Author: The Arts Are Life

I am a writer and musician. Lover of music, movies, books, art, and nature.

Book Review: Queen of Babble in the Big City

April 19, 2019

categories: books

Lizzie Nichols is at it again in the sequel to Meg Cabot’s hilarious novel Queen of Babble, and this time she is in the Big Apple. A quick recap: Queen of Babble is about this young woman named Lizzie Nichols who loves to talk, but often gets in trouble for gossiping. She lives in England with her boyfriend Andrew, who is working as a waiter to pay his bills through grad school but then files for unemployment benefits after he gambles and loses all his money. Lizzie shouts aloud that Andrew is taking money away from people who, unlike him, have no job at all, and this gets him in trouble, so he asks her for money instead. Then Lizzie leaves him and goes on a train to France to spend time with her friend Shari and Shari’s boyfriend, Chaz. On the train she meets this handsome guy named Luke, who is on his way to France, too, and it turns out Shari and Chaz are staying at Luke’s estate so they can get ready for the wedding of Luke’s cousin, Vicky. At first, Lizzie thinks Luke is in love with her, but then at the wedding she runs into his girlfriend, Dominique, and then gets her dreams crushed. Dominique ends up being very condescending toward Lizzie and even challenging her to fix Vickie’s wedding dress the night before her wedding. Lizzie takes up Dominique’s challenge and ends up making the dress perfect after staying up all night fixing it, and Vickie is happy with it. Luke ends up dumping Dominique and falling in love with Lizzie, and the two of them move to New York and live together in the apartment Luke’s mom bought him (oh, did I already mention Luke-and Chaz-both have hefty trust funds?)

Lizzie thinks it’s going to be a walk in the park. Who says a girl from Ann Arbor, Michigan, can’t brave the blistery winters, congested traffic and hustle of New York City? However, when she gets there, she realizes that although Luke’s rent is covered, Lizzie still needs to find a job so she doesn’t have to depend on Luke’s financial blessings to survive in the city. Also, she wants to find a job related to her college degree in fashion design, and Luke was immensely supportive of her dream, so he moved to New York so that she could pursue her passion. However, she keeps getting rejected by several opportunities, and finally goes to a French couple who rejects her portfolio at first until she tells them she is willing to work for free. Because they cannot afford to lose out to the competition with Maurice, another wedding dress designer in the city, they have her work for them with no benefits, no paid time off, no pay whatsoever. The couple lets her work for them, but then Lizzie has to find an actual paying job so that she can do the free work for Monsieur and Madame Henri on the side. Chaz hooks her up with his dad’s law firm, and so she finds work as a receptionist there, making fast friends with Tiffany, who, like Lizzie, loves to gossip. While working at Monsieur and Madame Henri’s shop, Lizzie meets a young woman who is unhappy with the service Maurice gave her for her wedding dress (he said to store it in some kind of container, but then that material of the container ended up ruining her wedding dress.) Lizzie uses her gregariousness and her empathetic nature to her advantage and tells the young woman how the dress can be fixed. The Henris still look down on her, but Lizzie is determined to show them what she’s worth so they can finally swallow their pride and pay her for her work.

Meanwhile, Lizzie is struggling with maintaining her friendship with Shari. Shari works for a nonprofit and is very busy nowadays, and when Lizzie tries to call her about why her (Shari) and Chaz aren’t on good terms anymore, Shari tells her she has to go and hangs up. Later, Lizzie finds out that Shari and Chaz broke up because Shari fell in love with one of her female coworkers, her boss Pat, and now lives with her. Shari is worried that her parents will disown her for being gay, but Lizzie continues to support her along the way, and Shari’s mother ends up being very supportive even though Shari’s dad doesn’t react very well to his daughter’s coming out.

However, Lizzie realizes that she is on thin ice at her paying job at the law firm when she meets Jill Higgins, a young woman married to a very rich bachelor in New York named John MacDowell whose family owns quite a lot of real estate in the city. Jill works at a job John’s family doesn’t see as attractive: working with seals in a zoo, and his family thinks that Jill is marrying John for his money, so they are having her sign a prenuptial agreement so that Jill won’t get any of John’s cash until they have kids together. Jill meets with the law firm so that she can have her rights protected when married to John. The press often pokes fun at Jill and calls her names deriding her weight, but Lizzie has a soft spot for Jill, and so one day she goes into the bathroom to hear Jill crying. She gives Jill several treats from the break room in the office, and listens to Jill talk about how John’s mother-in-law hates Jill and thinks that she is just out for her son’s wealth. Lizzie tells Jill that she works with brides and that even though she is not a certified wedding specialist, she can restore any vintage or antique wedding gown and make something new of it. Jill soon develops trust in Lizzie and has her work on her wedding gown, but then Roberta, Lizzie’s boss, finds out that a photo of Lizzie taking Jill to her car makes it in the paper and nearly fires Lizzie because she had to keep any matter with Jill’s wedding confidential, and since Lizzie is a receptionist she wasn’t, according to the rules, supposed to be talking to Jill at all. But honestly, if she hadn’t met Jill, Jill wouldn’t have had anyone to really call a friend because everyone just wanted something from her.

In the meantime, Lizzie must decide if she wants to keep living with Luke or leave him, because Shari tells her that she hasn’t been herself ever since living with Luke and that she should think twice before wanting to marry him. All Lizzie dreams about is marrying Luke even though they have literally only known each other for six months, but Luke doesn’t like commitment, so he’s not too keen on marrying her yet, even though he wants to still live with Lizzie.

This book really does talk about a lot of topics that are still relevant today: working for free, marriage, commitment, friendship. This book has it all, and honestly, like the first, I kept thinking about Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. Elle Woods is this very kind-hearted optimistic young woman who doesn’t fit in when she attends Harvard Law School to see her boyfriend. But she also doesn’t give up on herself and studies hard even when her professor tells her that she isn’t going to get anywhere in law school simply because she dresses in pin and wears makeup. Elle also is very good at keeping friends because she knows how to keep a secret, even when Brooke, a lady who is on trial for allegedly murdering her husband, tells Elle that she only got her physically fit body not from exercise, but from getting liposuction. Like Elle, Lizzie doesn’t give up even when people tell her she won’t get far in anything, and I appreciate that about her character. Now of course, as an introvert who likes talking sometimes but who hasn’t been to many weddings, I couldn’t totally relate to Lizzie, but I love that she never gives up even when New York City becomes a day in day out struggle.

She also taught me the importance of knowing your self-worth. She lets the Henris take advantage of her hard work by saying she will work for free, thinking they will pay her one day. But when time passes and they don’t pay her anything (they are a family-owned business but are struggling financially themselves and having a hard time affording to pay their rent), she finally gets fed up and then when the Henris reveal to the press that Lizzie helped Jill with her wedding plans, getting Jill into further trouble and costing Lizzie her job at the firm, Lizzie finally marches in and demands they pay her a fair salary and benefits (she says “I want thirty thousand a year plus commissions. I want two weeks’ paid vacation, full medical and dental. I want at least one sick day per month plus two personal days per year. And I want the upstairs apartment, rent free, all utilities paid for by the shop,” Cabot p. 287.) When she said all this, of course I was snapping my fingers and practically shouting, “Get. it. GIRL!” But seriously, I understood that I, too, as a young woman in a creative field, need to know my worth. I need to work hard but also bot feel like I have to always work for free, especially in a private place like New York City (or really anywhere, since in a lot of places in the U.S. things are getting more and more expensive, namely housing.)

It also taught me that weddings involve a lot of planning. Throughout the book, Lizzie includes several excellent guides for finding the perfect wedding gown for your body type, what to do after the wedding (i.e. writing thank-you notes to your guests, etc.), alternatives to throwing rice when the bride and groom leave in their “Just Married” car, and other really helpful things I had very little prior knowledge of. I hope when I get married (which I have no idea when) I can keep these guides in mind.

Once again, Meg Cabot continues to work magic with her excellent writing. The end (I won’t spoil it) had me seriously snapping my fingers and reeling back in shock, not from horror but from sheer fangirldom. Now I’m going to devour the third installment in the series! 🙂

Queen of Babble in the Big City. 2007 by Meg Cabot. 307 pp.

Confessions of a Shopaholic: A Fictional Personal Finance Book

April 17, 2019

Categories: books

I devoured this book. At first I went to the library this weekend to get some novels, but then I thought I needed to get another book on personal finance, even though I had already read Get Money by Kristen Wong and absorbed The Financial Diet like osmosis.

And to be honest, Confessions of a Shopaholic really is one of the most important personal finance books out there, even if it’s a novel that came out eighteen years ago. I don’t care if people think it’s mere “chick lit” or a silly story about a woman who can’t control her shopping habit. But after listening to so many financial literacy podcasts, reading articles in the Money section of MSN and preaching to the Holy Temple of Suze Orman (I’m pretty sure I’ve perfected the way she says “Roth IRA” at this point), reading this book made me really think about our consumer culture, clutter, and our society’s lingering reluctance to talk about money, especially how society has conditioned women to talk about money.

I saw the movie a while ago, and can’t really remember it other than the gorgeous Isla Fisher starring as Rebecca, the main character. However, I do remember that, unlike the book, the film takes place in New York City. The novel takes place in London. Rebecca (“Becky”) Bloomwood thinks she is living the high life, with her upscale apartment in an affluent area, but she has a whole host of other issues to deal with, namely her credit card debt. She writes as a financial journalist and yet doesn’t get paid much or even practice Successful Savings habits even when she works in finance. She feels extremely out of place among the super-powerful financial gurus in the city, and her friend Suze tells her that her problem is not necessarily that she spends too much money, but that she doesn’t make enough money. So Becky applies for a job at a clothing store, but gets fired on her very first day for trying to steal a precious item of clothing from a customer that she (Becky) really wants. Becky tries to practice frugality, and yet after a few days she goes back to spending on things she doesn’t need, like eating out and buying books. She takes on a side hustle which involves her putting together frames for pictures and selling them for a profit, but doesn’t get far with it. Becky also has to deal with Luke Brandon, an arrogant financial advisor who looks down on Becky and doesn’t really take her seriously. However, Becky is determined to make her life work for her by actually confronting her financial issues instead of running away from them.

This book reminded me that while it’s okay to have nice things, having too much can run you ragged and actually make you feel unfulfilled in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending $11 at the movies just as much as the next person. However, movies are much cheaper when you get them on the Red Box or even at the library, so I never really feel anymore like I just have to go to the movies every week because it does add up. When I do go to the movies or eat out on those rare occasions, I can appreciate it more than if I did it every day. Becky’s struggle also made me think of how Suze Orman would react to this book; I honestly don’t know if Suze would have made it through because Becky’s spending habits are over-the-top ridiculous. However, in a way, it does imply that women are traditionally stereotyped to be bad with money and don’t have enough saved up for their own needs. I mean, there are men who are bad spenders, too, and there are also several women who manage their finances just fine. There are also women like Becky who spend and never save for themselves. The book also made me understand why it’s important to have an emergency fund, because Becky is underpaid at her job and doesn’t like it very much, but instead of saving money so she can leave for a better opportunity (or work on her own projects), she spends money so that she can push the stress she feels at work under the table. However, she continues to get multiple letters from her bank about her overdraft fees and that she needs to meet with them to discuss her financial situation. This novel also taught me that we really need to talk about money. Even though most people talk about it, it still brings up uncomfortable feelings, and that’s okay because our financial situations are unique to each of us. It made me think of the money personalities Kristen Wong talks about. Becky avoids talking about money because socially speaking, she has been conditioned to believe talking about her own financial situation was bad. But when she finally confronts the issue of money head-on, she feels less ashamed to talk about it or encourage anyone in her same boat. It reminded me of Paulette Perhach’s essay “A Story of a Fuck Off Fund,” in which she talks about how she inflated her lifestyle to fit in with everyone else, but that she was dealing with a toxic boss at work and really wanted to leave her job, so she saved up an emergency fund and took on extra work and just lived below her means so that she could leave any kind of messy situation knowing she had the means to do so.

Overall, I really loved this book, and cannot wait to read its sequel! 🙂

Confessions of a Shopaholic: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella. 312 pp. 2001.

Book Review: On the Come Up

April 27, 2019

Categories: books

I just finished On the Come Up by Angie Thomas and think there needs to be a sequel to the book. It is that good. I read her novel The Hate U Give about a year ago and devoured it within a few days. For those who haven’t yet read the book, The Hate U Give is about a young Black woman named Starr who loses her childhood friend when a police officer kills him. Starr, over the course of the novel, learns to transform her grief into a call for everyone to protest racial profiling. This novel earned Angie Thomas a spot on The New York Times bestseller list and a movie starring Amandla Stenberg as Starr.

On the Come Up is also incredibly good. It is about a young Black woman named Brianna (nicknamed “Bri”) Jackson who lives with her mom and her brother after the murder of her father, who was a prominent rapper. Bri, like her family, is struggling to make ends meet while aspiring to be a famous rapper, but then her Aunt Pooh encourages her to enter a rapping battle to get a record deal with Supreme, a prominent rapper who was in competition with Bri’s dad. Bri enters the battle even though her mom and teachers want her to focus on studying for the ACT so she can get into college, and she ends up roasting her rival, Supreme’s son Milez. Her song goes viral and everyone at school now knows who she is, but the further immersed she gets in her career as a rapper, the deeper in trouble Bri gets with her family and friends. Jayda (nicknamed Jay), Bri’s mom, was able to recover from her substance abuse and get a job at the local church, but when she gets laid off, she struggles to provide for herself, Bri and her son, Trey. Bri’s fame becomes the talk of the community, and not in a good way. One day, two police officers profile Bri and accuse her of having drugs in her backpack when she actually has candy she is selling to make money. Everyone at the school sings Bri’s hit, but a lot of people criticize her because the lyrics seem to the public to glorify drug use, gun violence and money. Supreme tries to sell Bri out, but Bri eventually realizes how, in the end, the money and fame doesn’t matter if it jeopardizes your safety and the safety of your friends and family. She realizes that one can still be a rapper and not have to play into people’s mainstream ideas of who rappers are. In fact, rap can be used as a means of fostering community and addressing social injustice. This book really spoke to me, especially with Trey’s character. Trey went to college, got straight A’s in high school, and got a degree in psychology. However, he couldn’t find jobs in his field, so he got a job working at a pizza restaurant to support the family while looking for a better job and applying to graduate school. His grandfather pities him for having a college degree and working in food service, but Trey’s situation is a real reality that speaks to a lot of us millennials who get these college degrees but don’t have many opportunities after college to use these degrees in the real world. However, even though Trey doesn’t directly use his psychology degree in a job-market sense, he still uses it to his advantage when helping out Bri. In one scene, Bri cries because she is overwhelmed with the unwanted attention she is getting at school for getting her music out there, with her family’s financial situation, and with the death of her father. She gets on a radio show and calls out Hype, the interviewer, when he belittles her music and makes her out to be this violent person when she’s really just trying to survive, and she gets backlash from it. It is overwhelming, and she thinks she is weak from crying in front of Trey, but he tells her that crying doesn’t make you weak and that “admitting that you’re weak is one of the strongest things you can do.” (Thomas p. 362)

This made me think of the film Moonlight, which is about Chiron, a young Black gay man growing up at a time where no one other than a few people would accept him for who he is. In one scene, Chiron cries in the principal’s office because Kevin, the guy he fell in love with, beats him up after a homophobic school bully pressures him to do so. The principal tries to convince him that he should have told someone that he was being bullied, but Chiron tells her that she doesn’t know how hard it is for him to do that. In another scene, we see Juan, a drug dealer who supports Chiron when his mom doesn’t, break down and cry at the dinner table because Chiron is living this painful reality where kids at school are calling him slurs and his mom also neglects him at home, and he just doesn’t know what to tell this little kid when Juan himself is just trying to survive. This movie shows that crying is human, but that Hollywood hasn’t always been good about just letting Black individuals, especially Black men, have space to just release their pain through tears. I totally agree with Trey that crying doesn’t make you weak, even though our society has historically stigmatized the shedding of tears. Crying shows that you are willing to admit that something is wrong, and it is a powerful way to communicate. Of course, crying too much is not always a good thing (I’m an empath, trust me, I know.) So even though it seems Trey’s degree is useless, it actually helps him read people and know what they are going through. This is how I feel with philosophy and Africana Studies. As much as people love to bash philosophy majors, our degree really isn’t useless because regardless of whether you pursue economics, STEM, or the arts and humanities, you need a solid philosophy on which to base your studies, otherwise you’re just doing all this research with no purpose. Even when working all these different jobs not related to my major, I learned how to think and act like a philosopher. As a philosophy major I learned how to question everything: What is the purpose of being a creative? What is my purpose in life? Are there perks to being a perfectionist? I have applied philosophy to everything: when I listen to music, when I write, when I watch movies, when I go to my job every day, when I interact with my fellow human beings, when I perform music. I live philosophy every day even though I don’t get to sit in my dorm room and reread Descartes’ Meditations ten times like I did in college.

The Mask Stereotype

Even though my second degree, Africana Studies, didn’t get me a job working at the Smithsonian (I still need to just get a ticket and go visit the National Museum of African-American History), I have used my training as a philosophy major to think more deeply about the deep roots of Black pain in our country’s history and how we can continue to address these roots through music, writing and other mediums of expression. When Bri’s song becomes a hit, Supreme goads her to do more music with lyrics about gun violence, but after understanding the risk that producing this music has on her loved ones, Bri realizes that Supreme is using her as a pawn to beef up his already successful career. When she goes into the studio expecting to rap her own lyrics, Supreme says Dee-Nice, another rapper, already wrote the song for her. She reads the lyrics and finds that it’s the same subject matter she rapped about in her hit: possessing guns and killing other people in the community if they criticize her. James, an older white man who is friends with Supreme at the record label, only has this single perception of the Black community: problems. Everywhere problems. Drugs, gangs, violence, prison, unemployment. He doesn’t know rap’s potential to address the institutional inequality that caused these problems in the first place. But because James only cares about making a profit from Bri, he thinks that all she wants to rap about is “sassy black-girl shit” (Thomas 381) and that pigeonholing her will make the record label richer. However, as an outsider, Bri can see through their nonsense even though she has gained access to this rich powerful boys club of music producers, so she speaks to Supreme in private and tells him she’s got her own music and won’t rap what Dee-Nice wrote. Supreme tells her that she can’t worry about all that because she is in the music business and “this is about making money” because James has the money they don’t have to succeed in the business. In reality, if Bri were to keep making songs that didn’t personally speak to her, she would just keep getting paid less than a profit while James and Supreme enjoyed most of the money without really doing any of the hard work themselves (aka writing the music from their hearts.)

Bri says the moment when Supreme is threatening to end her career reminds her of when she went to the zoo, and these little kids were making faces at the animals in the exhibit and trying to get them to come up to the glass or make sounds, solely for the sake of entertainment. Even though these animals obviously didn’t pay attention to these kids, Bri remembers feeling bad for the animals, and after giving in to Supreme and rapping the song Dee-Nice wrote, she feels like she’s “in an exhibit, and there’s room full of people waiting for me to entertain them. I have to say what they want me to say. Be what they want me to hear.” (Thomas 384) There is a concept I learned about in one of my Africana Studies classes, and that was “putting on the mask,” or what happens when Black individuals feel like they are always performing for the public eye. Black individuals have diverse identities and experiences: straight, gay, trans, Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, biracial, multiracial, rich, poor, middle class, the list of identities goes on. However, race is about perceptio, and how people were brought up to view Blackness can condition how one wants to see Black people behave, and often these perceptions of Blackness are not very well-founded. James operates from a position where he feels it’s okay to belittle Bri, her dad and other Black citizens, because he promises her money and fame if she lets him say all these bigoted things about Black individuals. Instead of feeling like she can be free with her music, Bri feels trapped in the industry and is trying to hold onto her sense of self, but when her mom finds out what happened, she asks Bri who she really is and Bri can’t answer on the spot because she has other people telling her who she is. She realizes that she can still kill it as a female rapper without catering to macho bigwigs who couldn’t care less about her humanity.

This book reminded me so much of the film Dope. In the film Malcolm, Diggy and Jib are three high school “geeks” living in Inglewood who love ’90s hip-hop, want to go to college, and play in a punk band called Awreeoh. The school bullies pick on them for loving these things, and when a drug dealer named Dom invites Malcolm, Diggy and Jib to a party , Dom and the other partygoers at first make fun of them, but then when Malcolm finds out that Dom put a gun and cocaine in his backpack and Malcolm and his friends sell the cocaine on the black market, they suddenly become popular very fast. But when they get further enmeshed into the pickle of selling the cocaine, Malcolm’s ego gets in the way and I worried his friends were going to desert him. But Jib and Diggy stick with him through the whole thing even if it nearly costs them their future dreams. The friendship between Jib, Diggy and Malcolm reminded me of the friendship between Bri and her friends Sonny and Malik. They give each other the Wakanda handshake from the film Black Panther:

and they also love quoting Yoda from Star Wars. Their friendship is tight, and even when Bri’s hit goes viral and gets her backlash, they stick through with her all the way. I also liked how Bri and Malik never make Sonny feel different from them just because he is gay. Similarly, Jib and Malcolm love Diggy for who she is even when other people make fun of her for being a lesbian. As a queer POC, I was really happy that the rare gay characters were well-represented in Dope and On the Come Up.

While reading this book, I couldn’t help but plead in my mind: pleease let there be a movie for this. And sure enough, I Googled “on the come up movie” and Variety had just published a piece a couple of months ago about Fox purchasing the rights to produce the upcoming film based on the novel. I cannot begin to emphasize how important it is that we teach The Hate U Give and On the Come Up in our high school English classes (then again, I am lightyears removed from high school so I don’t know how the curriculum is nowadays.) We need to give kids of all races, especially young Black and Latinx kids, an opportunity to read books where they feel well-represented. I remember we read the occasional Gwendolyn Brooks poem for English class and Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, but for the most part the books we read had few to no POC characters with rich backstories and character development, and a lot of the authors, frankly speaking, were dead white men. After taking Africana Studies and reading literature by writers such as Teju Cole, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nell Larsen, I at first got angry because I never got to read these writers in school, but then came to appreciate in the end my college education and understand how much of a privilege it was to have access to even just knowing these writers exist and that they published these deeply personal works for us to read. Not everyone knows these works exist, and English teachers who just have their students read The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn and Julius Caesar (8/10/21: not hating on these books, I enjoyed them as much as the next person) aren’t giving their students a chance to know that these narratives like those of Starr and Brianna exist. On the Come Up is especially powerful because it encourages kids who might want to be rappers or other musicians that, while it’s okay to make money from your art to pay your bills and put bread on the table, music should also speak to social inequalities and musicians not be afraid of speaking up when something is wrong or people are taking advantage of their well-being. Brianna later uses her music to address the sexism she has encountered as a female rapper and people’s expectations for her to be someone she isn’t. As a musician who doesn’t say much, Bri’s story was inspiring for me because as an introvert she uses music to express her anger. At this point, after watching so much news, it’s hard for me to express how overwhelming it is. I could just shut off and not think about it, but I feel inspired after reading On the Come Up to use my music to address racial injustice, climate change, sexism, domestic violence and other forms of injustice. I recently came across this powerful performance of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings by Cremaine Booker, and in the video description he dedicates the performance to the late Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two unarmed Black men who died at the hands of police in 2016. After seeing this performance I gained the confidence to use my music to address things that make me angry but that I didn’t have the words to express my anger about. I have seen orchestras on YouTube perform this beautiful solemn piece, but Cremaine’s was the first version I have seen that was directly dedicated to addressing social injustice.

Overall, excellent novel. I wouldn’t mind reading it again. Truly a blessing to read another work by Angie Thomas! 🙂

On the Come Up. Angie Thomas. 452 pp. 2019.

Movie Review: Zola (CW: brief description of nudity)

August 1, 2021

Omg I have been dying to see this movie since the trailer came out! So I finally saw it. At first I didn’t want to see it because they said there was full-frontal male nudity and I was kind of squeamish about viewing it. So the first time I watched it, to be honest, I missed a lot of important scenes throughout the film because I couldn’t find any parent previews for it (which I usually read before watching PG-13 or R-rated features because I’m not into bloody stuff or jump scenes.) But also I didn’t get super surprised during the film because I had read up a lot about the film before seeing it, and watched a couple of interviews with the actors in Zola who talked about their characters, so I knew what was going to happen. And I read the Wikipedia page on it. So I finally watched it a second time without closing my eyes (except during the penis montage, although A24 does have an interesting article on their blog about how they chose the penises for that montage.)

So basically Zola is about this young Black woman named A’ziah “Zola” King, who works as an exotic dancer at night and has a waitressing job during the day. Janizca Bravo directed the film and wrote the screenplay, and the real life A’ziah “Zola” King produced the film. The film is based off of a real-life Twitter story that King told on October 27, 2015 in 148 tweets about how she met a young white woman at the diner she worked at, and how this young white woman, whose real name is Jessica but whose name in the film is Stefani, finds common ground with King because they work as exotic dancers. After they hit it off the first night (they follow each other on social media) Stefani texts her and tells her about this cute spot in Florida where they can make good money dancing. When Zola asks for more information, Stefani refuses to tell her any more details other than her boyfriend and a friend are coming along, too. We see how Stefani’s friendship is already taking up a huge chunk of Zola’s time because Zola’s fiancé, Sean, constantly has to deal with Zola texting Stefani all the time instead of spending time in the present moment with him. When Zola meets up with Stefani, she already has a sense that something is off, and the minute they hit the road it slowly becomes clear that Zola does not want to be there. I think one scene in particular shows this very clearly. Even after X, Derrek (Stefani’s boyfriend), Stefani and Zola have a good time singing “Hannah Montana” by Migos, soon after the scene cuts to Stefani loudly talking about this Black woman she met in a derogatory way, and Derrek, not knowing what to do, chimes in, while Zola looks uncomfortable and silently stares out the window.

In a couple of interviews I watched, Riley Keough, the actress who plays Stefani, was aware of Stefani’s racism and cultural appropriation and how her exploitation of Black culture, namely through her “blaccent,” was offensive. But Bravo encouraged her to go full out for Stefani in order to tell the story like it is. A character like Stefani honestly wasn’t new to me; I knew many white people who spoke in AAVE whenever I was around, and even one time I was in the car with some folks who weren’t Black and “Holy Grail” came on, and a couple of the folks decided to repeat the N word that comes up every time Jay-Z raps his verse in the song. And like Zola, all I could do was just turn away and look out the window. Even when the folks asked if I was doing okay, I couldn’t tell them because I didn’t want to seem like I was coming off as an angry, oversensitive person. The main theme I kept thinking about as I watched Zola was boundaries, because the issue of boundaries is prevalent throughout the film. Zola tells X she came with a specific purpose: to dance, but he tells her she is not there for that. Stefani keeps telling her male clients that she doesn’t set the price for her services, but this does her a disservice, mainly because she and Zola get in trouble when Zola sets her up a new page and has Stefani negotiate her pay. X accuses Zola of trying to outdo him, to do his job better than him, and persuades Stefani that she doesn’t deserve any of the $8,000 she made from her clients, and somehow makes it seem that her body is just a tool for men and that she shouldn’t get paid for the services she provides.

But if Zola taught me anything, it’s this: know your worth. It’s easier said than done, but Zola knows who she is and is a really good bullshit detector. She knows that Stefani, Derrek and X don’t have her best interest at heart, and that they are out to exploit her. Which is why Stefani’s side of the story had me busting up in laughter, because we know that Zola’s story is the only true point of view we should be trusting. In the @Stefani portion of the film, where Stefani recounts everything that went down on reddit, she portrays herself as this upright Christian woman who was just randomly approached by this Black woman who coerced Stefani into going to Florida. While she explains the story wearing a white suit, she shows Zola with twigs in her hair while waitressing and wearing black trash bags when going into the car to head to Florida. I just guffawed because Stefani’s side of the story is clearly problematic. I read on the Wikipedia page of this film that the movie is listed as a black comedy. For those who don’t know, black comedy is a genre which pokes fun at subjects that are hard to talk about, such as death, crime, suicide, discrimination and other serious topics. Even though Zola went through severe trauma on the trip to Florida, the way Stefani spins it is so ridiculous that it’s hard not to laugh at her side of the story because all she tries to do is portray Zola as this obnoxious Black woman, when Zola is the only level-headed one on the trip.

Because she is level-headed, X (Stefani’s pimp, played by Colman Domingo. Honestly, I love Coleman Domingo’s acting. He played Tish’s dad in If Beale Street Could Talk, the complete opposite of his evil character X in Zola.) often makes Zola the mom, the one to babysit Stefani and Derrek. It’s interesting that X, like Zola, is Black because it makes me think of the term misogynoir, which is misogyny against Black women. Even when Zola is trying to help Stefani by helping to negotiate her worth, X doesn’t want to give Zola credit, and even when he gives Zola some of the money, he doesn’t let her go home and instead orders her to make Stefani do what she did the previous night and exhaust herself by having sex with various clients. He refuses to let her take a much-needed break relaxing in the sun. Whenever she questions his authority and makes it clear that she’s not going to stoop to his level, he threatens her with physical violence and that Nigerian accent he pulls off when he’s really pissed off.

Derrek was also an interesting character. He ends up telling about the group’s whereabouts to someone who doesn’t have his best interests at heart. He also keeps trying to make Zola laugh by showing her funny videos, but she doesn’t fall for any of it. He is fed up with his girlfriend Stefani partaking in prostitution, and is sick of her manipulating other young women into what is essentially human trafficking. Whenever he brings this up, she goes to him and points to his chest, and asks “Whose is this?” and he tells her “yours.” and when she points to her heart and asks “Whose is this?” and he tells her “mine.” Even though he is scared he still goes along with whatever Stefani does because he feels he has no other choice because he really does love her and just wants to go back home with her.

Honestly, I’m glad I watched it twice because I missed a lot of key details of the film by closing my eyes throughout it. Like, Mica Levi’s score lines up with each scene in a different way, so it was hard to see how the score had a different meaning for each scene just because I was scared of some random scene with a lot of dicks in it. Also, Zola doesn’t say much, but she communicates a lot without having to say much during the film. Her eyes, her facial expressions, show how she is observant, how she is processing her trauma minute by minute because she doesn’t have time to rest and recuperate and heal. She is constantly babysitting Stefani and Derrek when they get in shenanigans, and it is emotionally exhausting work. By the time she gets in the car with Derrek she is emotionally tried in her patience and Derrek tries to get her mind off of it, but as a young Black woman dealing with a young white woman who has little to no respect for her, she is clearly fed up having to put up with shenanigans.

I honestly wouldn’t mind watching this again. There’s just something so attractive to me about A24 films. When I was watching Zola, it reminded me of when I watched The Florida Project. The actors in both of these films portray real life situations and bring so much magic to the everyday realities of life. I wish I had a more comprehensive review of the film, but I guess I’m still processing it.

Zola. 2021. Rated R for strong sexual content and language throughout, graphic nudity and violence including a sexual assault.

Movie Review: Begin Again

April 25, 2019

Categories: movies, music

After watching A Star is Born, I felt quite depressed and hopeless. What was the point of being a musician if it meant letting fame and fortune get to one’s head, causing the artist to lose touch with themselves in the process? I’m not saying the music industry is in any way to blame for substance abuse, but the stress of touring and parties can really stress some musicians out, especially if they are already dealing with substance abuse. I cried, thinking that was all the music industry had in store for me (even though a lot of classical musicians don’t get famous enough to lead those kinds of fame-filled lives.)

With Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping, it made fun of the fame associated with being a pop musician, and believe me, I laughed (but of course, anything with Andy Samberg is going to tickle my funny bone.) But then I asked myself, Is being a musician really just one big joke? I know not everyone ends up like that, but it got me thinking, once again: is there a way to be a successful musician if no one has discovered your musical talent until much later in life? Conner4Real (Andy Samberg’s character) has had people telling him he would be a star since he was very young, and so he grew up thinking he would just be successful for the rest of his life, even if his songs got terrible reviews and he struggled with his ego.

But with Begin Again, I can honestly say that I feel refreshed. When it first came out in 2013, I thought about seeing it because it looked interesting, but never got around to seeing it. But then I finally decided I wanted to give it a shot, and I’m glad I waited to see it because had I seen it earlier, it probably wouldn’t have resonated with me as much. But now that I have been out of the league of constant performances and auditions for orchestras and have been deciding from scratch whether to go to music school, to teach music lessons, to move to a big city and find my dreams there, or whatever else I was dreaming about with regards to music, watching Begin Again gave me a new perspective on what it means to be a musician and still lead a happy fulfilling life.

Gretta is an introverted young woman who is also a gifted singer and songwriter, and she moves to New York City with her boyfriend and fellow musician, Dave. Dave gets signed to a major record label and leads her into this totally different life, one that she is not interested in. They move from their tiny apartment in the city to a fancy studio where Dave produces all his hits. Shortly after they move into the studio, Dave tries to convince Gretta to go on tour and produce the songs with him for their album, but she is more interested in just making music and not so much the glamour that comes with all of that. Dave heads to Los Angeles to work with some producers for his album, leaving Gretta to hang out with her friend, Steve, who also happens to be a struggling musician like Gretta. Dave comes back from Los Angeles and has Gretta listen to one of his tracks, but Gretta intuitively finds out Dave cheated on her for a girl on the record producing team in L.A. and leaves him. One night Steve, Gretta’s friend, encourages her to perform at a bar, and so Gretta reluctantly sings what turns out to be a beautiful song.

Dan, a record label executive with drinking problems, a bad relationship with his wife and daughter and a reluctance to change, can’t understand why the indie record label he manages with his college buddy, Saul, is allowing too many pop-sounding musicians to record for them. When Saul tells him he needs to just go with the changes in people’s tastes instead of close himself off from them, Dan gets upset and Saul fires him. With no money and no job, Dan goes to a bar, drunk and contemplating suicide. Then he hears Gretta perform and he suddenly envisions her performance as if she was in a real recording studio, with strings, keyboard, drums and a guitar to back her up. He offers her a record deal, but she refuses. She tells him that she makes music for herself, not to get famous, and he tries to convince her that the point of music is to share with other people, not just to play it for oneself. Dan gets an epiphany and realizes that unlike Dave, who is living the high-life and going on tour but not really feeling fulfilled in his music career, Gretta doesn’t have to live that life and can make wonderful music even before she gets signed to Dan’s record label. So he gathers a bunch of musicians who are willing to play music without pay and has them, him, Steve and Gretta perform for the NYC public in parks, subways, in alleys, and on rooftops. When Dave asks Gretta to meet up with him, he realizes that she has moved on with her life and is no longer lonely without him, even when he tries to beg her to come back to him. She thankfully realizes that he’s not worth returning to not just because he cheated with another girl behind her back (and also panders to a crowd of other girls who swoon when they see him), but because she has charted her own music path with Dan and many other musicians who haven’t lived through the fame and getting signed to a label.

One interesting conversation happens toward the end of the film, and that is about how record sales work. At a meeting in the record label conference room, Saul listens to Gretta’s album and says he will hook up some producers in Los Angeles to listen to it so they can put it in some TV shows and films. Dan says he’s not interested and that he wants to get Gretta signed onto the label. Gretta then asks how distribution of music works, and one of the folks at the meeting tells her that if a CD sells for 10 units, then the musician gets a dollar (“like selling a book for a buck.”) Gretta rightfully asks why the musician gets only a dollar while the record label gets the other nine dollars. Saul chuckles and tells her that if she were to sign onto the label, the label would hire a producer to remix a couple of her tracks, then she would sell a hit record and then she would live the long and fulfilling music career of her dreams, but that because it was her album, it was her choice in the end whether or not she wanted to sign with the label. I was literally watching this interview that Rob Markman did for digital media company Genius on a study that showed musicians only make 12% of revenue from the music industry, and how musicians have tried to navigate this, and where all the other money went to if not to the artist (the full interview is below:)

This interview forced me to wake up to the reality that there is much more involved than just playing music when an artist is signed onto a record label, and it made me think of how in Begin Again, Dave’s number one dream was to record with a major record label. However, after he got his dream, he came back to Gretta and, when she asked him how his tour was, said it was incredibly grueling because he had to travel so much by himself. In the past he and Gretta just made music in their apartment, and they had that intimate space to just make beautiful songs, but when Dave got signed to the label, it totally changed him and Gretta’s relationship because he wasn’t around to be with her, and it especially changes the relationship they have with music. For Gretta, music is about honesty, but for Dave, music is a way to get famous. When they meet up in the park, he plays a recording he did in the studio of “Lost Stars,” which Gretta wrote for him when they were together. Gretta tells him that the song has lost its authenticity ever since he became famous and cheated on her with another woman. This reminds me of A Star is Born, when Ally doesn’t want to lose her identity when she becomes famous, and Jackson accuses her of becoming someone she’s not when Interscope Records signs her. It also reminds me of Big Eyes because Margaret Keane was this woman who just wanted to paint as a means of catharsis, but her husband, Walter, wanted to sell out. Margaret tells him that she wants to be honest instead of focused on fame when she paints, but Walter tells her that no one really cares about honesty.

Begin Again helped me better understand that musicians don’t have to sign to a major record deal to be successful, and that musicians can find their own path even when they aren’t famous. Dan had a long successful music career, helping sign several artists and winning Grammy Awards left and right, but in the end, he was human and had his own battles to deal with. Dave got famous, and yet he was incredibly lonely on tour and got sad when he listened to Gretta’s voicemail. Gretta, although not well-known, found her own happiness and Dan also came to understand himself that what’s really important are the friendships you make along the way, not so much the money or the status. And this movie also taught me to be open to change; I had these wild dreams at one point that I was going to either get signed on to work for a major record label in LA or NYC. But then I did some more self-reflection and after watching movies like A Star is Born, Popstar and Begin Again, I think I can figure out an alternative career path for my music, one that doesn’t necessarily fit the stereotype of how musicians should be. I would of course love to do a lot more with my music, but I also don’t want to lose my love for it, and I sometimes worry that having a career in music would make me stop loving it. I know this is silly thinking, but after seeing Begin Again, I feel a lot better about where my love of music is going to take me. Seeing Gretta and Dan bounce back from their struggles and chart their own music path has inspired me to keep an open mind about my music career, instead of doing what I have done for the past two years and keeping a one-track-mindset of “I need to be this kind of musician by blah-blah-date.” Of course, having a plan for your career helps, but Gretta and Dan inspired me to think outside the box and experiment with other styles of music.

I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing this film again so I can remind myself to be patient and not feel any less of a musician just because I haven’t yet signed onto a major record label (or any record label.) Really excellent and inspiring film. Also, seeing the violinist and cellist in Gretta’s band made my day! 🙂 I am definitely open to playing more than just classical, so maybe playing in a band of some sorts while holding down a day job would be an option. Also I just really enjoyed the cast; I love all the actors and musicians who starred in this film, especially Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo! 🙂

Here’s the trailer for Begin Again:

Begin Again. 2013. Rated R for language.

Historic Profile: Gladys Bentley (1907-1960)

April 10, 2019

Categories: LGBTQ+

This past February The New York Times published an issue of obituaries dedicated to influential African-American figures who never got an obituary when they died. One of these figures is Gladys Bentley, a queer entertainer who defied gender standards at the time.

Bentley was born in 1907 and raised in Philadelphia, and it was a very unpleasant childhood because her parents were homophobic and couldn’t accept their daughter’s sexuality. To escape this painful reality she played piano and wrote songs, and moved to New York City at the age of 16 to perform in illict bars. One of these bars was the Clam House, Harlem’s hub for LGBTQ+ people. Even though Gladys used she/her pronouns in public, she was the first prominent performer at the time to identify as trans. During the Prohibition Era, there was less stringency on what was allowed in the entertainment industry, so people were more relaxed about Gladys expressing herself. But as time went on and the Great Depression hit America, the public lost favor with Gladys and the police even cracked down on one of her performances, so she left NYC and moved to Los Angeles, where she once again gained her status as the leading queer entertainer there. She performed mainly at Mona’s 440 Club, the first lesbian bar in San Francisco. In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy instilled anti-Communist ideologies in the public mind, and so any individual thought to be working against the government faced serious punishment. McCarthy mainly attacked artists and LGBTQ+ people, and so under this threat, Gladys changed her image to appeal to a straight audience and underwent hormone treatments to try and make herself straight. In 1960, she died from flu while studying to be a Christian minister.

I remember taking a course in The Harlem Renaissance, and I vaguely remember learning about Gladys Bentley in he course. The Harlem Renaissance was a crucial time in which Black queer people such as James Baldwin, academic Alain Locke, and Bentley flourished. Reading Bentley’s obituary taught me the importance of recognizing those people who are often forgotten in history. The pain she suffered as a queer person of color is so real, even for today in an age where more queer POCs have mediums through which they can make their stories heard and help shift the public’s consciousness. I often take it for granted that we have public figures such as RuPaul and Todrick Hall, but the fact that it isn’t until centuries after her death that Bentley got recognized in The New York Times once again taught me to always educate myself on the people who don’t make it into the history textbooks, who don’t get a huge social media following. I also take it for granted now that LGBTQ+ artists such as myself can express themselves without the government always punishing them or censoring them for their work, but back then Gladys Bentley had to try and change her sexuality because she was literally fighting for her safety against the government. It reminded me of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game and how deep-seated homophobia was in Britain during the 19th and 20th century (Turing was forced to undergo painful hormonal therapy to try and make him not gay anymore. All it did was cause him misery, to be honest.) Reading Bentley’s obituary taught me that I must make my own voice heard so that I can inspire other young queer artists (especially queer artists of color) who somehow think their voice doesn’t matter. Because trust me, these narratives matter and it’s how we can gradually bring about more open dialogue about LGBTQ+ people of color in history.

So I thank you Gladys from the bottom of my heart, for being a pioneer for queer POC artists everywhere.

Movie Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

April 8, 2019

Categories: movies

I just finished watching the film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a mockumentary from the mind of Judd Apatow, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer of the music group The Lonely Island. I have seen many of The Lonely Island’s music videos before (“Lazy Sunday”, “Threw it On the Ground”, “I’m on a Boat”), so I was really excited to watch this film when it came out. But I of course at the time didn’t think I was emotionally ready to see it, and sure enough, I read on the advisory content review and there is some graphic nudity in it. But then I just decided, if I want to watch this film, I can just close my eyes when they feature the nudity scenes. So I closed my eyes for the first half of the movie because I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but then I knew where the scene was thanks to the movie reviews of the advisory content, so I didn’t have to watch it with any surprise.

The film is basically making fun of the phenomenon of celebrity and how it impacts us when we are young. While it doesn’t specifically mention it’s making fun of Justin Bieber, the title of the film suggests that it is a parody of Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never and based on the way Conner abuses his fame, it definitely looked like it was a parody of Justin Bieber’s rise to fame. In the film, Conner chronicles his life growing up as a drum prodigy and making music with his friends as part of a group called The Style Boyz (a cheesy play on stereotypical male pop groups such as The Backstreet Boys.) The Style Boyz produce all of these very silly-sounding albums and make it big, but then, in stereotypical boy pop group fashion, they break up. Owen, the DJ, does his own thing, and Lawrence moves to a farm in Colorado where he does woodcarving for a living because he was done with the pressures of fame. One of the funniest scenes was when Conner is singing a song in concert called “I’m So Humble,” where he talks about how little he shows off his ostentatious lifestyle even as he is performing on a large stage with all these showy expensive props (including a pricey Adam Levine hologram who sings the chorus.) Conner’s performance is a dig at celebrities who do something called “humblebragging,” which is where successful people try to act as if their success is nothing while, in reality, they are trying to make themselves feel good about themselves by showing off their success. Basically, when someone humble-brags, they act modest when they are actually bragging. Conner tries to seem modest but he actually has an extremely inflated sense of self.

I also liked the film featured interviews by several real musicians and actors, such as DJ Khaled, A$AP Rocky, Carrie Underwood, Nas, Ringo Starr, and Simon Cowell. Sarah Silverman also plays Conner’s publicity agent. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it was for the people in this film to not keep a straight face because The Lonely Island is hilarious, and during these interviews the artists seemed so earnest about their love of Conner (which the film is supposed to make fun of.) In another scene, Deborah (played by Maya Rudolph) releases a series of home appliances that play Conner’s songs when in use. The refrigerators and dishwashers play “I’m So Humble” and his other hits when you open them, and this whole scene just adds to the overall goofy nature of the mockumentary. To add insult to injury, this brand of Conner-brand appliances causes immediate power outages around the world and CMZ (a parody of the entertainment channel TMZ) roasts Conner (Chelsea Peretti, who plays Gina alongside Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta in Brooklyn 99, makes an appearance as one of the CMZ staff.)

Honestly, I am really glad I saw this film. After seeing A Star is Born and crying my eyes out later, I needed to watch a movie about the music industry that would make me go to sleep laughing instead of crying.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. 1 hr 27 min. Rated R for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use.

Movie Review: In A Star is Born, the Music Industry Culture of Fame Takes a Dark Toll on Its Artists’ Mental Health (CW: substance abuse, mental illness, suicide and spoilers)

April 4, 2019

Categories: movies

8/5/21: as I rewrote this review, I realized how many generalizations I may have made at the expense of a lot of musicians who actually work in the recording industry. A movie cannot speak for the entire industry, and as someone who has not worked in the pop music industry I can’t speak from personal experience, so a lot of what you read here take with a grain of salt.

At first I didn’t think I could watch A Star is Born in the evening, because for me, watching gut-wrenching drama films at night before I go to bed is like having me watch Paranormal Activity at two o’clock in the morning (not that I would have the confidence to go see something that scary, let alone that late at night, or let alone at all. I am squeamish to a T.) But alas, here I am writing this review, and no tear duct has been shed from my orbs.

I wanted to cry. I really did. However, I was so busy digesting all the tough-love lessons of the film that I really couldn’t elicit any emotion other than a sense of unfairness that I feel about how the music industry treats women and especially people with mental health issues. I could no longer just sit and cry because I knew my tears would do nothing to address the real issue that the film portrays: mental illness and the stigma associated with getting help. So I took to writing this review to raise awareness of the issue, to do my part for the community. Like I mentioned earlier, I was deeply curious about how the music community was addressing mental health issues, and especially in the classical music community because the business of being an orchestra musician can feel like a total nightmare when you struggle with any kind of mental health issue. When you prepare for an audition, you are literally shaking in your boots, but it’s more than just mere nervousness. It feels like that dark cloud over your mind is going to swallow you up and prevent you from performing your best, let alone living your life. So after taking a hiatus from any heavy performing or auditioning, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do my own research on the topic of mental health and musicians, because Lady Gaga, at the Grammys this year when she won for her song “Shallow” from the movie, told it like it was: a lot of artists deal with mental health issues and we need to not only support each other through our mental health issues, but also seek out help for our mental health issues as well.

I completely agree, so it’s no wonder that, when I Googled “mental health and musicians” today I came across so many stories about how singer Justin Bieber had to take a break from touring so he could spend more time with his wife Hailey Baldwin and also take care of himself, or that rapper Big Sean had to cancel touring last year to get help for his anxiety and depression. Honestly, it’s weird as a fellow musician who also struggled with mental health issues to say this, but it goes to show how the entertainment industry still has a ways to go in how it churns out musicians and then spits them out to struggle through their issues alone. Somehow this seems dangerously toxic to me, and it’s why I am glad I am not yet a professional musician. I spent the longest time trying to figure out what my mission as a musician was, and I think, more than ever, I need to use my music to address the problem of mental health stigma. Yes, more people are becoming aware of the psychological toll of fame and celebrity, but still, films such as A Star is Born clearly show that there is a long, long way to go.

The film opens with a performance by Jackson Maine, a country rock singer who has had a long career on the road. We see him pop some pills before he gets onstage, and while he gives an electrifying performance, seeing those pills presents just the beginning of a very disturbing, grim and realistic portrait of the life of an artist struggling with depression and addiction. Jackson, throughout the film, is constantly drinking, smoking and, later on, snorting cocaine. Ally, on the other hand, is a struggling singer who works as a server at a high-maintenance restaurant. When I first saw this scene, I immediately thought about the film La La Land, where we see Mia working as a barista and dealing with a boss who could care less about her dreams of becoming an actress. When her boss schedules her on a day she has an audition, Mia tries to tell her she has an audition and can’t work, but her boss tells her she doesn’t care and to skip the audition so she can cover her shifts. Jackson goes into a drag bar and watches Ally perform “La Vie En Rose.” He is so moved by the performance that he goes to her dressing room to meet her and they immediately hit it off. When they go to a bar afterwards to hang out, he shares a very important message about what it takes to be a true artist. Ally tells him she doesn’t think she will make it because everyone keeps telling her she isn’t pretty enough to be famous, and that men constantly tell her she is a good singer but that she doesn’t have the looks of a singer. This shows how women in the music industry are pressured to look a certain way and further suggests why it’s so important for young women to embrace their beauty as it is so that other people don’t try and tell them differently. But Jack tells her that she looks beautiful and even says that he struggles with tinnitus but still made it as a musician. He says a quote that really stuck with me throughout the film, and that is that “talent comes everywhere. Everybody’s talented…but having something to say, and the way to say it so that people listen to it, that’s a whole other bag. Unless you try and go out there and do it, you’ll never know.” (A Star is Born) It made me think about how, in any career, women typically wait until they have all of the qualifications before applying for a job (I’m one of those ladies) and suffer from imposter syndrome. Ally thinks she cannot be successful, but Jack thinks she can.

Update from the next day…(aka I have had more time to digest this film after pondering it day and night. It literally kept me up.)

The movie also raised some very important thoughts for me, and I’m going to just list them in bullet points because frankly, I am choking up now thinking of the film even though I wasn’t before, and I need to get these out here before I get stressed. After researching mental health and musicians more today, I decided to just take a break from research and just write my thoughts. It has been cathartic to do so, and it’s really going to keep me from thinking about how good but also how stressful this movie was:

  • What is the meaning of pop music? In the film a famous recording producer, Rez Gavron, who offers Ally several opportunities after seeing her perform. But then he has her go from doing country rock music to dancing hip-hop. While I can see why Ally would keep an open mind and go for these opportunities, it feels as if she lost a huge part of herself being on such a big label such as Interscope Records. And this is a problem, because she used to know herself pretty well enough to keep her day job while she did music, but when she went big she tried to tell Rez to not mess up her sense of self and make her something she isn’t, but Rez wants her to stick with his vision and not her own, so he tells her to dye her hair and has her live in this super extravagant living space. Which is nice at the beginning, but then Jackson loses faith in Ally and goes further into himself, telling her that all this pop fame isn’t her. Then again, the orange hair and hip-hop electronic dance moves are classic Lady Gaga.
  • Can two artists coexist? In the film La La Land, Mia is an actress and Sebastian is a jazz musician. They try to make it work, and Mia quits her job at the coffee shop to write her own plays (which is a risky move, as the film shows, because no one comes to the play she directed and she gives up.) But then Sebastian gets an opportunity to play with his friend, who tells him he needs to play other genres besides jazz because he can barely afford to pay his rent by playing jazz gigs alone. Sebastian tells Mia he’s going on tour, but then Mia tells him she wants to stay and pursue her acting career. The movie shows that if Mia and Sebastian got married, it would be really hard. And in A Star is Born, this idea is taken a step further because Jack and Ally do get married, but then as Ally becomes more famous and mainstream, Jack loses popularity and Bobby even replaces him with a younger musician at his performance. Jack soon loses faith in himself and becomes more involved with substances. When Ally wins a Grammy for Best New Artist, Jack drunkenly comes on stage and accidentally urinates on himself while she’s giving her speech. It is then that he is sent to treatment and Rez tells him to stay away from Ally because his marriage to her nearly ruined her career.
  • Women are held at very stressful standards in the pop music industry. Ariana Grande said that sporadically releasing music has proven to be more helpful for her mental health than following the incredibly structured high pressure plan that record labels expect female pop artists to adhere to. Ally, in the film, gets all these opportunities to be a star, but she never really gets to express herself anymore. At first she was very down-to-earth, but all it took was some egotistical micromanagey guy (aka Rez) to control her image for her. In one scene, Ally is recording a demo and the producers behind the screen keep telling her to start over because she is nervous, but then Jack has them bring out a piano and she just naturally becomes comfortable playing it with him. I still think it is interesting that Ally needs a man to boost her self-worth though; what if Ally had a female mentor? Would it have been a different relationship or the same? I’m not saying I hated the dynamic between Jack and Ally at all; I thought it was sweet. Also, Bradley Cooper directed this film and him and Lady Gaga wrote the songs, so I ain’t mad. 🙂 I am just thinking of other theoretical possibilities for the story line. I thought about the film Cadillac Records, and how in the film Leonard Chess controlled much of Etta James’s career, when in reality Etta James held her own in an industry that was macho. Leonard treats Etta as if she was irrational and angry all the time, and she tries to push back against all the pressure that the industry puts on her. So did she really need Leonard to make her feel accomplished? This is just a parallel I made watching A Star is Born.
  • Is suicide really the fault of musicians? Or does the overall industry play a part in it, too? At the end Jack commits suicide after breaking his sobriety and finding his old bottle of pills (this was the part that was extremely difficult to watch), and Ally is crying and Bobby tells her that it was Jack’s fault, not her or Bobby’s fault, that he committed suicide. Was it solely his fault, though? Sometimes I think people who have never gone through mental health issues assume that it’s the musician’s fault when they hurt themselves, but a huge part of me told me that the culture of the music industry, not merely Jack’s personal history with drug abuse and depression, played a more-than-significant role in his suicide. We need to stop perpetuating this idea that “oh we couldn’t control it, it just happened.” The music industry is incredibly competitive and even encourages people to party hard, do drugs and drink when they are stressed. The constant pressure of celebrity is what drove Avicii, Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse to their deaths. I’m not saying a glass of wine or two is bad. However, substance abuse is a whole nother animal, and throughout the film I couldn’t help but be pissed when Ally, Bobby, Rez and everyone else told Jack he needed to “clean up his act.” I know it’s hard to support folks when they struggle with something so subjective and deeply rooted in their personal life, but there needs to be better measures for how to address mental health issues in the music community. I just found this part incredibly frustrating as a musician who struggled with mental health issues before.
  • Hearing loss is huge in the music industry. Bobby has Jack put on a pair of earphones for this tinnitus, and Jack, under the influence of hard drugs, tells him he can go stick them somewhere else. I idealized the idea of playing at loud concerts, but because I have sensitive ears, I think I will pass on not wearing some kind of protection for my ears.
  • Being a tortured artist isn’t cute or funny. Nico Muhly talks about this in an interview he did about classical musicians and mental health, and how we need to stop perpetuating this romanticized idea of the tortured composer or musician or artist in general. While a lot of artists suffer from mental health issues, we cannot let our mental health issues try to define who we are as artists because it can lead to our self-destruction and potentially deaths. A Star is Born clearly shows how destructive it is to perpetuate the tortured artist myth.
  • Is fame worth it? I know in real life, Lady Gaga has achieved so many things, but she still gets idolized. I used to idolize all these famous people, but I realize that they are human, and this film shows how dangerous it is to deify regular human beings who just happened to pursue their passion for years and earned money from it. In one poignant scene, a heckler interrupts Ally and Jack’s conversation to tell him how he thinks Jack looks like someone he really hates, and pressures Jack to take a photo with him so he can show his ex-wife. Ally then beats the heckler up, and they escape to a grocery store so Jack can get some peas for Ally’s smashed hand. The store clerk, while checking out the peas, stealthily takes a photo of Jack and Ally while they are talking, but the lady’s not quick enough and they catch her in the act. While Jack treats it as if it was just a part of being famous for so long, Ally is, rightfully, not okay with it. This really taught me that if I meet anyone famous, such as Bradley Cooper or Lady Gaga, in any common public place, it would be more than stupid to chase them down for an autograph or take a photo of them without their consent. It would be just a straight-up invasion of privacy. Most, if not all, celebs aren’t thinking, ” Well if more people took my photo while I was out with my kids, I would feel better than I already feel.” Most, if not all, “celebs” are just human beings who love what they do and treat their music-making and film-making as a job like any other, and it is a job because it’s their profession that takes up most of their time. So it’s a waste of their creative space to ask them for autographs–they just want to live their lives. So again, I will try and be mindful of this now that I have seen this film.

As I am now emotionally exhausted from writing this review, I leave you with two clips, one of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper playing “Shallow” and another of her performing it at the Grammys. Both are performances which I will have to take a hiatus from listening to because even just thinking about them is making me quite tearful now that I have seen this incredibly tearful movie. I cried watching both of these performances when they came out and haven’t stopped crying. They put so much soul into it that it’s hard to not appreciate their hard work.

Overall, excellent film and one that will stick with me for a very, very long time. Gosh, I’m already tearing up just thinking about it. It seriously deserved all the awards that it received this year. This review, no matter how long, can never convey how amazing and heartfelt and deep this film was for me. Thank you Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I know I should see the original versions, I was just too impatient to see this film.

A Star is Born. 2 hr 14 min. Rated R for language throughout, some sexuality/ nudity and substance abuse.

Book Review: Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot

April 11, 2019

Categories: books

I just finished the novel Queen of Babble, by Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot. I, like a lot of folks, am a huge fan of Meg Cabot and while I didn’t read all of The Princess Diaries books, I managed to devour All-American Girl (the first book and its sequel) and Princess Lessons (I’m pretty sure I read the first book in The Princess Diaries after seeing the Disney classic with Anne Hathaway. Princess Lessons is a sort of follow-up to the series.) However, I heard about Queen of Babble but thought I wasn’t old enough to read it since I was a preteen reading YA books. I am glad I got to savor it this time though, because it is FUNNY. After reading so many serious depressing books I needed to read something that was going to help me sleep at night.

It’s about this young woman named Lizzie, who lives in England with her boyfriend, Andrew, and his parents. Andrew works as a waiter to pay his way through school, but then he gambles all his money with some friends and is now broke, so he files for unemployment benefits. But Lizzie gives away the fact that Andrew is working already, jeopardizing Andrew’s chance at getting unemployment benefits and his relationship with Lizzie. When he asks Lizzie for more money, Lizzie loses trust in him and goes to visit her friend Shari and Shari’s boyfriend, Chaz, in France for a wedding they are attending. On the train to France, Lizzie meets a dashing man named Jean-Luc (Luke for short.) Honestly, throughout this book I kept envisioning Timothee Chalamet playing this guy. They have the same looks (dark curly hair and seductive eyes) and are sensitive beings. Also, considering Timothee spent a lot of his summers in France and his dad is French, and Jean-Luc is French, this would be a casting choice that would make any of us swoon with joy. But Lizzie finds out Luke already has a girlfriend even with their very intimate encounter on the train, and it turns out this pretentious girlfriend, Dominique, doesn’t like Lizzie all that much. The thing that really gets Lizzie involved in everything going on at the de Villiers estate is the wedding for Luke’s cousin, Vicky. Here is where Lizzie’s passion and skills for fashion are put to the test; she discovers many designer dresses when at the estate, dresses that people would normally not care much for, and she comes to learn more about herself than she ever did living with Andrew back in England.

Lizzie reminded me so much of Miriam Maisel, the title character of the TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In the show, Miriam is a mother of two kids who lives in a traditional American 1950s home. She seems to be happy as Joel, her husband, goes off to work every day, but then she finds out he has been cheating on her with his secretary, Penny. Joel works a traditional 9-5 job and brings home the bacon, but he also performs at the local comedy club in the evenings because he wants to be a stand-up comedian. Unfortunately, most of his jokes are weak, but after Midge leaves Joel, she drinks heavily one night and does a stand-up routine that catches the attention of Susie, who books the gigs at the club. Like Lizzie, Midge voices her opinion and doesn’t apologize for it, but her chattiness also gets her in trouble with relationships. One time Midge does an act where she badmouths a famous comedian and it backfires on her; she also does an act where she publicly insults her father’s work at a lab and his relationship with her mother. But although Midge’s loquacious nature has gotten her in hot water with those closest to her, she also speaks truth, especially when it comes to addressing issues of sexism. During her first gig at the comedy club, she lets loose on how Joel cheated on her for Penny and curses so much that the police arrest her for “indecency.” Midge’s willingness to speak truth and not be afraid of calling people out on their stuff (especially chauvinist male comedians who talk down to her) meant a lot during that time, especially because women were still expected to not speak up about social issues.

Lizzie ends up developing a close friendship with Agnes, the resident au-pair at the de Villiers’s estate, because she is so unassuming and doesn’t come from the prestige of Luke or Dominique’s background. In one scene, Agnes brings over a delicious-sounding sandwich (which sounds like pain au chocolat) consisting of a Hershey bar wrapped in a French baguette (oh gosh, just thinking about it is giving me ASMR tingles…) and while everyone else turns up their nose at it (Shari, Chaz, Dominique), Lizzie eats it because she knows it is rude to say “no” when Agnes went through the trouble of making them such a delicious sandwich. Also, she eats it and thinks it tastes out of this world, so of course she wouldn’t turn down something so delicious. On a side note, this makes me think that I need to be more gracious when I go to another country and people offer me food that I cannot eat. In India, I felt bad because I couldn’t drink chai or eat sweets since they had dairy in them, and so one of my fellow classmates told me she would eat the sweets for me, but that I should take one because it was good manners. I mean, how would I feel if I went through the trouble of making a delicious dish and then find out the person I was offering it to didn’t want it? It probably would feel like a punch in the gut.

The book also reminded me of The Clique by Lisi Harrison. In the series Massie Block is a rich New Yorker who is popular and has a group of friends who gossip and are just straight-up vain. Claire Lyons is an enthusiastic girl from Florida who moves with her family to Massie’s guesthouse. Massie wants nothing to do with Claire, but Claire wants to be friends with her. But because Massie is the stereotypical Regina George-style mean girl, she and her friends do everything in their power to put Claire down, to make her feel small. Dominique reminded me of Massie, and Lizzie reminded me of Claire. I was also feeling elements of Bridesmaids and Legally Blonde while reading Queen of Babble because these films feature women who don’t conform to the rules and, as outsiders, gain a very unique perspective on life, like Lizzie gains a new perspective by being this super outgoing person among people who keep to themselves.

This book also taught me the importance of loving yourself and using your untapped potential to discover new opportunities. Lizzie thinks her fashion degree or retail work won’t get her anywhere because other people tell her it’s useless, but when she is tasked with fixing Vicky’s wedding dress, her self-confidence is put to the test and she learns how to actually put her skills to use and overcome that imposter syndrome that tells her no one cares about what she does with fashion. Lizzie’s struggle to make her career viable reminds me of my own self; I struggle with the idea of a music career because many people aren’t far from the truth when they say it is very hard to have a full-time career in music, and I also think that it’s really what you make of it. Yes, music opportunities are hard to find, but I have learned to work on my own personal creative projects, such as this blog, so that I don’t have to limit myself in terms of how I see myself as a musician. I also sometimes fall into that self-pity pit where I think no one cares about philosophy majors or musicians or writers, and then I try to block out these thoughts each time they come up by writing, playing music, or thinking with a critical eye about the world around me wherever I find myself. It’s also important to have loved ones to be there to give you the real when things are rough; Lizzie’s grandmother is unfiltered, and straight up tells Lizzie to stop with the tears and just leave Andrew. She tells Lizzie to not give up, that she will have a boyfriend, and to go see her friend Shari instead of dwell on Andrew. In fact, she’s pretty much the only one in Lizzie’s family to let Lizzie do her own thing and encourage her to not come back home.

Overall, I really love this book (especially when Lizzie and a certain someone get together and kiss. For the sake of prospective readers, I will not tell who this special someone is) and cannot wait to read the sequel! 🙂

Queen of Babble: A Novel. Meg Cabot. 309 pp. 2007.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Oh. My. Gosh

April 23, 2020

Categories: Uncategorized

Cheesy blog post title, but it’s a legitimate reaction! It was THAT. GOOD. I promised one of my friends I would watch it so we could have a philosophical discussion about it (Star Wars has a lot of philosophical themes in it.) But I put it off, watching other movies and doing other things. So I finally took the time to rent it online, and I was in for a surprise. Is it just me or did my heart keep pounding every time Adam Driver (Ben Solo/ Kylo Ren) or Oscar Isaac (Poe) showed up on screen? I swear, I literally could not stop looking, they are both HEARTTHROBS. Of course, Adam Driver plays an evil person, but I have seen him in other movies (funny enough, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac were both in Inside Llewyn Davis, one of my favorite films) and seriously, my romantic feelings for him has never died. Also, John Boyega is everything in this movie. 🙂

Of course, I would be remiss if I were to spend the entire blog post gushing over these heartthrobs. Because let’s face it, these men would not be anywhere without K.A.W. (Kick Ass Women) like Princess Leia and Rey to save their skins when they got in trouble. Honestly, I didn’t care much about Star Wars a few years ago, but after I started watching them, I have a deeper appreciation for Carrie Fisher and the powerful legacy she left as Leia. The film is also very much in line with my Buddhist beliefs, because Rey and Leia have this mentor-disciple relationship, which in Buddhism means that the mentor trains the disciple to carry on the legacy of kosen-rufu, or world peace, and even surpass the mentor in their efforts. President Ikeda (this is a brief bio of him and his life) was a disciple of Josei Toda in the early days of the Soka Gakkai, and Mr. Toda wanted Mr. Ikeda to continue his mission to foster a better world through peace, culture and dialogue. Even though Mr. Ikeda doubted his capabilities along the way, Mr. Toda encouraged him to not give up and trained him along the way. Mr. Toda saw Mr. Ikeda’s sincere and tireless efforts to propagate Nichiren Buddhism and help Mr. Toda with his failing business even when his other colleagues lost faith in Mr. Toda.

Similarly, even know Leia knew Rey was the granddaughter of the evil Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious) she trained Rey because she saw her heart and spirit, the character of a true Jedi. When Rey is frustrated and tries to discard her lightsaber, Luke Skywalker appears as a memory and tells her she is better than that, telling her that she needs to confront her fear of herself and her heritage because the destiny of a Jedi is to confront fear. This ties in well to the concepts of “changing karma into mission” and overcoming “fundamental darkness.” Karma, from a Nichiren Buddhist perspective, is the accumulation of causes we have made in past lifetimes and in this present lifetime (through thoughts, words and deeds) that manifest themselves as effects in certain times and in certain conditions. We cannot fathom our karma from past lifetimes because it’s deep and hard to reverse what we did in the past. We may not know why we have a certain personality trait or why we work with certain people at our jobs or why we are born in the families we are born in. This karma continues on to our next lifetimes. It may seem like fate, that we are doomed to our karma and must suffer through it. But when we change karma into mission (in the Lotus Sutra teaching on which Nichiren Buddhism is founded, this is called “voluntarily assuming the appropriate karma”) we come to understand that certain events in our lives happen for a reason, namely so we can encourage people who are suffering. President Ikeda says, in an Introduction to Buddhism, that bodhisattvas (a Sanskrit word for beings who strive to attain Buddhahood, or enlightenment, by helping others achieve this enlightenment as well) gained rewards for their next lifetimes because of the good causes they made in the past, but these bodhisattvas chose instead to give up these rewards and be born in an age in which human beings suffer so that they can teach people about the Lotus Sutra and help them overcome the suffering they endure due to negative causes they might have made in their past lives. When we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and help others do the same, we come to realize that we go through hardships so that we can experience personal growth and lead richer and more profound lives, and moreover show our friends, family, coworkers and others that if we can overcome our suffering, then they can, too. We can experience joy even when we are suffering the worst karma, and this can give other people who are going through problems hope that they can also become happy even when in painful circumstances.

We don’t know what causes Rey made in her past lifetime for Emperor Palpatine to have been her grandfather, or why her parents got killed, or why her life is the way it is. But even though she has this karma to grapple with, Luke reminds her that she has this mission as a Jedi so she can not only save the world, but also so she can help inspire other people. In a way Luke helps Rey awaken to her Buddhahood to win against Palpatine, because he himself had to awaken to his own Buddhahood in the fight against evil (Buddhahood is the innate compassion, wisdom and courage that is innate within each individual. Everyone is a Buddha and reveals this Buddhahood through their actions in daily life.) She awakens to her mission to save the world from suffering at the crucial moment when Emperor Palpatine forces her to kill him so that she can take the throne, his disciples cheering her on to do it. But because Kylo Ren (who by this point has awakened to his identity as Ben Solo, Han Solo’s son) can read her mind, she sees him in his mind and his expression tells her, without him saying anything, that they can both overcome this evil, so instead of using her lightsaber to kill Palpatine, she passes it on to Ben so he can fight the bad guys, and she pulls out a lightsaber to fight Palpatine. When the Emperor knocks her and Ben down, Rey hears the voices of all the past leaders of the Jedi (Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, among many others) telling her to not fear Palpatine because the Force of all the Jedi leaders lies within her and all of the causes that these Jedi leaders made in the past to fight constant evil has led to this one battle, this one chance for Rey to prove to herself and others that she is a true Jedi. To me, the Force is a symbol for Buddhahood because like Buddhahood, the Force lies within each individual and it has tremendous potential. According to George Lucas

the act of living generates a force field, an energy. That energy surrounds us; when we die, that energy joins with all the other energy. There is a giant mass of energy in the universe that has a good side and a bad side. We are part of the Force because we generate the power that makes the Force live. When we die, we become part of that Force, so we never really die; we continue as part of the Force.

George Lucas during a production meeting for The Empire Strikes Back. Quoted on “The Force” article in Wikipedia.

When people pass away, death does not take away their Buddhahood; instead, their Buddhahood transmigrates to their next lifetime. Buddhahood isn’t a realm separate from that of society, even though many Buddhist sutras before the Lotus Sutra was taught believe this; it is one of the ten states of life we can experience at any given moment. Just as Rey was in both a hellish environment and in a life state of Hell when fighting against Palpatine, she was in the world, or life state, of Buddhahood when she hears the voices of the Jedi leaders and won the fight against Palpatine, because she realized her potential to overcome her inner battle with herself. Fundamental darkness means that we cannot see our own Buddhahood, or our own life’s potential to overcome our problems and become happy, and so when the ignorance of our life’s worth clouds our perception of our environment, it’s hard to see the Buddhahood in other people and that their lives have worth, too. The devil king of the sixth heaven causes this fundamental darkness to make it hard to see our inner potential and functions to obstruct our Buddhist practice and sap the wisdom, life force, courage and compassion we need to truly become happy in life. Emperor Palpatine is a manifestation of the devil king of the sixth heaven because he does everything in his power to sap Rey of her life force and prevent her from beating him and the other evil people in his empire. He tells her she is worthless and that she has no potential to beat him. The devil king does not lie outside of us, but is a manifestation of the fundamental darkness in all of us. In a similar scene, we see Kylo Ren overcome his fundamental darkness and regain his identity as Ben Solo, when a memory of his father Han approaches him during his battle with Rey, and he tells Kylo that his identity as Kylo Ren is dead to him and that he will always see him as his son, Ben Solo, who has the potential to fight his inner evil rather than succumb to it. This scene shows how evil people like Kylo Ren have the state of Buddhahood within them, and can awaken to this Buddhahood within their lives with the help of people who tell them they have potential to awaken to the courage, wisdom and compassion within them. Only when Ben awakens to his Buddhahood is he able to see Rey’s Buddhahood, too, and help her fight against the evil forces that want to destroy society.

This scene is also a metaphor for the concept of “casting off the transient and revealing the true,” which happens when we chant Nam-myoho-renge kyo. Nichiren Daishonin, the founder of our Buddhist practice, lived at a time in Japan when people believed various Buddhist teachings and the problem with these teachings were that they didn’t teach the number one truth expounded in the Buddhist teaching of the Lotus Sutra: that everyone can attain enlightenment just as they are, and that Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment in his past lifetimes rather than just in his present life in India. When he spoke out against these teachings and propagated the Lotus Sutra, the authorities persecuted him, even attempting to execute him on a beach in Tatsunokuchi (on the outskirts of Kamakura in Japan.) Just as the executioner was about to behead him, a comet flashed through the sky, and the soldiers, frightened by the light, abandoned Nichiren and failed to go through with his beheading. At that moment, Nichiren saw that, in triumphing over what is called the Tatsunokuchi Persecution, he was more than just an ordinary unenlightened person with all this karma he had to deal with from past lifetimes. While keeping his form as an ordinary human being, he awakened to his original true identity as a Buddha with unlimited wisdom and courage. This revelation manifested itself in his daily behavior toward others and so he inscribed the mandala that we chant to, called the Gohonzon, so that everyone could awaken to the power of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in their own lives just as he did. Ren casts off his transient status as an evil Supreme Leader and awakens to his identity as Ben Solo, a Buddha that, without changing his form as an ordinary human being, can triumph over both the darkness in his mind and the darkness in society.

The movie also is a metaphor for the concept of unity in Nichiren Buddhism and in the Soka Gakkai International. Members of the Soka Gakkai International work together through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, studying Buddhism together, sharing Buddhism with their friends and family, and making efforts at their workplaces, schools and homes, and each of these actions work in harmony with one another to foster a more just and peaceful society because through these actions, each member in the SGI can become happy and help others achieve that happiness. If there is any discord within the organization, it disrupts the unity of the SGI. It is hard to continue practicing this Buddhism without the encouragement of others, let alone the encouragement of Daisaku Ikeda and Nichiren Daishonin, so that is why we have an organization, so that each person has that network of support they need to continue in their practice. Likewise, one of the movie’s key themes is the importance of unity in the face of evil. When Poe and the rest of the Resistance are in the air fighting the Final Order fleet, Poe doubts the team’s capability to win, but Lando brings reinforcements to help combat the First Order. Earlier Poe told the Resistance that good people will fight if they lead them, and indeed they did. This scene shows that sticking together is important when fighting against evil forces. The scene also illustrated the concept of “many in body, one in mind” in Nichiren Buddhism; “many in body, one in mind” means that individuals have different personality traits, different physical characteristics and different social identities, but when they come together to spread the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism through dialogue, education and culture in their communities, they can achieve a more peaceful society. In The Rise of Skywalker, individuals in the Resistance come in many shapes, sizes and genders, and also speak various languages, but they work as a team to fulfill their desire to bring justice and peace to the galaxy. Had Rey, Poe or Finn tried to do everything by themselves, they would not have worked out their disagreements or even reached the goal of galaxy peace because their egos would have gotten in the way. When the Resistance sticks together they achieve so much, and when Rey’s heart is united with her mentors and her teammates in the Resistance, she defeats Palpatine. Rey lost her parents when she was young, so she feels like there is no one she can turn to, but she can always count on her friends to support her in tough times. Likewise, she has their back when times are hard, especially during the final fight scene.

Throughout the movie I kept thinking about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the similarities between them. Lord Voldemort and Emperor Palpatine both look creepy, and the scene where Rey’s lightsaber is pushing back against Emperor Palpatine’s lightning reminded me of the scene in Deathly Hallows when the power from Harry’s wand is pushing back against the power from Lord Voldemort’s wand. Harry and Rey also have similar stories; both their parents got killed by bad guys (Voldemort and Palpatine respectively), but they have a great group of friends to lean on. Also, when the army of wizards gather on the Hogwarts ground to point their wands to the sky and vanquish the sign of Lord Voldemort in the sky reminded me of all the backup Lando summoned to help Poe and the Resistance fight the First Order.

I know this review was SUPER long, but I was so enthralled by the film and its connections to my religious philosophy. Star Wars is very much connected to religion in its themes, so this was a chance for me to bring my faith perspective to it. Also, kudos to John Williams for all the profound and beautiful scores he brought to Star Wars for so many years. The score was brilliant, as always, and I wish I was one of those orchestra musicians who was playing on the score for this movie because it was TIGHT! 🙂

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. 2019. 2 hr 22 min. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action.