only continues as the episode goes on, leading Dr. Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams) to bring up his own past experiences with the brutality he has faced from the police during his childhood. He details that obviously traumatic experience to his fellow physicians, stating that this boy today has now lost his childhood and will never be the same after this. Up to this point, I would say that history, visibility, and community have all been illustrated. With Jackson’s comment on how this boy has lost his innocence, I believe that that alone could foreshadow retribution from the boy because of how he now looks and thinks about life.

Near the episode’s end, Dr. Miranda Bailey and her husband Dr. Ben Warren decided that it was time to give their son “The Talk.” However, this talk had nothing to do with sex, but rather how not to get killed by the police if ever stopped by them. The scene begins with Tuck reciting his full name and stating that he is unarmed with his hands up. His parents then proceed to list other tips that Tuck should and should not do, including: making sure his hands are always visible, to never run from the police, to never speak to the police without a parent present, etc. It is a sad but all-too-real scene that this family is having with their own 12 year old son in light of what had happened earlier in the episode. This episode did a great job of portraying what is happening to Black men and boys and women and girls in America, and it hurt. But it was easy to understand, and to blame it on fear.