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Blog Post #4

Blog Post #4

Eve’s Bayou is such a beautiful film. I remember when it used to air on cable/network television and I would race to my room. It kind of had the same effect on me as “Are you afraid of the Dark?” Such a deep and complicated rarity of filmmaking… The cast, the location, the director! Kasi Lemmon's gothic familial drama has it all. In class, we examined the narrative through the lens of a coming-of-age story within a world where magic, curses, and ghosts are real.  We also discussed how the director's cut differs from the theatrical release regarding truth… and whether it's important to know the “truth.”  We remarked on the reference to “Daughters of the Dust,” and also noted that this is a film with no white people and is one of the films this year where racism isn't the monster. We talked about what has turned into my favorite/ most interesting theme - Casual Monstrosity, in regards to Lousie Baptiste’s infidelity. We also talked about how these films show African religions and practices as both good and evil really allowing the protagonist Eve to decide. We also talked about misplaced blame trauma and secrets.

We also talked about Terrence Taylor’s short story “Wet Pain.” This story mixes the horror of racism and homophobia and treats racism almost like an infection. This piece was interesting to me because of the way it used family objects and heirlooms as carriers of spirits. I also appreciated that the text addressed Hurricane Katrina and the racist way black citizens and survivors were treated before, during, and after the disaster.  

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Blog Post #3

"Pressure”(Ezra Clayton Daniels) "The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World"(Nalo Hopkinson), Ouanga/Love Wanga (1936) Candyman (dir. Bernard Rose) Candyman (dir. Nia DaCosta)

I lived in Chicago from 2010 to 2022, during that time I received my undergraduate and began a true deep dive into horror. I had dabbled a little while as a teenager watching what I could find at the time on cable network television primarily Wes Craven, John Carpenter, and Stephen King but not till college …studying photography…taking a Porn and Censorship course … did I watch French Extremist Horror for class and finally think I was brave enough to dig through my schools extensive DVD collection for all the horror I could find.

I found the original Candyman my Junior year, I was still living in the dorms then off State St in the center of the Loop in Chicago. I accidentally had a streak of watching films I didn’t know took place in Chi … I had watched The Relic and then Child’s Play (for the first as an adult) and was shocked to realize both films had been shot just only a few block away from where I was living at the time. That hardly compared to the genuine fear I had watching Candyman and seeing that the architecture of the dorms mimicked that of Cabrini Green and Helen’s Apartment complex - down to the restrooms and the mirrored cabinets that could easily allow access to neighboring dorm rooms.  CHILLS. I had learned a lot about Cabrini through the mandatory Chicago history reading pushed out to all freshmen but hadn’t heard about the movie. 

For me the first film from a white perspective gets the tone right … for the most part, a lot of my rich white and sheltered peers at school looked at Chicago as a predominantly black and brown city and stepped outside either in fear or sought to analyze Chicago as an anthropological research site. So though it may not have been purposeful Bernard Rose paints an experience I lived through like Bernadette working through financial and racist bias within academia while next to white peers who believe they are making groundbreaking work still seated within their white guilt, privilege, and bigotry. Candyman has always been about art, writing, and the historical discourse of redlining, gentrification, hate crimes, and the consumption of the black body and black trauma for white audiences. I once had a screening (24-hour Horror movie marathon) themed around The Lips, The Teeth, The Tip of the Tongue. Link It was split across three days Taste, Chew, Shallow - the last day Swallow I pair Candyman with Ganga and Hess and it opens up a dialogue connecting the two films around martyrdom, transformation, and the use of spiritual transcends.

Nia DaCosta’s spiritual sequel is hands down one of my favorite films. Prior to/during filming I was working at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, had curator friends who lived in the Marina Towers, and had become friends/acquaintances with featured artists in the film. It was so eerie to see my world once again reflected at but now with more knowledge about myself and the world. It was and still is dizzying and nauseating to watch I have rarly experience watching cinema. While also being so powerful narratively, metaphysical, and thematically. Not to mention it boosting the careers of real-life young black artists and cementing their work within the history of Black art and Cinema.

The mirroring structure, the callbacks, the new black perspective on Cabrini, The black female lead, the equality and diversity of the cast (specifically having queer actors play queer roles), the READING of the art world, and the pigeon-holding of black creatives - all brilliant, considered, and still truly terrifying. 

Lastly linking the two films to Pressure also opens up a lot of the same points and I kind of imagine that within his pressured familial environment may reflect some of the same insecurities and concerns Anthony may have that lead to a different type of internal dismantling and enviable combustion. 

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Blog Post #2

Blog Post #2

Tananarevie Due’s “The Rider”, Nnedi Okorafor's “Dark Home”, and Jordan Peele’s ”Us”.

For "Us" we talked a lot about The Meaning of the Tetherd and the theme of Privilege throughout the film as well as the switch between Adelaide and Red or vice versa. I have seen it many times, and still believe this to be the most emotionally effective film out of his overall filmography as of yet for me, seeing the film through the lens of privilege allows me to reflect on my own life journey, and shifts who I most aligned with throughout the film. I’m intrested in Red and in her ability to be a revolutionary in striving through obstacles to in some ways obtain her goal. I do question whether Red wanted to live in someways it seems like she wanted to make an impact on Abigail and give her more of an allowance to live more freely maybe. Anyways, I also see privilege active within the film not only in a financial sense or spiritual, but also through the lens of beauty with Elizabeth Moss, the wife character, which I find extra ordinary/perdictable, but also linked to so many of the films that we’ve already watched in terms of white approval and really the appropriation obsession with black bodies as seen in Get Out, but also in some of the recommended watching  Chloe, Love is Calling You or what will watch this upcoming week in terms of  Love, Ouanga.

We spent some time with "Dark Home" which honestly has been my least favorite reading so far. I just found that Nwokolo's inability to let go made her seem selfish, dangerously stubborn, and woefully ignorant. I get this could be a side effect of her upbringing and the misogyny within her family/religion, and though I commend her on her fire and defiance against the odds, but she kinda just gets herself into trouble. Plus she constantly said "My this"..." My That" It was just really annoying and her personality didn't sit with me well.

I do enjoy Okorafor's writing style though... it felt textured and atmospheric while culturally layered and modernly/contemporaneously comedic.

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Blog Post #1

Bree Newsome’s “Wake”, Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”, and WEB DuBois’ “The Comet.”

What stands out most to me between these three works is the use of partnerships, coupling, pairs, and romantic/forlorn relationships as a foundational arch and tool for the overall structure of their narratives and to further plot while simultaneously using these pairings to speak toward the various topics discussed in class: 

Hope and Shared Common Humanity

Respectability Politics and White Societal Acceptance 

Interracial Relationships and The Great Replacement Theory or The Big Payback

The Complicity of White Women with White Supremacy

The Black Male as Monstrous and The Appropriation and Coveting of Black Bodies

Out of  the three works Bree Newsome’s “Wake” is currently my favorite because race isn’t the monster or a direct threat, Charmaine’s actions and consequences are her own, and I enjoyed Newsome’s poetic and circular structure. I’ve seen Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” many times but even just a few weeks into this course it feels very straightforward and more of a classic rather than something radical - which is wild since it only came out about 4 years ago.

Dubois’ “The Comet” was interesting but I struggle with whether the end of the human race is or isn’t a bad thing. There seems to be a rush in the narrative to make a point, which I understand but feels very masculine and heterocentric.

All in all - I’m enjoying the class it feels like the most black space I’ve been in at UCLA/ LA so far which makes me sad but determined to seek out community.

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1.18.24

Thursday, January 18th,  Get Out - Part 1 … Entering the Sunken Place. PTD gave us a little scare at the beginning of class opening with the Tea Spoon Hypnosis scene from Get Out (2017). We looked at clips and articles about Jordan Peele’s visit(s) to the prior classes and then we discussed the alternate opening scene from the annotated screenplay and again the choice/ maneuver to shift perspectives from white to black as with “The Comet.” 

PTD notes the Monkey Paw  Method:

Centers Black Protagonist 

Surface Level Entertaining with Deep Layered Meanings 

Avoids Violence Towards Black People

When then went through the first half of break down the film through a few key perspectives and themes within the film:

The Appropriation  and Coveting of Black Bodies

Liberal Racism

The Strength of Georgina

The Complicity of White Women with/ and  White Supremacy 

Slavery and Mass Incarceration 

The Role of Community  (Having at least 1 R.O.D)

The class ended with clips of Jordan Peele answering class questions about the film. Today was super fun - excited for Part 2.

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1.16.24

Tuesday, January 16, PTD is in New York. They sent us a low-key little video to watch beforehand - which was kinda of kooky but, really nice. She showed us NYC from her balcony and allowed us to listen to the city while describing the deafening silence in W.E.B Du Bois' “The Comet”.

We began class talking about The Greatest Taboo - Interracial Relationships. PTD made an off-the-cuff joke about Halley Berry (This class feels so black - honestly probably the most black space I’ve been in thus far at UCLA) and then she proceeded to note that there hadn’t been a movie where a black man had sex that grossed more than 100 million before CREED (2015).

We proceeded to talk more about Jim (the messenger), the white woman (Julia), and the importance of Du Bois writing both their individual perspectives in “The Comet,” as a key into the lives of these two people from different worlds on the same planet meeting for the first time. 

That then leads to “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and two movies to watch:

The World, The Flesh, and The Devil 1959

Chloe, Love is Calling You 1934 ( The Tragic Mulatto with a “twist”).

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1.11.24

Thursday, January 11th. Today's lecture was pre-recorded and we reviewed Bree Newsome's "Wake," Richard C. Kahn's "Son of Ingagi," W.E.B Du Bois' "The Comet," and a little bit of the Horror Noire Documentary. There were conversations about Respectability Politics, Domestic Fear, and The Great Payback. We looked at Son of Ingagi through the perspective of rebuke, reframing, and reclamation. We also noticed themes of music, parties, and dancing within black horror films.

Regarding The Comet, It's exciting to think of a world uninhibited by racial constructions. Still, I'm intrigued that Du Bois focuses on the relationship between a black man and a white woman...

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1.9.24

The day before yesterday, Tuesday, January 9th, 2024, was the first day of 112 A - Sunken Place: Racism, Survival, and Black Horror Aesthetic with Professor Tananarive Due - (PTD). The class is from 12:30 - 1:45 pm Tuesdays and Thursdays and I have “discussions” accompanying the class on Thursday mornings from 9-9:50 am, which is too early and seemingly unnecessary. Thankfully the whole class is online which is a godsend for my schedule/ life. The convenience alone makes me even more excited than I already was for this class. On Tuesday, Prof. Due spent over half the class explaining the syllabus, how the class works online, her scoring system, and answering the somewhat endless and repetitive questions of my classmates. It isn’t so much a wonder anymore but still remains odd to me how fixated academic majors are on rules and details around grades - this probably says more about me than them and the flexibility or grace or unprofessionalism/non-seriousness of Art at UCLA. Anyway - Once the class got started Prof. Due shared that her love for horror came from her mother Patricia Stevens-Due who was a civil rights activist. We spoke a little bit about Horror, in general, being cathartic for those who have experienced trauma and that Black Horror specifically isn’t just about racism. We brush over the top 4 horror tropes for black people in horror movies: First to Die, The Magical Negro, The Spiritual Guide, and The Sacrificial Negro. 

PTD Notes: The First to Die wasn’t always consistent but happened enough to warrant the trope (which I agree) but also stated that the trope most likely was born out of a fake/poor initiative towards cast diversity. Flat 2D Black characters would be tossed in to appear diverse but only worked as a foil or catalyst for the narrative/ plot structure.

We watched clips from Birth of a Nation and then the entirety of Bree Newsome’s “Wake.” A short that takes place in what I imagine is post-slavery South maybe around 1930-40’s, Charmaine the female lead seemingly kills her Father by not providing him with his medication and he drops dead on the porch next to his rocking chair. She claims he died in his sleep and while at the wake takes a bit of his grave dirt to make a deal with a demon - nondescript but very fashionable, light-skinned, dressed in a tattered red and burgundy gown, she walks/floats/stands around the edge of the frame before revealing her face - not scary kinda cute with bad teeth. The demon laughs at Charmaine because she’s willing to I guess sell her father’s soul for a man - been there -  but what was Charmaine’s relationship with her father? 

At the beginning of the short we are introduced to Charmaine’s nosy, passive-aggressive, and judgmental fake-friend group Bootsie (Christian), Ruth (2 kids/ Not Happy), and Florence (uppitty) - they make remarks about Charmaine’s father keeping the foxes out which tells me Charmaine is at least sheltered - why else would she sell her fathers soul to a demon? Who taught her the craft? Where/what happened to her mother?

The demon provides Charmaine with a man according the Charmaine’s specifications - he’s cute ( again light-skinned but with green eyes) he’s obviously a demon (again nondescript) there’s a fly that follows him around… sits on his shoulder… so It’s giving Beelzebub.

Charmaine has to kill her demon husband to get rid of him but she winds up being pregnant.

Newsome uses a lot of wordplay through poetic voice-over narration at the beginning and end of the piece, it makes the whole work very circular - she aligns the body with dirt and dirt with storytelling/ gossip. Charmaine takes her father’s grave soil to build herself a man who turns back to dirt once slain. Also, Charmaine kills her father to give life to her demon husband who impregnates Charmaine with a child that may lead to her own death/wake.

Overall - I really liked the short and the first day of class.

Films to watch:

-Birth of a Nation

-The Mole People 

-Queer for Fear