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So last week I was debating which movie I should watch. I was going to watch Marriage Story because I saw it got a really high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but then I remember I had seen the trailer for the recent film Malcolm & Marie, starring John David Washington and Zendaya, and I really liked the trailer and thought, “I really want to see this movie.” But then I saw Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 59 percent, so I thought, “Ohhh, maybe I shouldn’t see this movie.” But then I saw that 85 percent of Google users liked the movie, so then I thought, “Wait, am I not going to watch this movie just because it didn’t get a high rating from the critics?” I have learned in the past while watching films and writing about them on this blog that while it’s great to watch the films that earn Oscars and Golden Globes and get 90 percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. But sometimes there’s movies that critics rate 23 percent or some not very high percent, and yet moviegoers end up giving the film five stars. Also, it’s Black History Month, so I’m not going to turn down a movie that’s got two Black leading stars in it, shot in the style of Frances Ha (one of my favorite films), who also produced it. This is not the time to turn down peak Black excellence, my friends.

To be honest, I haven’t seen Zendaya’s work before, I only heard about the films and TV shows she starred in like The Greatest Showman and Euphoria. And I haven’t seen many of John David Washington’s films or shows either, only BlacKkKlansman. But the two of them…their acting…was just absolutely incredible. And I’m not just saying that. It actually held me in so much that I had to stop jotting down notes about the film and just watch the dialogue between Malcolm and Marie.

Interestingly enough, I just found out from the Wikipedia page on John David Washington’s bio that they filmed Malcolm and Marie in secret during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anthony D’Alessandro, writing for a piece on the film’s production in Deadline on July 8, 2020, had all the details: On March 16 Sam Levinson, creator of Euphoria, got a call that production for the show would be shut down due to the pandemic. Zendaya called Levinson and asked if he could write and direct a film during quarantine and within six days Levinson came up with Malcolm & Marie. Sam and his wife Ashley (who produced Bombshell, one of my favorite films, and co executive produced Queen and Slim, another of my favorite films), producer Kevin Turen, John and Zendaya funded the film during pre-production and production. It’s also pretty cool because I noticed in the end credits it said that a portion of the sales of the movie were donated to Feeding America, and it was one of the few times I saw this in movie credits, so I wondered “Ooh, how did that happen?” It turns out that film producers Yariv Milchan and Michael Schafer told Levinson they wanted to finance the film and donate the proceeds to charity. I just thought that was so cool, especially at a time when food insecurity has been at an all time high during the pandemic. Also, not only was it boss that Zendaya and John David Washington were producers of the film but Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi, the very talented and incredible rapper) was an executive producer for the film. When his name flashed on the credits, I nearly squealed with joy! 🙂

Also, the film was shot in accord with very strict COVID-19 safety protocols so that the cast and crew could remain safe. It’s also super dope that the filming location was at this super eco-friendly building (according to D’Alessandro, it’s called The Caterpillar House, and it is an LEED home whose glass doors provided fresh air so that the producers wouldn’t have to use so much A/C or heat while shooting the film. I just looked up what LEED means and it means Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a program certifying green buildings) and was on land where the company could shoot the film without running into any legal trouble. Co-executive producer Katia Washington headed all of the safety protocols during production, such as the cast and crew wearing masks at all times, eating in designated areas (the chef also had to quarantine with the group) and not allowing anyone to leave the property. If you read the full piece (which I definitely recommend you do because it’s fascinating how they managed to put this movie together in secret when the pandemic was getting really bad and film and TV production was shutting down almost everywhere) the protocols they followed were very well thought out. I definitely appreciate these protocols more after working at an office where strict COVID-19 protocols have been enforced in order to keep everyone safe. I also appreciate these protocols that Katia and the team headed because I think about how Tom Cruise had to yell at the team members who didn’t follow social distancing guidelines on set because Mission Impossible had already had to shut down production earlier during the pandemic and Cruise was just so fed up with having his job and other people’s jobs put at risk due to people not taking the transmission of coronavirus seriously enough (although some say he was right to yell like that to his team-I guess you could call it in Buddhist terms “courageous compassion”- others like Katie Hurley say that his rant just brought more stress upon the team in a public health crisis that is already stressful for everyone and their loved ones). Although I don’t know whether or not Katia or the team in charge of the protocols had to yell at certain times if people accidentally broke one of the protocols or not, but it seemed that they managed to keep their heads above water with getting these regulations together in such a short production time.

Alright, so now that I’m done gushing about that, let me gush about the film itself for a while.

So the biggest thing about this film that has me gushing over it is the dialogue. There is just so much raw power in the way that Malcolm and Marie talk with one another. Each of the characters takes turns giving these powerful monologues. Malcolm will talk on and on while Marie will look at him, and then Marie will talk to Malcolm and he will listen to her. The insults they throw at each other though were really deep. Malcolm thinks that Marie wouldn’t know what it’s like to be a filmmaker because she quit acting after a while. Marie, however, reminds Malcolm that he based his film’s character Imani on her life, so if she had acted in the film herself rather than having some girl named Taylor play that role, she would have felt better and could process her past struggles with addiction and self-harm in a healthier way. Malcolm argues that it wouldn’t have been as interesting had Marie acted in the film as Imani because everyone talks about how they want authenticity in film, but it’s a word that doesn’t have meaning anymore because no one knows what truly goes into making a film. He also digs at Marie when she breaks down and asks him why she didn’t get the role of Imani, and tells her that it didn’t matter how much talent she had. Even though she was a talented person, he argues that she didn’t truly want the role and was reluctant to take it even though he had given her the opportunity to do so. I think what really got me about the film, too, was the power of nonverbal communication. Sometimes you don’t even have to talk to convey what you’re feeling; the eyes, the lips, the facial expressions sometimes can convey more than any words can. When Malcolm talks about how unfair the movie reviewer’s critique of his film was, you just see a small smile crack across Marie’s face as she patiently listens to him, showing how, even with all their imperfections as a couple, she still loves him. When Marie tells him how egotistical he is, he just listens to her talk and you can see how wounded he feels. This deep chemistry between the two characters is shown both in their powerful honest dialogues with each other and also in their facial expressions. This is what kept me captivated watching the film.

Another thing I loved was that the movie is shot in black and white. According to Zendaya, they shot the film in black and white not just to pay tribute to the timeless Hollywood classic black and white films, and not just for the pure sake of aesthetics, but because too just having these two Black people be at the center of this classic black and white film is a way of reclaiming the narrative of Black Hollywood. Even though Zendaya acknowledges that many Black filmmakers have shot their films in black and white, there weren’t too many black and white films where Black people got to tell their own stories. And she’s right. Even though I myself am not well-versed in black and white cinema, I can count maybe a few movies where black people were allowed to speak into the camera, to tell their own narratives instead of letting the white protagonist tell it for them. I can only think of one movie and that is Stormy Weather (1943) with Bill Robinson and Lena Horne. The film was significant because at the time there weren’t many films where Black actors and singers rarely appeared in lead roles in mainstream Hollywood productions, and Stormy Weather was one of the few films to have an all Black cast. I acknowledge that there are elements of minstrelsy and racial stereotypes in Stormy Weather. But when Zendaya mentioned the historical lack of Black representation in mainstream leading roles, Stormy Weather was one of the few classic films I could think of where Black people played leading roles. And I think that’s why I loved Malcolm and Marie, because the two leading Black characters got to have a deep discussion that wasn’t being interrupted by anyone else. Malcolm and Marie is one of the few, perhaps the first black and white film I’ve seen featuring two Black lead characters who get to tell their narrative onscreen. It’s like by being the only two characters in the movie, they get to reclaim this private space for dialogue and intimacy.

The way the film was shot in black and white film made me think a little bit about Frances Ha, a film directed by Noam Baumbach. When I watched the film it gave the movie this sophisticated sort of feel, like instead of being set in the 21st century I was watching a film set in the 1960s in New York City. It was actually kind of calming watching the film in black and white even though of course Frances’ struggles to find herself and pay her rent are not fun. But with Malcolm and Marie, there was just something so refreshing about seeing Black people inhabit that intimate space that Frances enjoyed in telling her life story, and being able to tell their stories from their own unique perspectives as Black people. I don’t even think it’s fair for me to compare Frances Ha to Malcolm and Marie because Frances Ha was about a young white 20 something trying to figure out her life, and while in some sense it sends a universal message of don’t give up on your dreams, it was just nice seeing Malcolm and Marie because they got to have these tough conversations with each other about race and being a Black filmmaker in Hollywood. As someone interested in filmmaking, I gained a lot of insight from Malcolm and Marie’s conversations about what it’s like being in the film industry as a Black person, and I really loved their whole conversation about authenticity and what makes a movie authentic. I love technicolor movies of course, but when I saw Malcolm and Marie it somehow gave the film a more introverted feel. I guess because I wasn’t so focused on the color schemes of the room and surroundings I could just focus on the dialogue between the two characters. I don’t know how to explain it really, it just gave the film a more intimate feeling.

I think the music also gives the movie its intimacy and its significance as a film with two leading Black characters in it. The film opens when Malcolm plays “Down and Out in New York City” by James Brown, and he is talking about how good his film is, and Marie is just listening to him. Then when they fight she plays “Get Rid of Him” by Dionne Warwick as a sort of comeback. And the last scene features Malcolm and Marie standing in silence together, and is followed by “Liberation” by Outkast. The last song is a mixture of jazz and R and B, which is so fitting for the last scene of the film because after all of the deep dialogues and raw emotions that Malcolm and Marie expressed towards one another, this song serves as a sort of release in tension. “Liberation” is one of my favorite songs, and I think it fit really well with this final scene because after all the intensity of the film I was able to finally take a breath and go “Wow, that was a really good movie.” It’s one of those films I wouldn’t mind watching again for the sake of just hearing the dialogue because there was so much I could analyze and look into.

Malcolm and Marie (2021). Directed by Sam Levinson. Rated R for pervasive language and sexual content.

After the show Black-ish comes on ABC, there is a show called Mixed-ish that comes on. Black-ish shows Rainbow, also known as Bow, Johnson when she is grown up and living with her husband Dre, her kids and her mother and father in law. Mixedish goes back to Rainbow’s childhood in the 1980s when she, her parents Alicia and Paul and her siblings navigate life as a mixed race family in the suburbs. In this episode, Paul, Rainbow’s dad, brings Jay, one of his students, home so he can stay with Paul’s family. Rainbow immediately falls in love with Jay and starts imagining them together as a couple, but she keeps her love for him a secret. Meanwhile, Paul and Alicia compete with each other to see who can best mentor Jay. Paul works as a teacher at a school with mostly Black students and wants to help Jay succeed (context: Jay is Black), but Alicia, a lawyer, wants Jay to get into the law field, so she takes him to work with her so he can develop an interest in law. Paul and Alicia argue about who can best help Jay succeed, and while Paul argues that Jay would be more interested in being mentored by a teacher, Alicia argues that she can relate more to Jay because they’re both Black and grew up poor, while Paul can’t relate to him because he is a White guy who grew up in a wealthy family (Santamonica and Johan both point out to her though that her father-in-law, who is White, did help Alicia get a job, so in that sense, she can’t fully relate to Jay, who didn’t ). Paul tells his friends one day about Jay staying with him, and one of his friends, who is Black, asks him what his intention is in trying to help Jay. Paul wonders why his Black friend is asking him why he cares about mentoring Jay so much, so he talks to Alicia and she gives him more context. He tells her he really wants to help his students succeed and he is stuck because he isn’t sure if what he is doing to help Jay is enough. Alicia breaks down the White savior complex for him, explaining that White people have historically helped Black people not out of an intrinsic desire to see them succeed or help them, but as a way of making themselves feel better about the good deed they did, like “Look at me I helped this Black kid out so I’m a good White person.” Paul listens and then they both conclude that both of them are good mentors to Jay just as they are, without butting heads about who is more suited to mentor him.

But as it turns out, neither Alicia nor Paul win the prize for Best Mentor for Jay, because Jay admits to Alicia that he’s not really interested in becoming a lawyer. Jay just appreciates that he got to stay with them. Jay’s departure from the family hits Rainbow hard though, and she continues to have a crush on him long after he has left the family.

One thing I really like about Paul’s character in the show is his allyship when it comes to talking about matters related to race and Blackness. Even as a member of a marginalized community, I can always learn to be a better ally to other marginalized communities, so in part seeing how Paul approached conversations about race showed me how I can be more supportive to my friends in marginalized communities. Even though Paul gets defensive at first when Alicia told him he wouldn’t be as good a mentor as she was, and even when his Black friend made him question what his true intentions were for helping out Jay, he ended up being open to listening to what his wife and his friend were telling him, instead of continuing to get defensive. Paul genuinely cares about Black people, but is stuck about how he can mentor his Black students as a White person who hasn’t gone through the same difficulties they have. When Alicia explains to him the White savior complex, he doesn’t get it at first but is willing to listen to Alicia tell him about it. He doesn’t assume he knows everything about race just because he has three Black kids with his wife. As someone who is trying to be a better ally myself, admitting I don’t know everything but am willing to learn and educate myself more has been a key step in practicing genuine empathy and becoming a more supportive ally to my friends. He admits that he may have approached mentorship in a way that perpetuated a savior complex, and is willing to do better. He accepts her criticism gracefully, and tries to do better, and even when he slips up and Alicia corrects him, he immediately becomes aware of what he is saying and corrects himself. I am trying to be a better ally myself so I went to this website called The Guide to Allyship: The Guide to Allyship

Here is a clip from the episode:

A couple of days ago Mary Wilson, a founding member of The Supremes, died at 76. I admit that even though I listened to some songs by the Supremes I didn’t know much about the singers’ lives, but I came across an obituary for Mary Wilson on CNN. Something I didn’t know that was really awesome is that she played a key part in passing the Music Modernization Act in 2018, which, according to a statement from Wilson’s longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz, “aimed to modernize copyright-related issues for new music and audio recordings in the face of new technology like digital streaming which did not protect music recorded before February 15, 1972.” I have lately been interested in learning about music copyright and publishing rights, especially after watching movies like Dreamgirls, Cadillac Records and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. These movies are about black women dealing with white record companies who try to profit off of their talent while not wanting to give them due credit. There’s one scene in Dreamgirls that really stuck with me, where a white band steals the song that the black group The Dreamettes recorded. This scene stuck with me because it showed me that black musicians encountered a lot of barriers in the music industry with regards to music executives valuing their talent and contributions. I really appreciate that Mary Wilson took that step in legislation to protect these recordings so that the publishers and people who produced these songs could retain the rights to their music even after their passing. It made me also want to read up more on copyright in the music industry and how I as a musician can respect other artists’ copyrights and also know my own copyrights to my creative work.

In closing here’s one of my favorite songs by The Supremes. RIP Mary Wilson.

I just finished watching episode 11 of blackish‘s seventh season, and honestly I never get bored with this show. It addresses a lot of important issues while also being funny. In this episode, Rainbow, who works at a hospital, becomes the first Black female partner there. And in the meanwhile, Dre is trying to find Black men at the advertising firm he can mentor. At first Rainbow is excited to mentor another Black woman at the hospital, but then the woman decides she’s not interested in working with her, leaving Bow with the burden of becoming a trailblazer at the hospital. She tries to get Junior’s girlfriend, Olivia, excited about going to medical school, but then opens up to Olivia about the discrimination she dealt with at medical school. Bow even finds an old letter she wrote to herself in medical school to encourage herself to not give up even when others thought she should. Even though Bow tries to put a silver lining on the adversity she faced, saying it toughened her up, Olivia knocks some sense into Bow and tells her that she shouldn’t have to take that kind of racist behavior from people to become a successful person. Olivia then asks Bow if she wasn’t occupied with trying to be a trailblazer, what she would want to accomplish. Bow reflects on this and breaks down because she remembers how exhausting it was to try to prove to her colleagues her worth as a Black female doctor in a profession with a lack of diversity.

Meanwhile, Dre tries to hire a young Black man with a well-known record in advertising in an attempt to find more Black men to mentor, but the man tells Dre he is too busy with his work at another advertising firm to take on a new position. Dre ends up making negative comments about the places this man used to work at, and the man leaves, saying he will keep his current job. Bow and Dre have a conversation, and Bow tells him the advice Olivia gave her, and admits that being a trailblazer is draining because she has to work twice as hard as others to prove her worth. Dre reflects on this, and he invites the young Black man he spoke to out for coffee. At first, the man thinks Dre is trying to push him to work for him, but then Dre tells him he just wants to talk as friends. Bow also starts finding opportunities to give her colleagues to care about diversity; she hands her white colleague a stack of pamphlets and explains that she wants other people at the hospital to care about making the hospital a more diverse and inclusive place for people of color.

I really like that Dre adopted this attitude because it showed me that a key part of being a good mentor is getting to know someone first as a person. In my current leadership role in my faith organization, I have been working to become friends with the other young women in my chapter. At first, I had a hard time connecting with many of the other young women but then I realized it was because I wasn’t asking them how they were or having casual conversations that put them at ease. I then started to open myself up more, and started telling these young ladies about the books I was reading, or what music I was listening to, or about a really good movie I watched. It made me feel less like I had to put on airs and more like I could be myself. My mentor, the philosopher and educator Daisaku Ikeda, always encourages the youth to form friendships and to treasure their friendships. I’m determined to keep encouraging these young ladies as friends, and to develop deeper bonds with them, but first I had to just be willing to have normal every day conversations with them and get to know them as people.

The episode also made a great point about being a trailblazer. Even though it’s nice to be the first, when you’re still the only minority in your field, it can be lonely a lot of times, especially when the people around you expect you to shoulder the burden of educating them on microaggressions or what it’s like being a minority in your field. I think the peaceful racial justice protests last year helped facilitate more conversations about how workplaces could become more inclusive and diverse, and also people are starting to not just focus on adding in a couple of minorities and call it a day, but focus on making workplaces anti-racist. While I don’t have any personal experience in the medical field, I found an article in Health Affairs that talked about how to make the medical profession anti-racist, and at the end of the article it had a link to an June 2020 NPR article on racism that medical students of color have to deal with. The article talks about how, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, many medical students participated in the peaceful protests against racial injustice, and it took a week of these protests for people to become more aware of the abuse that Black students and other minority students (communities of color, women, LGBTQ+) face in medical school. At the end of the article, what really sat with me was Dr. Michael Mensah’s experience at a White Coats for Black Lives protest, where medical students protested the killing of George Floyd. Because there were still few Black people working in medicine at the time of the protest, he was the only Black male there.

As the global reckoning with systemic racism last summer showed me, it’s that diversity quotas by themselves are not enough to address years of inequality and discrimination. Yes, Bow got to celebrate being a trailblazer for other Black female doctors, but it was rough for her because no one else really cared about racism or talking about the challenges Bow faced as a minority, so she felt like she had to do all the work on addressing the discrimination she faced at work. If workplaces like the hospital Bow works at want to truly support people who work for them and come from minority groups, they need to take a more proactive approach, such as colleagues educating themselves on racism and bias, and practicing empathy. I’m positive many workplaces have started doing this or have done this, but of course, when it comes to creating a more just society, dismantling years of oppression takes a lot of dialogue and a lot of coming up with different ways to address the structures on which inequality is founded. Hopefully we’ll see more of this in the next year or so.

“I Put a Spell On You”: Nina Simone (1933-2003)

Nina Simone is one of my all time favorite singers, and this song is absolutely amazing. The raw power she expresses in her music is always so moving to listen to. I also love the string intro; it always moves my soul.

I just looked up the song and it’s actually originally by Jalacy “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins (1929-2000). For some reason I thought it was originally by Nina Simone, but I’m glad I looked up the song so I could get my facts right. This is the original by Hawkins; it’s really good, I just listened to it.

“Mary, Don’t You Weep”: Prince

From Piano and a Microphone 1983

Prince was one of the most amazing musicians in the world, and when I first listened to this recording of the African-American spiritual “Mary, Don’t You Weep” it gave me goosebumps. Even though I haven’t listened to the full album yet, I kind of want to now that I’ve heard this song. The raw power Prince delivers to this spiritual…absolutely incredible. It embodies I have listened to this more than a few times and each time I do I feel Prince’s piano and his voice reverberate through my whole body. Beautiful performance.

Here is more information I read on the spiritual itself for more context. After reading the article I’m thankful to the Fisk University Jubilee Singers for performing the song, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to hear it and savor its truth and its beauty.

And here is the audio for Prince’s version of “Mary, Don’t You Weep”

“Never Gonna Break My Faith”: Aretha Franklin ft. The Boys Choir of Harlem

A few months ago I was listening to music on YouTube when I came across a playlist titled Black Lives Matter. It featured music by Black artists about police brutality and racial justice, which is timely considering the multiple police killings of Black people over the summer (not to mention in 2015, 2016 and even before that). One of the songs on the playlist was “Never Gonna Break My Faith” by the late Aretha Franklin. It gave me goosebumps: the power of the message sent chills up my spine because I remembered how confused, scared and sad I was in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and countless other Black people over the summer and in past years. It gave me hope and also made me sit and reflect on how I could do better in the fight against systemic racism and police brutality. I’m still educating myself on these topics, but Aretha’s song reminded me to keep fighting, keep educating myself and to not give up. I’m grateful to my African-American Studies professors for teaching me the importance of listening to and studying the music of African-American artists and musical traditions.

Just some context, the song came out in 2006 as a duet with Mary J. Blige for the film Bobby. It was co-written with Bryan Adams but the solo version of the song wasn’t released for a long time. Adams said in a Rolling Stone interview that when he found out Clive Davis, a longtime producer and friend of Aretha Franklin, was making a biopic about Aretha’s life he sent Davis the previously unreleased version, saying that few people have heard this version and it was time for people to finally hear it. I think especially given the circumstances around the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain and countless other Black people in the summer of 2020, and a subsequent global reckoning with centuries of systemic racism, society needs this song more than ever. This is the article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/aretha-franklin-never-gonna-break-my-faith-solo-version-1017873/

When I first listened to this song I didn’t know there was a music video for it. I had just listened to the audio at the time. But I finally watched the music video today, which came out last summer during the global Black Lives Matter protests. And honestly my description of it would never do justice. It speaks for itself.

“When We Get By” by D’Angelo.

This is one of my favorite songs of all time and out of all the songs on D’Angelo’s 1995 album Brown Sugar, this is the one I have listened to the most (besides his song “Me and Those Dreamin’ Eyes of Mine”, another beautiful song) This song always calms my hurried mind and brings me peace. And I love the musical key that it’s in because I see a bright shade of yellow, kind of like the sun, when I listen to this song. I really love listening to the ways in which the piano, D’Angelo’s voice, the drum beat and the trumpet merge to create something so incredibly beautiful. Makes me want to stroll outside and perform an improvised dance of some kind. I literally feel this song from the depths of my soul. Reading up on the album gave me more insight into the style of D’Angelo’s music and how he put the album together. It’s quite fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Sugar_(D’Angelo_album)