#Detroit Film Critics Society

[joemuggs]

Future's Passed

Apropos of a conversation I was having with my mate Bashford about his design visions, I dug up a couple of ramblings about futures past, from the WIRE, one from 2015 and one from 2016. More on this theme to follow....

👇🏻

Model 500

Digital Solutions

Metroplex LP / CD / Download

Can it be that a musician doing exactly the same as he was doing 30 years ago still sounds futuristic? Because for large sections of this album, Juan Atkins is making music that, bar a few aspects of finessing on the mixdown, could have come from the same sessions as 1985's Model 500 electro track “Night Drive (Thru Babylon)”. Though he has latterly shown he's still happy experimenting – take 2012's intensely psychedelic remix of Psychic Ills for RVNG Intl. – here, he is returning to the roots of his craft, much like his co-producer here Mike Banks, another Detroit originator who seems similarly satisfied with outsider status and immune to demands for aesthetic progression. And for large sections, it still sounds not like a capitulation but like visionary sonic fiction, and not in a kitschy way either. 

When, in 1990, the the film critic Philip French wrote that "nothing dates the past like its impressions of the future,” it was taken as a truism – and indeed by that year Atkins's early music was already starting to sound as archaic as Dr. Who in comparison to what was happening around it. I was in my mid-teens then, and to me electro as such meant the music of kids' TV soundbeds, or body-poppers in shopping arcades. With its robot voices and simple melodic hooks it sounded cute and silly, like a primitive prototype for the British rave music, the more serious-seeming and compositionally complex techno of Derrick May, or the more martial electro of Underground Resistance. The same applied when I discovered Kraftwerk and YMO soon after: in the white heat of the rave moment, they just sounded a bit rinky-dink, a bit novelty.

It took quite some time to start to understand the music's appeal. As I absorbed more of what came before and after those records – P-Funk and Throbbing Gristle, Drexciya and Wax Doctor – their place and their value became clearer. But I'd even go so far as to say that it wasn't until reading Kodwo Eshun's poetic analysis of “Night Drive” in More Brilliant than the Sun in 1998 and re-listening that I really felt the power of that track's modernity: the descriptions of “bachelormachines... rearing up on their hindquarters” and the voice as “a subliminal shadow that creeps along the skin, stalks you with its lightbreath” bringing it to life as a synaesthesic futureworld vision, not simply as a set of musical motifs or references. And once heard, that cyborg modernity couldn't be unheard: that track remains as startlingly capable of rewiring and rebooting the imagination now as ever. At that moment it became glaringly clear that the shock of the new doesn't actually have to be new. To use another popular statement, generally attributed to William Gibson, “the future's already here, it's just unevenly distributed”: and sometimes that future has to be winkled out from where it's folded into the past and present.

Since then, Detroit's 1980s electro has only become more contemporary as it is folded back in to the cultural fabric again and again from different directions: via the Glasgow hybrids spawned by the Club 69 and Rubadub hub via Rustie and the Numbers crew; via the ominpresence in 21st century culture of Daft Punk; via the electro diaspora of Miami bass, crunk, juke, jit, snap, baile funk, kuduro, hyphy, trap, club; via succeeding generations discovering the endless mysteries of Drexciya. Which leads us to a point where Atkins can deliver an album – his first in 16 years – that contains precisely no innovation, yet it can still sound like a distillation of modern elements from right across today's music, and like an elegant representation of a fast-changing technological society to boot.

Unlike Mind and Body, the last Model 500 album from 1999, which diverted into drum'n'bass and hip hop, everything from the classic Atkins sound is present and correct on every track: the robotic voices flatly intoning things about technology or consumer society (the Teutonic-sounding one on the title track being the most simultaneously hilarious and deathly serious example), the angelic vocoder voices in the background, the laser zaps and squacks as percussion, the syncopated 808 kickdrum subsonic foundation, the bulbous and shiny synth notes playing layered funk melodies in interplay with more discordant tone clusters. There are zippy tempos as on the opener “Control”, digital slow jams like “Electric Night” and “Encounter”, and one track that flicks between the two: “The Groove”, which provides the only obviously non-computerised sound of the album in the elegant prog rock guitar soloing in its half-speed sections. Rhythmically, even on the couple of tracks with a four-to-the-floor kick, it is always electro – which in fact means that it is always essentially funk.

It works not only because of its resonances in more recent musicians' work. It works because funk is still relevant to the proportions of the human body, to the speeds at which our limbs can move relative to one another. It works because a subsonic kickdrum still makes your innards tingle as it did whenever you first heard it. But it also works because that unevenly distributed future still needs visions like this for us to find it and parse it. It felt for a little while like the snowblindness of everything-available-all-at-once bitstorm information society meant that the future was on hold, and we were just immersed the infinite cultural past, and that the significance of different cultural movements was being eroded into a slew of undifferentiated nostalgia and marketing algorithm fodder. But as we barrel ever onward, precipitous inequalities and mind-frying volumes of information and all, it turns out that past visions of the future aren't so very dated at all. 

Gibson, McLuhan and the Detroit pioneers favourite Toffler can all look a bit silly, a bit naïve and jerry-rigged now – but they all can also be startlingly relevant, and you can still discover the shock of the new in them as in Atkins's music. In a time of cyborgs, drones, driverless cars and the infinite hall of mirrors of surveillance and social media, the future-shock thrill of taking a night drive through Babylon can be as bracing and ever, and so can the musical techniques for understanding what you see on that drive that were honed so long ago. While others might use vastly more complex computing power to try and musically interface with the present and future on a nano level, in fact that the simpler, clunkier, funkier patterns mapped out here might just have something even more profound to say about the fundamental relationships between us and our technological world, if you can feel and participate in their vision.

---

Various Artists

Star Wars Headspace

Hollywood Records CD / Download

Space Dimension Controller

Orange Melamine

Ninja Tune 2LP / CD / Download

Bwana

Capsule’s Pride

LuckyMe LP / Download

“If we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature,” wrote Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock, “science fiction has immense value as a mind-stretching force for the creation of the habit of anticipation. Our children should be studying [it], not because these writers can tell them about rocket ships and time machines but, more important, because they can lead young minds through an imaginative exploration of the jungle of political, social, psychological, and ethical issues that will confront these children as adults.” 

As is well documented – most vividly in Kodwo Eshun's conception of “sonic fiction” – music, and especially club music, can be science fiction too. Each new generation encounters the musical environment as technological-imaginative space outside the quotidian thanks to the visual/social/chemical/durational/sonic assemblage of the dancefloor and associated spaces – and that too can lead minds through exploration of past, present and possible futures. Of course there are waves and shifts in how styles and techniques facilitate this, but none completely replaces those before: past sonic fictions – past futures – retain functional value and are continually re-incorporated into the circulating library of usable forms. Always, too, from the Mothership to Metalheadz to Mumdance , there are explicit sci-fi signifiers woven into the sound and vision.

This is done in the most glaring possible way in the Rick Rubin-compiled Star Wars Headspace album. Sound design and dialogue from the Star Wars franchise are sampled liberally through 15 tracks that span a large chunk of what currently works for North American ravers, from the crassest martial trap-rap-derived beats through thumping house to subtler and more psychedelically dense grooves by Flying Lotus, Shlohmo and Bonobo. There's a conspicuous lack of the Ed Banger / dubstep-derived hyper-compressed aggro you'd have expected even two or three years ago: mainstream EDM is getting funkier and more genial. Combined with the thickly-layered chirps, whistles, animal grunts and the jaunty kitsch of the dialogue snippets, this creates a deliriously infantile playhouse of sound.

Star Wars was never about any future: it set “long ago”, and built on Saturday matinee westerns, Buck Rodgers and George Lucas's “Hero With a Thousand Faces”-derived belief in eternal narrative archetypes. And its sounds as much as its iconography have achieved a depth and breadth of penetration into the collective unconscious that goes way beyond modernism or retro: unless you have lived in extraordinary isolation for decades, noises like the chirrups of the R2-D2 droid which form motifs in this record are like Proustian keys to the fantastical. So the most fratboy-friendly rhythms here, from GTA and Baauer, take on a psychedelically transporting quality just as much as do the humid complexities of FlyLo; in this context Rustie's typically deranged “EWOK PUMPP” feels absolutely at home, even emblematic of the project. And among all this Rubin himself makes a deliciously naïve attempt at zippy techno in “NR-G7”, against all odds ending up sounding like Ozric Tentacles's rave offshoot Eat Static. It might be silly, but this album is much more than a cynical franchise tie-in: it's a explicit, deliberate opening up of 2016's most commercial rave music to mythic space.

Young Northern Irish producer Space Dimension Controller, as you'd probably guess from the name, is well versed in musical sci-fi, with Parliament, Drexciya, Jonzun Crew as standard reference points. His lo-fi Orange Melamine side-project, though, is about something far more esoteric. If the Star Wars album reaches to a collective mythic space shared by billions through decades, Orange Melamine opens up a tiny trapdoor to a cultish communal dreamworld around the turn of the millennium where internet and music culture first began to seriously create their own forms. It's the sound of third-generation copies of animes and UFO conspiracy VHS tapes (present here as sampled dialogue) arriving in the post after newsgroup discussions, of swapping obscurities by Team Doyobi, Req, Oval, MDK with strangers across the world on Audiogalaxy, of lo-res RealPlayer rips, of falling down rabbitholes on alt.culture messageboards. The braindance, illbient, outsider rap and indietronica evoked here was already humming with the broken rave nostalgia that would later be codified by Burial and hauntological thinking – as well as the shimmering dissipated data global collages of cloud rap, vaporwave and other waves of digital culture to come. Its reference points might be hyperspecific, but this too opens out into a wide imaginative world.

In the interzone between these two is Toronto techno producer Bwana's 43-minute love letter to Akira, the 1988 cyberpunk anime of psychic bikers and apocalyptic visions set in 2019 “Neo-Tokyo”. This movie sits in the midpoint between Orange Melamine's occulted cultural reference points and the near-universality of Star Wars: within club and rave culture, it's such a late-night staple that its sounds and rhythms – and the strange cadences of American actors dubbing their lines to Japanese speech rhythms – are woven into the very neurons of generations by repetition within the nightlife ritual. On this album which interpolates film dialogue and music, even the sound of the characters' names – Kay, Kaneda, Tetsuo, Akira – become incantations of, and ways into, the movie's fever-dream future. 

The music, which is realised in the highest definition, crisper and glossier even than the big-money EDM of the Star Warsalbum, has ripples of Rimini and Dusseldorf of the 1970s, Hollywood of the 1980s, London of the 2000s, Atlanta of the 2010s, but mostly it is just techno: not exactly ahistorical or from a non-place, but certainly cut loose from spatial-temporal specifics. Techno has never been about the future, it always pooled together futures past – P-Funk, Blade Runner, Toffler, Kraftwerk – to build a generalised future dreamtime into its sound: that Tofflerian “habit of anticipation” coded as rhythmic psychedelia. Techno as expressed on this album is no more retro or dated than watching Akira after a night out is rendered obsolete by Metal Gear Solid. We are now in Toffler's future – deep into the uncanny valley of laser surgery, virtual reality, gene editing, drones, machine learning, mind reading, microsecond-sensitive global trading, face transplants, our neighbouring planet being populated by robots, meme culture, Anonymous, Kanye West – and occasionally it's desirable, even essential, to revisit those old tools and “mind-stretching forces”.

[ausetkmt]

Dr. Albert Johnston passed in order to practice medicine. After living as leading citizens in Keene, N.H., the Johnstons revealed their true racial identity, and became national news. Historical Society of Cheshire County

Several years ago, Stanford historian Allyson Hobbs was talking with a favorite aunt, who was also the family storyteller. Hobbs learned that she had a distant cousin whom she'd never met nor heard of.

Which is exactly the way the cousin wanted it.

Hobbs' cousin had been living as white, far away in California, since she'd graduated from high school. This was at the insistence of her mother.

"She was black, but she looked white," Hobbs said. "And her mother decided it was in her best interest to move far away from Chicago, to Los Angeles, and to assume the life of a white woman."

A scene from Imitation of Life, a 1934 film starring Fredi Washington playing a black woman who passes as white. Wikimedia Commons hide caption

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Wikimedia Commons

In California, the young woman passed as white. She married a white man, and they had children who never knew they had black blood. Then, one day, years later, her phone rang.

It was the woman's mother with distressing news: Her father was dying, and she needed to return home immediately to tell him goodbye.

The cousin replied, "I can't. I'm a white woman now."

She missed her father's funeral, and never saw her mother or siblings again.

Hobbs was haunted by the story, and constantly went back to it in her mind. It made her realize that all the tales she'd heard about passing over the years involved the gains that people expected for leaving their black identity behind. But through her research, she came to understand there was another, critical part of the experience:

"To write a history of passing is to write a history of loss."

'Who Are Your People?'

"The family jokes, the oral history every family has, and repeats and passes down," Hobbs muses, "those things are lost to people who pass." She figured if she had a passing story in her family, there must be many other families who did, too.

Hobbs began writing about passing for her doctoral dissertation, and was encouraged to turn it into a book. The dissertation became A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in America. It's a history of passing told through the lens of personal stories.

Once Hobbs began researching, the stories came thick and fast. There was New Yorker Theophilus McKee, who'd chosen to live as a white man for all of his adult life. That's until he stepped forward to claim a huge inheritance as the only colored descendant of Negro Civil War veteran Col. John McKee. His claim and the court fight with his biracial siblings made national news.

There's the story of Harry S. Murphy, who was assigned as a ROTC cadet to the University of Mississippi by a commander who assumed Murphy was white. "For a year, Harry had a ball at Ole Miss," Hobbs laughs. "He ran track, dated white girls and was known as a terrific dancer." Years later, the university fought to keep James Meredith from registering as its first black student, Harry Murphy gleefully broke the news: "Ole Miss was fighting a battle they had no idea they'd lost years ago."

Then there's the sad tale of Elsie Roxborough, a beauty from a distinguished Detroit family who became the first black girl to live in a dorm at the University of Michigan. She tried acting in California, then moved to New York to live as a white woman. When her disapproving father refused to support her, Roxborough — then known as Mona Manet — committed suicide. Her grieving and equally pale sister passed as a white woman to claim the body, so Roxborough's secret wouldn't be given away. Her death certificate declared she was white.

Hobbs says one of the things she learned as she delved deeper into her research was that passing was not a solitary act. It required other people who were willing to keep your secret, and a community that was willing to let you go and look the other way, even when it hurt.

In 1952, Jet magazine published an article predicting that passing was on the wane, at least for solvent black folks. "Most economically-sound Negroes who could 'pass' prefer being high-class Negroes to low-class whites," it opined.

Jet had jumped the gun a bit: Passing did not become passé for many more years. It's mostly viewed as a practice that belongs to a more sharply segmented racial past. The rise of a more diverse America, and a growing multicultural movement that insists on people's right to recognize all of their ethnicity, has helped racial passing pass into history

[lboogie1906]

Allen and Albert Hughes (born April 1, 1972) are film directors and producers, known for works such as Menace Society II and The Book of Eli. Albert was born minutes before Allen to Albert Hughes and Aida in Detroit.

Their parents divorced when they were two years old and their mother took them to Pomona, California when they were nine. She provided them with a video camera when they were twelve years old. They spent a lot of time making short films. They took their first TV production class in which they made a short film titled “How to be a Burglar” for a class assignment.

Albert began taking classes at Los Angeles City College’s Film School. Allen typically worked with the actors while Albert handled the technical aspects. They began filming music videos and directing for artists like Tone Loc and Tupac Shakur.

Their first film, Menace II Society, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It became a critical box office success as it grossed nearly ten times the three-million-dollar budget. It won Best Movie at the MTV Movie Awards. They premiered Dead Presidents, at the New York Critics Film Festival. The film failed to impress the critics or make a profit. American Pimp, released at the Sundance Film Festival, was equally unsuccessful. They filmed anti-handgun public service announcements which seemed at odds with their films.

They co-directed From Hell, a film adaption of the graphic novel of the same name about Jack the Ripper. Albert moved to the Czech Republic to live with his long-time girlfriend, and Allen embarked on his solo career.

Allen directed episodes of the American version of Touching Evil and the television feature Knights of the South Bronx. He directed a segment of New York, I Love You.

They co-directed The Book of Eli. Allen directed Broken City. Albert announced he would be producing The 7 Wonders of Crisis 3. Allen’s latest work was a four-part HBO documentary miniseries called The Defiant Ones for which he won Best Music Film in the Grammy awards. Albert began directing Alpha and The Fury of a Patient Man.

Allen has a son and Albert has a daughter. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[thejewofkansas]

Awards Season 2021-22: Awards Round-Up 12/6

Awards Season 2021-22: Awards Round-Up 12/6

This week, we’ll going over the wins from the following groups: Atlanta Film Critics Circle (AFCC)Detroit Film Critics Society (DFCS) – nomineesWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) – nominees A bit of a light start, but I’ll take it! Picture: AFCC: Licorice PizzaDFCS: CyranoWAFCA: Belfast Three groups, three different films. Okay, then. I’m most surprised by Cyrano winning…

[brian-in-finance]

2021 Award Nominations

Winners TBA Monday 6 December

Best Director nominee - Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

Best Picture nominee - Belfast

Remember when Detroit was another new-to-Brian film critics group?

[universalmovies]

Annunciati i premi della Critica di Washington e Detroit

Giornata ricca di premi quella odierna, con la Critica di Washington e Detroit intenta a decretare i migliori film della stagione cinematografica appena terminata. In questo articolo daremo spazio ai premi assegnati dalla The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association e dalla Detroit Film Critics Society. Le due associazioni cinematografiche si sono dimostrate molto divise riguardo i film da…

[haimsource]

Alana Haim’s acting debut in Licorice Pizza: award nominations and wins

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Virtuosos Award (win)

National Board of Review

Breakthrough Performance (win)

Pheonix Film Critics Society

Breakthrough Performance (win)

Oklahoma Film Critics Circle

Best Actress (win) 

Atlanta Film Critics Circle

Best Ensemble (tie)

Best Actress (tie)

Boston Online Film Critics Association

Best Ensemble (win)

Boston Society of Film Critics

Best Actress (win) 

Chicago Film Critics

Best Actress (nomination)

Most Promising Performer (win)

New Mexico Film Critics

Best Actress (win) 

Three if By Space Film Awards

Best Lead Actress (win)

Young Filmmakers of America Association Awards

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (win) 

Florida Film Critics Circle

Best Actress (win)

Best Ensemble (nomination)

Columbus Film Critics Association

Best Actress (win)

Best newcomer (win)

St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association

Best Scene: truck driving in reverse (win)

Georgia Film Critics

Best Actress (win)

Breakthrough Award (win)

Best Ensemble (win)

Minnesota Film Critics Alliance

Best Actress (runner up)

Southern Eastern Film Critics Association

Best Actress (runner up)

Critics Association of Central Florida

Best Actress (runner up)

National Society of Film Critics

Best Actress (runner up)

North Carolina Film Critics Association

Best Actress (nomination)

Best Ensemble (nomination)

Best Breakthrough Performance (win)

Manchester Film Awards

Best Breakout Performance (win)

Detroit Film Critics Society

Best Actress (nomination)

Breakthrough (nomination)

Golden Globes

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (nomination)

Online Society of Film Critics

Best Lead Actress (nomination)

Music City Film Critics Association

Best Actress (nomination)

North Dakota Film Society

Best Actress (nomination)

Seattle Film Critics

Best Actress (nomination)

Denver Film Critics Society

Best Actress (nomination)

Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Best Woman’s Breakthrough Performance (nomination)

Portland Critics Association

Best Female Leading Role (nomination)

Chicago Indie Critics Awards

Best Actress (nomination)

Austin Film Critics Association

Best Actress (nomination)

Pandora International Film Festival

Acting Breakthrough (nomination)

NME Awards

Best Actor (win)

Satellite Awards

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (nomination)

Critics’ Choice Awards

Best Actress (nomination)

Best Acting Ensemble (nomination)

BAFTA 

Best Actress (nomination)

[howieabel]

Who is Malcolm X?

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother was the National recording secretary for the Marcus Garvey Movement which commanded millions of followers in the 1920s and 30s. His father was a Baptist minister and chapter president of The Universal Negro Improvement Association who appealed to President Hoover that Marcus Garvey was wrongfully arrested. Earl’s civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm’s fourth birthday.

Regardless of the Little’s efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929 their Lansing, Michigan home was burned to the ground. Two years later, Earl’s body was found lying across the town’s trolley tracks.

Police ruled both incidents as accidents, but the Little’s were certain that members of the Black Legion were responsible. Louise suffered emotional breakdown several years after the death of her husband and was committed to a mental institution. Her children were split up amongst various foster homes and orphanages.

Eventually Malcolm and his buddy, Malcolm “Shorty” Jarvis, moved back to Boston. In 1946 they were arrested and convicted on burglary charges, and Malcolm was sentenced to 10 years in prison. (He was paroled after serving seven years.) Recalling his days in school, he used the time to further his education. It was during this period of self-enlightenment that Malcolm’s brother Reginald would visit and discuss his recent conversion to the Muslim religion. Reginald belonged to the religious organization the Nation of Islam (NOI).

Intrigued, Malcolm began to study the teachings of NOI leader Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic and social success. Among other goals, the NOI fought for a state of their own, separate from one inhabited by white people. By the time he was paroled in 1952, Malcolm was a devoted follower with the new surname “X.” (He considered “Little” a slave name and chose the “X” to signify his lost tribal name.)

Intelligent and articulate, Malcolm was appointed as a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad also charged him with establishing new mosques in cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Malcolm utilized newspaper columns, as well as radio and television to communicate the NOI’s message across the United States. His charisma, drive and conviction attracted an astounding number of new members. Malcolm was largely credited with increasing membership in the NOI from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963.

The crowds and controversy surrounding Malcolm made him a media magnet. He was featured in a week-long television special with Mike Wallace in 1959, called “The Hate That Hate Produced.” The program explored the fundamentals of the NOI, and tracked Malcolm’s emergence as one of its most important leaders. After the special, Malcolm was faced with the uncomfortable reality that his fame had eclipsed that of his mentor Elijah Muhammad. Racial tensions ran increasingly high during the early 1960s. In addition to the media, Malcolm’s vivid personality had captured the government’s attention. As membership in the NOI continued to grow, FBI agents infiltrated the organization (one even acted as Malcolm’s bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps, cameras and other surveillance equipment to monitor the group’s activities.

Malcolm’s faith was dealt a crushing blow at the height of the civil rights movement in 1963. He learned that his mentor and leader, Elijah Muhammad, was secretly having relations with as many as six women within the Nation of Islam organization. As if that were not enough, Malcolm found out that some of these relationships had resulted in children.

Since joining the NOI, Malcolm had strictly adhered to the teachings of Muhammad – which included remaining celibate until his marriage to Betty Shabazz in 1958. Malcolm refused Muhammad’s request to help cover up the affairs and subsequent children. He was deeply hurt by the deception of Muhammad, whom he had considered a living prophet. Malcolm also felt guilty about the masses he had led to join the NOI, which he now felt was a fraudulent organization built on too many lies to ignore.

Shortly after his shocking discovery, Malcolm received criticism for a comment he made regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. “[Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon,” said Malcolm. After the statement, Elijah Muhammad “silenced” Malcolm for 90 days. Malcolm, however, suspected he was silenced for another reason. In March 1964 Malcolm terminated his relationship with the NOI. Unable to look past Muhammad’s deception, Malcolm decided to found his own religious organization, the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

That same year, Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The trip proved life altering. For the first time, Malcolm shared his thoughts and beliefs with different cultures, and found the response to be overwhelmingly positive. When he returned, Malcolm said he had met “blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers.” He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration and a new hope for the future. This time when Malcolm spoke, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.

After Malcolm resigned his position in the Nation of Islam and renounced Elijah Muhammad, relations between the two had become increasingly volatile. FBI informants working undercover in the NOI warned officials that Malcolm had been marked for assassination. (One undercover officer had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in Malcolm’s car).

After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely travelled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed. Luckily, the family escaped physical injury.

One week later, however, Malcolm’s enemies were successful in their ruthless attempt. At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage. They shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Fifteen hundred people attended Malcolm’s funeral in Harlem on February 27, 1965 at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ (now Child’s Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ). After the ceremony, friends took the shovels away from the waiting gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves.

Later that year, Betty gave birth to their twin daughters.

Malcolm’s assassins, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1966. The three men were all members of the Nation of Islam.

The legacy of Malcolm X has moved through generations as the subject of numerous documentaries, books and movies. A tremendous resurgence of interest occurred in 1992 when director Spike Lee released the acclaimed movie, Malcolm X. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design.

Malcolm X is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

[shanewbpz822]

Why Nobody Cares About Showboat Film

Why How To Make Independent Films are Booming

Table of ContentsWhy The Greatest American Independent Movies are So PopularThe Only Guide to Independent Filmmakers You're Going To NeedHow Sundance Film Festival are Changing the World

e., cooperating the profits), but possession still resided the founders. As the years passed and the characteristics of business transformed, these "producing companions" drifted away. Goldwyn and also Disney left for RKO, Wanger for Universal Pictures, as well as Selznick for retired life. By the late 1940s, United Artists had practically discontinued to exist as either a manufacturer or supplier.

Selznick, Alexander Korda, as well as Walter Wangermuch of the same individuals who were members of United Artistsfounded the Society of Independent Movie Producers. Later on members included William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and also Hal Cockroach. The Society aimed to maintain the rights of independent producers in a sector overwhelmingly managed by the workshop system.

The most amazing guide to American Indie Filmmaking

In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The grievance implicated Paramount of conspiracy to regulate first-run as well as subsequent-run cinemas in Detroit. It was the first antitrust suit brought by manufacturers against exhibitors affirming monopoly and also restriction of profession. In 1948, the USA High Court Paramount Choice ordered the Hollywood flick studios to sell their theater chains and also to get rid of certain anti-competitive methods.

By 1958, several of the factors for producing the SIMPP had actually been corrected as well as SIMPP closed its workplaces. The efforts of the SIMPP and the introduction of low-cost mobile cameras throughout The second world war efficiently made it possible for anyone in America with a rate of interest in making movies to create, produce, and direct one without the aid of any kind of significant movie studio.

Filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs with little or no official training began to explore brand-new ways of making as well as firing movies. Little Fugitive came to be the initial independent film to be chosen for Academy Award for Ideal Original Screenplay at the American Academy Honors. It likewise obtained Silver Lion at Venice.

The top 5 things Best Independent Films can help with

As the 1950s advanced, the brand-new low-budget standard of filmmaking got increased recognition globally, with movies such as Satyajit Ray's critically well-known (19551959). Unlike the films made within the studio system, these new low-budget movies can manage to take dangers and explore new artistic territory outside the classical Hollywood narrative.

16 You Always Wondered About Independent Film Directors

Based upon a typical idea that the "main movie theater" was "running out of breath" and also had actually become "morally corrupt, visually out-of-date, thematically superficial, [and] temperamentally boring", this brand-new plant of independents formed The Film-Makers' Cooperative, an artist-run, charitable organization which they would make use of to distribute their movies with a central archive.

When he went back to America, Ken Rage would debut a number of his essential works there. Mekas as well as Brakhage would certainly take place to found the Anthology Movie Archives in 1970, which would certainly likewise show vital to the development and preservation of independent movies, also to this particular day. Not all low-budget films existed as non-commercial art endeavors.

Low-budget movie making promised exponentially better returns (in terms of percentages) if the movie might have an effective run in the movie theaters. Throughout this moment, independent producer/director Roger Corman began a sweeping body of work that would certainly come to be epic for its frugality and also grueling shooting timetable. Until his supposed "retirement" as a supervisor in 1971 (he remained to produce movies even hereafter day) he would certainly produce up to 7 movies a year, matching as well Source as typically exceeding the five-per-year timetable that the execs at United Artists had once believed difficult.

Corman's instance (which of others like him) would assist begin a boom in independent B-movies in the 1960s, the principal purpose of which was to generate the young people market which the major studios had actually lost touch with. By assuring sex, wanton violence, substance abuse, and also nakedness, these movies wished to attract audiences to independent theaters by offering to reveal them what the significant workshops might not.

All The Things Influential People In Independent Film Has Changed

As these tiny producers, cinemas, and also suppliers remained to try to damage one an additional, the B-grade shlock film quickly was up to the degree of the Z movie, a specific niche group of movies with production worths so reduced that they became a phenomenon in their own right. The cult audiences these pictures brought in quickly made them optimal prospects for midnight film screenings focusing on target market involvement and cosplay.

Romero shocked audiences with, a new kind of intense and also unrelenting independent horror movie. This movie was launched just after the desertion of the production code, however before the fostering of the MPAA rating system. Thus, it was the initial and also last movie of its kind to take pleasure in a completely unlimited testing, in which little ones had the ability to witness Romero's new brand of highly sensible gore.

With the production code deserted and fierce and also troubling films like Romero's getting popularity, Hollywood opted to pacify the uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA rankings system, which would place constraints on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the manufacturing code, this score system positioned a danger to independent movies because it would certainly impact the variety of tickets they might offer and also reduce right into the grindhouse cinema's share of the youth market.

Nevertheless, having a movie audience-classified is strictly volunteer for independents and also there's no lawful impediment to releasing films on an unrated basis. Nevertheless, unrated flicks face barriers in advertising because media outlets such as TELEVISION channels, newspapers and also sites usually position their own constraints on films that do not featured a built-in national score to avoid providing flicks to inappropriately young audiences.

Most Unusual Indie Film To Studios facts

Widescreen processes and technological improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo noise, 3-D as well as others, were created in an effort to preserve the diminishing target market by providing a larger-than-life experience. The 1950s as well as very early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historic legendaries, and also other movies which gained from these breakthroughs.

[yoshinorecommends]

A - G Fandoms & Characters Masterlist

A

A Court of Thorns & Roses

A Date with Death

A Quiet Place

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Sign of Affection

Ace Attorney

Addams Family

Adventure Time

Click Me!

Akatsuki no Yona

Alexander

Alice in Borderland

Alienist

Aliens

American Animals

American Assassin

American Gods

American Heist

American Horror Story

Click Me!

American Psycho

An American Werewolf in London

Anastasia

Animal Kingdom

Anne With An E

Apothecary Diaries

Arcana

Arcane

Arknights

Atomic Blonde

Attack on Titan

Click Me!

Austin Powers

Author Of My Own Destiny

Avatar

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Click Me!

B

B the Beginning

Baby Driver

Babysitter

Back To The Future

Backstage

Bad Times At The El Royale

Bakugan

Click Me!

Balance: Unlimited

Baldur's Gate 3

Bandstand

Barbie

Barry

Be More Chill

Click Me!

Bear

Beastars

Beautiful Creatures

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Ben 10

Beware of the Villainess

Big Hero 6

Bill and Ted

Black Butler

Click Me!

Black Mirror

Bleach

Click Me!

Blood of Zeus

Bloodsucking Bastards

Blue Lock

Bodyguard

Bohemian Rhapsody

Boku no Hero Academia

Click Me!

Boondock Saints

Boy

Boy Meets World

Boys

Click Me!

Brand New Animal

Breakfast Club

Breaking Bad

Bridgerton

Bright

Broadchurch

Brooklyn Nine Nine

Brother's Conflict

Brutal: Confessions of a Homicide Investigator

Bucchigiri

Buddy Daddies

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Bungo Stray Dogs

Click Me!

C

Call of Duty

Candyman (Movie)

Castlevania

Carmen Sandiego

Carrie

Castle Rock

CBS Ghosts

Celebrities

Click Me!

Chainsaw Man

Child’s Play

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Cinderella Wasn't Me

Cobra Kai

Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Constantine

Craft

Crescent City

Crew

Criminal Minds

Crimson Peak

Critical Role

Cruel Intentions

Cruel Summer

Cuphead

D

Dance Academy

Dangan Ronpa

Click Me!

Dawn of the Dead

DC Universe

Click Me!

Dead By Daylight

Dead Poets Society

Deadman Wonderland

Deadly Class

Dear Evan Hansen

Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess

Death Note

Death Parade

Defending Jacob

Degrees of Lewdity

Click Me!

Derry Girls

Descendants

Detroit: Become Human

Connor

Daniel

Josh

Kara

Markus

North

Ralph

RK900

RK800 60

Simon

Devil All the Time

Devil May Cry

Devil's Advocate

Devilman Crybaby

Dharma and Greg

Diabolik Lovers

Ayato Sakamaki

Azusa Mukami

Laito Sakamaki

Reiji Sakamaki

Shin Tsukinami

Subaru Sakamaki

Yuma Mukami

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Dirt

Disastrous Life of Saiki K

Disney

Dissmissed

Divergent

Doctor Who

Ninth Doctor

Tenth Doctor

Eleventh Doctor

Twelfth Doctor

Thirteenth Doctor

Doki Doki Literature Club

Donnie Darko (film)

Dororo

Dorohedoro

Dr Stone

Dracula

Dragon Prince

Dune

Dungeon Meshi

Dunkirk

Durarara

Dynasty

E

Elite

Elvis

Emma

Encanto

Enola Holmes

Evil Dead

F

Fairy Tail

Fallout

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Fargo

Fate Grand Order

Father, I Don't Want to Get Married!

Fear

Fear Street

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Final Fantasy

Click Me!

Fire Emblem

Click Me!

Fire Force

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Formula 1

Four Brothers

Fourth Wing

Free! Iwatobi Swim Club

Aiichiro Nitori

Asahi Shiina

Haruka Nanase

Kisumi Shigino

Makoto Tachibana

Momotaro Mikoshiba

Nagisa Hazuki

Natsuya Kirishima

Rei Ryugazaki

Rin Matsuoka

Seijuro Mikoshiba

Sosuke Yamazaki

Friday the 13th

Friends

Fright Night

From Dusk Till Dawn

Frozen

Fruits Basket

Full House

Funny Games

Fury

G

Game Grumps

Game of Thrones

Click Me!

Gangsta

Gen V

Genshin Impact

Get Schooled

Ghost

Gifted

Gilmore Girls

Ginger Snaps

Ginny and Georgia

Gintama

Girl Meets World

Girl Next Door

Goblin Slayer

Godless

Golden Kamuy

Good Doctor

Good Girls

Good Omens

Good Place

Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl (HBO)

Gotham

Graceland

Granblue Fantasy

Click Me!

Grease

Great Gatsby

Great Wall

Greatest Showman

Greenhouse Academy

Grey’s Anatomy

[thejewofkansas]

Awards Season 2020-21: Critics Groups Salad V

Awards Season 2020-21: Critics Groups Salad V

Been a while since I’ve done one of these. Got a lot of groups to go over – 16, in fact. Most aren’t going to impact the Oscar race in of themselves, but they help us to read the season. This time around, the groups are: African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA)Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA)Critics’ Choice Awards (CCA)Detroit Film Critics Society (DFCS)Georgia Film Critics…

[dixiecotton]

The Detroit Film Critics Society has nominated Robert Pattinson as Best Actor for 2019. Congratulations to Rob on his nomination and good luck! #robertpattinson #thelighthouse https://www.instagram.com/p/B5wAQJ7HtXy/?igshid=4vvybw9fe8ib

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Hail Satan?

Remember when I said I was behind on reviews? Ok, so I saw this on my birthday back in May. But given the spirit of the Halloween season, it felt appropriate to release this review now. In case you’re wondering, no, I would not normally have picked a documentary about Satanists to celebrate the day of my birth (although we did get free popcorn, so that made it more festive). Director Penny Lane made this film in an attempt to illuminate the inner workings of the organization The Satanic Temple, and the film contains interviews with many members of TST like Lucien Greaves, as well as former members like Jex Blackmore who feel TST doesn’t act radically enough to fulfill its goals. If you’re anything like me, you might be thinking that sounds a little intense and what exactly are TST’s goals anyway? *gulps nervously* Well...

Namely, the separation of church and state, egalitarianism, and social justice. Basically this film gives you a crash course in the 6-year-old religion (yes, it is registered with the government as an official religion), The Satanic Temple, and the ways in which it uses its status as a religious body to call out hypocrisy and unconstitutional privileging of one religion (*cough*YOU KNOW WHICH RELIGION*cough*) over others in these our United States. Oh, and they’re not big on like, literal Satan. They don’t worship a former angel called the Morning Star OR a red guy with horns or anything like that. It’s all about the literary Satan as a metaphor for rebellion against tyranny. Because there’s so much of a learning curve for most people watching the documentary, Lane spends a lot of it explaining what TST isn’t before she’s able to dig into what it is. I think this is necessary, but sometimes it feels like the thread of TST’s message gets lost a bit.

Some thoughts:

First and foremost, the documentary doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. On the one hand it seems to be treating the subject matter extremely tongue-in-cheek or maybe even slightly mocking (think Toddlers and Tiaras) but then it engages with a lot of the issues that The Satanic Temple stands for in a thoughtful, insightful way. There’s certainly a shift that takes place from the beginning to the end of the film, and in some ways the ambivalence fits. You’re never 100% sure what to make of Lucien Greaves or his band of merry mischief-makers. This is probably because The Satanic Temple, like any other religious organization, acts as an umbrella that welcomes a whole host of people who may be drawn to different aspects of the organization’s mission. 

The music cues are a big part of what makes the tone feel slippery - they mostly act as aural cues signaling that this is all satire or maybe Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Fun fact - TST’s Satanism is NOT the same as Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, which was started in the 60s but is not political and is mostly just about rationality but also magic? They also believe in the metaphorical Satan as a symbol of rebellion but their whole vibe is pretty different.

Probably the most surprising and interesting concept of TST to me is the belief that because Satan confronted God as an oppressor, activism therefore expresses the Satanic faith. If you’re not participating in political activism to demand social justice and equality, you’re not being a good Satanist. 

“I was a zesty little atheist” is definitely my favorite line. 

Lane made the film as a response to most people’s perception of Satanism that rose out of the Satanic Panic of the 80s/90s. TST feels there has never been a public reckoning or apology for the way Satanists were portrayed and demonized during this time - all the while, this projection of horrifying sins like child sexual abuse and violence has been buried in Christian churches for centuries.

Some people might ask, so if they’re not down with God or a higher power of any kind, why not just be an atheist? But as one of the church members says, “Atheism is just defining what you’re not.” These are folks who want to be a part of a humanist movement, who want to engage in human connection and make their community and society a better place. It’s hard not to respect that!

One of the biggest sections of the documentary centers around TST’s fight to remove 10 Commandments statues that were erected outside of a couple of states’ Capitol buildings on the grounds that it was a violation of the 1st Amendment. You probably recall that their solution was to simply erect a giant statue of their main man Baphomet (see the movie poster above) with two little children flanking him right next to the 10 Commandments statues. Because that’s equality! Their legal fight for religious freedom and equality actually succeeded in Oklahoma and the fight is ongoing in Arkansas. But the part that really blew my mind was that Cecil B Demille promoted these specific 10 Commandments monuments in connection with the promotion of the Ten Commandments movie, which I did not know and just..........if that isn’t the most American thing I’ve ever heard. Government-sanctioned religious practice based on a Hollywood-based promotion to ensure a movie makes as much money as possible. 

Lucien Greaves’ phone case says “Fuck Donald Trump” and that just made me really happy.

The film isn’t without cause for criticism though - Lane purposefully avoided showcasing some criticism from external factions of Satanists of TST’s goals and methods, or much turmoil within the church itself. The most that’s discussed is about the Detroit chapter’s split from the church as a whole - Jex Blackmore, the Detroit chapter’s leader, is portrayed as a rogue agent because she incited violence at a church gathering by saying “execute the President.” Jex gets her fair share of screen time, but the film doesn’t quite commit to interrogating or investigating the criticisms of TST, valid or not. 

Did I Cry? No, but boy did I learn a lot.

This is a pretty engaging, eye-opening film, and it’s more educational than I was expecting. I’d encourage everyone to watch it simply to learn more about The Satanic Temple and their values, which include compassion, justice, bodily autonomy, scientific accountability, and freedom. Turns out, more of us are probably Satanists than we thought. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[hometvse]

Take Shelter Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

[morethanafinalgirl]

Anderson, Jada

Blog Post #3

On Sorry to Bother You

           Maybe I was looking for a reason to write about something that features Tessa Thompson (because wow a queen!). Or perhaps I needed to channel some of my critiques of capitalism into writing. Sorry to Bother You provides me with the chance to do both in any case!

           The first time I ever watched this film, I was “SHOOK” to say the least. I think a second viewing was really helpful and honestly I’d like to watch it again just to see how much more I could get out of it. One of the themes we have gotten to engage with in several works in the Aboard Mothership class so far is the one of human beings as machines. We see this in Janelle Monae’s brilliant works, with her android characters (contemporary slaves) and in “Aye, and Gomorrah” by Samuel R. Delany, where spacers are used for work purposes that benefit the population but leave the spacers themselves in isolation. I felt like Sorry to Bother You also dealt with this, and the notion of “selling yourself” in order to thrive in a capitalistic society. I felt like, through showing Cash’s relationships completely deteriorate and his priorities completely switch, filmmaker Boots Riley was able to present a critique of capitalism in its nature to engrain a toxic mindset of ‘sacrifice everything in order to be productive and make gains’ into the labor force (and all other major institutions).  A capitalistic society results in humans being seen as a means to an end.  It results in humans being seen as machines, or perhaps rather different parts to of a machine that make it work. Because of this, people are seen as expendable, as they have become ‘not human.’ We see this through the ‘equisapiens’ in the film—I thought they were a representation of the concept of ‘workhorses’ and more specifically a tireless workhorse mentality. Black and Brown folx are and have been the most negatively affected by a capitalist system, as we often have what have been constructed as the ‘lower level’ jobs which demand countless hours of labor, with the promise of ‘moving up’ eventually.  As we see in the film, Cash is one of the few who makes it up the ranks, but not before giving up huge parts of his identity, essentially sacrificing himself and who he truly is, for monetary gain. Through specifically using Black folks for the film, a discussion of “respectability politics” and assimilation come into play—especially with the introduction of Cash’s “white” voice. Which then makes me think about who capitalism is really meant to benefit and who ultimately gains the most power, money, and influence from it.  

Tessa Thompson’s character of Detroit was my favorite in the film, as she represents someone who is part of the resistance movement, but also very realistically needs a paycheck to get by in reality. This is something that so many of us who are not asleep are forced to grapple with every day. She works for the very corporation she criticizes in order to make money which is needed to survive in the society, but we also see how she pushes back with her art, activism, and real action in her participation and organization in the workers’ strikes. Speaking of activism, I thought that Mr. [CENSORED] in the film had to have been part of the Left Eyes movement, hence his eye patch. Was he an inside man who had infiltrated the top ranks and was trying to eventually lead an uprising from the inside? Did he ‘sell out’ once he got there? Was he once part of the movement, hit by the reality of the survivability of everyday life, and give in to an overpowering capitalist system by joining the workforce? And most importantly, was he even real? I thought he was a reflection of Cash, or what Cash thinks he must aspire to / become in order to infinitely succeed in corporate land. Ultimately, this movie made me think a lot and I still have a lot of questions, which I really appreciate about this film!

[xeno-aligned]

copy & pasted under the read more in order to have a local copy.

A Brief His and Herstory of Butch And Femme

BY: JEM ZERO 16 DEC 2017

When America’s LGBTQ+ folk started coming out of the closet in the 1950s, the underground scene was dominated by working class people who had less to lose if they were outed. Butch/femme presentation arose as a way for lesbians to identify each other, also serving as a security measure when undercover cops tried to infiltrate the local scenes. Butch women exhibited dapper and dandy aesthetics, and came to be known for being aggressive because they took protective roles during raids and other examples of homophobic violence. The image of the butch lesbian became a negative stereotypes for lesbians as a whole, leaving out femme lesbians, who are (pretty insultingly) considered undetectable as lesbians due to their feminine presentation.

In modern times there’s less need for strict adherence to these roles; instead, they become heritage. A great deal of political rebellion is wrapped up in each individual aesthetic. Butch obviously involves rejecting classically feminine gender expectations, while femme fights against their derogatory connotations.

But while butch/femme has been a part of lesbian culture, these terms and identities are not exclusive to queer women. Many others in the LGBTQ community utilize these signifiers for themselves, including “butch queen” or “femme daddy.” Butch and femme have different meanings within queer subcultures, and it’s important to understand the reasons they were created and established.

The Etymology

The term “lesbian” derives from the island on which Sappho lived—if you didn’t already guess, she was a poet who wrote extensively about lady-lovin’. Before Lesbos lent its name to lesbians, the 1880s described attraction between women as Sapphism. In 1925, “lesbian” was officially recorded as the word for a female sodomite. (Ick.) Ten years before that, “bisexual” was defined as "attraction to both sexes."

In upcoming decades, Sapphic women would start tearing down the shrouds that obscured the lives of queer women for much of recorded history. Come the ‘40s and ‘50s, butch and femme were coined, putting names to the visual and behavioral expression that could be seen in pictures as early as 1903. So, yeah—Western Sapphic women popularized these terms, but the conversation doesn’t end there, nor did it start there.

Before femme emerged as its own entity, multiple etymological predecessors were used to describe gender nonconforming people. Femminiello was a non-derogatory Italian term that referred to a feminine person who was assigned male—this could be a trans woman, an effeminate gay man, or the general queering of binarist norms. En femme derives from French, and was used to describe cross-dressers.

Butch, first used in 1902 to mean "tough youth," has less recorded history. Considering how “fem” derivatives were popularized for assigned male folks, one might attribute this inequality to the holes in history where gender-defying assigned female folks ought to be.

The first time these concepts were used to specifically indicate women was the emergence of Sapphic visibility in twentieth century. This is the ground upon which Lesbian Exclusivism builds its tower, and the historical and scientific erasure of bisexual women is where it crumbles. Seriously, did we forget that was a thing?

The assumption that any woman who defies gender norms is automatically a lesbian relies on the perpetuation of misogynist, patriarchal stereotypes against bisexual women. A bisexual woman is just as likely to suffer in a marriage with a man, or else be mocked as an unlovable spinster. A woman who might potentially enjoy a man is not precluded from nonconformist gender expression. Many famous gender nonconforming women were bisexual—La Maupin (Julie d'Aubigny), for example.

Most records describing sexual and romantic attraction between women were written by men, and uphold male biases. What happens, then, when a woman is not as openly lascivious as the ones too undeniably bisexual to silence? Historically, if text or art depicts something the dominant culture at the time disagrees with, the evidence is destroyed. Without voices of the Sapphists themselves, it’s impossible to definitively draw a line between lesbians and bisexuals within Sapphic history.

Beyond White Identities

Another massive hole in the Lesbian Exclusivist’s defenses lies in the creeping plague that is the Mainstream White Gay; it lurks insidiously, hauling along the mangled tatters of culture that was stolen from Queer and Trans People of Colour (QTPOC). In many documents, examples provided of Sapphic intimacy are almost always offered from the perspective of white cis women, leaving huge gaps where women of color, whether trans or cis, and nonbinary people were concerned. This is the case despite the fact that some of the themes we still celebrate as integral to queer culture were developed by Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ folk during the Harlem Renaissance, which spanned approximately from 1920 to 1935.

A question I can’t help but ask is: Where do queer Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color fit into the primarily white butch/femme narrative? Does it mean anything that the crackdown on Black queer folk seemed to coincide with the time period when mainstream lesbianism adopted butch and femme as identifiers?

Similar concepts to butch/femme exist throughout the modern Sapphic scene. Black women often identify as WLW (Women-Loving-Women), and use terms like “stud” and “aggressive femme.” Some Asian queer women use “tomboy” instead of butch. Derivatives and subcategories abound, sometimes intersecting with asexual and trans identities. “Stone butch” for dominant lesbians who don’t want to receive sexual stimulation; “hard femme” as a gender-inclusive, fat-positive, QTPOC-dominated political aesthetic; “futch” for the in-betweenies who embody both butch and femme vibes. These all center women and nonbinary Sapphics, but there’s still more.

Paris is Burning, a documentary filmed about New York City ball culture in the 1980s, describes butch queens among the colourful range of identities prevalent in that haven of QTPOC queerness. Despite having a traditionally masculine physique, the gay male butch queen did not stick to gender expectations from straight society or gay culture. Instead, he expertly twisted up his manly features with women’s clothing and accessories, creating a persona that was neither explicitly masculine nor feminine.

Butch Queens Up in Pumps, a book by Marlon M. Bailey, expounds upon their presence within inner city Detroit’s Ballroom scene, its cover featuring a muscular gay man in a business casual shirt paired with high heels. Despite this nuance, butch remains statically defined as a masculine queer woman, leaving men of color out of the conversation.

For many QTPOC, especially those who transcend binary gender roles, embracing the spirit of butch and femme is inextricable with their racial identity. Many dark-skinned people are negatively portrayed as aggressive and hypermasculine, which makes it critical to celebrate the radical softness that can accompany femme expressions. Similarly, the intrinsic queerness of butch allows some nonbinary people to embrace the values and aesthetics that make them feel empowered without identifying themselves as men.

Butch, Femme, and Gender

It’s pretty clear to me that the voices leading the Lesbian Exclusive argument consistently fail to account for where butch and femme have always, in some form, represented diverse gender expression for all identities.

‘Butch’ and ‘femme’ began to die out in the 1970s when Second Wave Feminism and Lesbian Separatism came together to form a beautiful baby, whom they named “Gender Is Dead.” White, middle class cis women wrestled working class QTWOC out of the limelight, claiming that masculine gender expression was a perversion of lesbian identity. The assassination attempt was largely unsuccessful, however: use of these identifiers surged back to life in the ‘80s and ‘90s, now popularized outside of class and race barriers.

Looking at all this put together, I have to say that it’s a mystery to me why so many lesbians, primarily white, believe that their history should take precedence over… everyone else that makes up the spectrum of LGBTQ+ experiences, even bi/pan Sapphics in same-gender relationships. If someone truly believes that owning butch/femme is more important than uniting and protecting all members of the Sapphic community from the horrors of homophobic and gendered oppression, maybe they’re the one who shouldn’t be invited to the party.

As a nonbinary lesbian, I have experienced my share of time on the flogging-block. I empathize strongly with the queer folks being told that these cherished identities are not theirs to claim. Faced with this brutal, unnecessary battle, I value unity above all else. There’s no reason for poor trans women, nonbinary Black femmes, bisexual Asian toms, gay Latino drag queens, or any other marginalized and hurting person to be left out of the dialogue that is butch and femme, with all its wonderful deconstructions of mainstream heteronormative culture.

It is my Christmas wish that the Lesbian Exclusivist Tower is torn down before we open the new chapter in history that is 2018. Out of everything the LGBTQ+ community has to worry about already, petty infighting shouldn’t be entertained—especially when its historical foundation is so flimsy. Queering gender norms has always been the heart of butch/femme expression, and that belongs to all of us.