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NFLer to Inspiring InstaArtist

Martellus Bennett. Many of us know him as a tight end in the NFL, whether he played for the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, or the Green Bay Packers. In between training, football games, and press conferences, Bennett somehow finds time to be an inspiration through his Instagram feed, martellusb, and his The Imagination Agency.

Martellus Bennett has the platform to inspire and encourage many people. He does all of this through his creativity and imagination. When he started buying children’s books for his daughter, he noticed that there weren’t many children’s book characters that looked like her or resembled her. He wanted to get people of color represented in children’s books so that his daughter and other kids could see themselves and be pride of their race through children’s books.

Going through his Instagram, one can see how much he consciously thinks of how his actions and how his platform can and will affect people. One can see that he wants people of color to know that they are heard, beautiful, amazing, and can aspire to anything, regardless if they don’t see themselves represented in books, tv shows, as superheroes, or in specific careers. He is such a positive person who wants people of color to strive for something better than what white society may dictate to them.

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Get Out With Your Craziness

In Jordan Peele’s award-winning, directorial debut reality strikes home for anyone who watches Get Out. Get Out is a horror movie that is not like an other horror film any of us have seen before. It is a horror movie in the sense of how closely relatable it is to reality for many people. Racism, cultural appropriation, and how situations may change one’s demeanor depending on who’s around and the specific circumstances of the situations are all touched on in this movie.

Chris Washington, a black man, is dating Rose Armitage, a white woman. They have plans to go to her parents’ home for the weekend. This all seems like it would be a good time, however, what ensues is nothing anyone would ever expect. Once they get to the Armitages’ home, they are kindly and warmly greeted by her parents. Rose’s dad, Dean, who is a surgeon, seems to be overly implying that he has no problems with African-Americans. It seems real, but also a little fake at the same time, almost like he’s over-compensating. Rose’s mom, Missy, who is a psychiatrist, seems too nice, but overall comfortable being in the presence of Chris. The Armitage’s have a lands keeper and a housekeeper, both of them black and both of them acting very strangely as if in a trance.

Fast forward to the next night. There’s an annual party that is taking place. The guests are all friends of the Armitage’s They all seem to take a huge interest in Chris, who is also a photographer. Many of the guests comment on his skin, his athleticism, and his life as a black man. They don’t ask too many personal questions and could care less that he’s more than just an African American.

Fast forward to a few hours later. An auction happens, but this isn’t like any other auction. This auction is bidding on Chris. The highest bidder is able to have his or her brain transplanted into Chris’s body. Chris would still be inside, in the sunken place, but he really would no longer exist. This transplant would be performed by none other than Dean Armitage. It would all happen because: 1. Rose brought Chris to her parents, telling him it would be just like any other weekend. Little did he know, Rose was actually in on the plan and played him. 2. Missy is a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis to get people into the sunken place where they will stay forever. She ends up hypnotizing Chris to help him quit smoking, but also put the trigger in his head for the sunken place. 3. Dean is a highly trained neurosurgeon who is an expert in this off the books, under-the-table procedure.

By the end of the movie, Chris has had his world turned upside down trying to figure out what was going on and why everyone was acting strange all the while trying to survive and escape the Armitage’s. In the end, Chris does escape by killing the Armitages, which would obviously be considered self-defense, and is rescued by his best friend, Rod. It’s a happy ending in the sense that the Armitages will never be able to do something like this again and that Chris can go back home as himself. It’s however not the happiest of endings though too, because, except for the crazy hypnosis and surgeries, how whites and blacks interact with each other is still uneasy, regardless if it’s in Get Out or in the real world.

White people are uncomfortable and sometimes don’t know how to relate. Black people have the same worries as Chris had even before meeting Rose’s family. When Chris is getting ready to spend the weekend with Rose at her parent’s home, he asks one simple question. The question is, “Do they know I’m black?” This is not a question that should be necessary to ask, nor is it a question that any white person would feel needed to be asked. White people are rarely every scared or concerned of people’s reactions once they find out that they’re white. It is what it is and why would the color of one’s skin even matter?

While they’re driving up to her parents, they end up hitting a deer. Rose was driving, not Chris. When a police officer comes to report the incident, he asks for Chris’s ID and questions him like a suspect. Chris is very polite and complies with what the officer is asking, even though he technically doesn’t have to give the officer anything since he wasn’t the one driving. Rose, however, is appalled that the officer would treat Chris the way he did. This is yet another thing that whites don’t typically experience. The interactions that whites and blacks have with police are entirely different regardless if one did something illegal or not.

At the party, even though people seem to be slightly uncomfortable, they still want to auction on Chris and become him. In the movie, Dean said that he’s able to give people a new life, give people what’s new and cool, and give them something that they could only dream to strive for. Being black is the new and cool thing; black is the new white, so to speak. Some of the people who are at the auction say that they would love to be athletic, faster, stronger, more muscular, be a little taboo, like a black person. All of this is insane. These people are basing their opinions on stereotypes of a population and culture as a whole. They are not taking into consideration that black people are just like white people in the sense that they’re all different. They’re trying to steal the culture away from the blacks and make it theirs, make it a white thing.

Get Out took an extreme plot to show how the realities of African Americans in the U.S. are absolutely different from whites. I think this movie did so well due to advertising it like a horror movie instead of a drama. People love horror movies and love the stories behind them and the shock value. The shock value in Get Out should really be a learning lesson to everyone of how we need and should treat one another regardless of skin color of cultural background.

Image reference: medium.com

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American Horror Story: Too Real for Television

The television show, American Horror Story: Cult, on FX is mind-blowingly realistic in the most fictional way possible. There are too many different aspects of this season to be able to touch base on all of them. The storyline of AHS: Cult focuses on murderous clowns, politics, and feminism. Those three don’t seem extremely connected in real life, especially clowns, however, in this specific season of AHS: Cult they are all closely tied together. In this series’ season, today’s politics, driven by President Donald Trump and the people beneath him who are in sync with his ideologies, are loosely shown through fictional characters and situations. All of these situations though mimic what each and every one of us has heard, seen, or experienced when it comes to racism, bigotry, and misogyny.

Through watching AHS: Cult, the multiculturalism and sexual orientations of the American people are touched upon. For example, one of the main characters, Kai Anderson, who most closely resembles President Trump, starts off as just a kid who threw a milkshake at a feminist, lesbian couple and yelled derogatory words at them. Next, we see him start trouble with a group of Mexican immigrants by throwing a bottle full of urine at them, after which they beat him up. He is able to spin this story around and claim to be the victim because there’s video of this incident, however, the video only shows the group of immigrants beating him up, not what actually started the altercation. Kai then starts a campaign to run for a political seat. He claims that he wants to better the American people and protect them from immigrants and make America great again. All at  the same time, he is a leader of a group of murderous clowns that started out as a way to help the American people better themselves by frightening them into voting for “better” politicians. It all sounds like a ploy that so many people have and will fall for, whether it’s on a popular television series or in real life.

The lesbian couple that got a milkshake thrown on them, Ally and Ivy, are other main characters. They own a successful butcher shop, until Ally shoots a Mexican man at her doorstep. This incident happened after Kai’s video of being beaten up by Mexican immigrants was shown on the news. Ally becomes paranoid and anxious, due to her many phobias. When the power gets shut down in the city, Ivy sends one of her employees to drop off food to Ally. Ally sees this man, who she does not recognize right away, at her door and in haste shoots him. She and her wife go from being feminists and lesbians who have insults thrown at them for their lifestyle to being people who kill innocent immigrants. Their lives are in turmoil, however, they, each on their own terms, join the group that is supposed to be helping the American people find their voice for better politicians and a better America. This joining of the group weakens Ivy, but it gives strength to Ally, each in their own positive and negative way to maximize the benefits to America.

Each character has their own set of beliefs when it comes to differences of people. Each character has their own behaviors that change throughout the course of the show in regards to their experiences. Kai starts and ends a person, who is scared of differences and changes, who hides his weaknesses through discrimination and hatred. Ally starts and ends as a lesbian and a feminist, however, she becomes less excepting of men, but more excepting of the differences of each person as a whole.

Is this what our lives have come down to? Is this what our future will hold for us? In order to better ourselves individually and as a country, do we have to belittle, discriminate, scare, and become our worst selves? If we can learn anything from AHS: Cult, it’s that nothing good can come from anything bad. We have to learn how to accept anyone and everyone regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, and so much more. We have to be kind and understanding to uplift and move us as a whole to become more accepting and open-minded.