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5 Key and Peele Sketches I Love

I am a huge fan of the comedy sketch duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. These are a few sketches I love from them:

  1. High on Potenuse: In this sketch, Key and Peele play students in math class and Joe tells a joke while the teacher explains the concept of a hypotenuse, and jokingly tells his seatmate, Troy, that he wishes he was “high on potenuse.” Troy laughs loudly and then says aloud that he wishes he was high on potenuse, too, and everyone laughs after hearing the joke because they think Troy made the joke first. However, Joe is hurt and tells Troy that was his joke and he took it from him, but the teacher accuses Joe of being disruptive and tells him to be quiet. She laughs at the hypotenuse joke and continues to give credit to Troy while dismissing Joe’s claim that Troy stole his joke. Principal Martin brings in comedian Gabriel Iglesias, who thinks Troy is the one who told the joke, and Gabriel invites Troy on his comedy tour. Joe is obviously very upset because everyone thinks Troy made the joke, and he once again tries to tell everyone that Troy stole his joke, and the teacher finally snaps and yells at him to stop it and that he will never be as funny as Troy. When she gets back to the lesson, she says “hypotenuse” and she and everyone can’t stop laughing. Joe, however, sinks in humiliation in his chair.
  2. Obama Angry Translator: In this sketch, Barack Obama (played by Peele) introduces everyone to his anger translator, Luther (played by Key). For every diplomatic formal thing Obama says, Luther interprets what Obama would have said if he wasn’t under pressure to be so formal (i.e. if he was allowed to express his anger). In real life, Barack had to deal with all sorts of stressors when he became president, the main one being racism and accusations that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. This sketch was genius because it says all of the things that Barack probably thought of saying but couldn’t since he is in the public eye. However, when Luther takes what Barack is saying to extremes (i.e. interpreting “my beautiful wife Michelle” into an objectification about Michelle’s appearance) he tells Luther to cool it, and Luther often does check himself in a humorous way.
  3. Pegasus Siting: A white news crew goes into a predominantly Black neighborhood to report on a mythical story about siting the winged mythical horse Pegasus. At first one of the crew members says there is no news story that they can report in the neighborhood, but the news reporter says that they can make up something because the members of the community will be gullible enough to believe it. The crew asks about the horse and the residents go all out to prove the existence of the Pegasus. They bring in a guard/ military person to track the Pegasus down, and brawls even ensue debating the Pegasus siting. Some residents say that the Pegasus busted in their roofs, busted in their cars,
  4. Ancestry.com commercial. This one was absolutely hilarious and tongue-in-cheek. In the sketch, several people are tracing their lineage to great figures of the past. The white people trace their lineage to Marie Antoinette and other white people in history, while all of the black people traced their lineage to Thomas Jefferson. As much as Thomas Jefferson was celebrated when I was growing up, I learned in college more about who he was, and it was a less rosy picture than the one I grew up with. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner and fathered many children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. I think of course, because it’s satire, it pokes fun at a more serious issue with history, which is that these white figures are portrayed as heroes but they also had sides to them which weren’t so heroic, and those less savory sides aren’t given much attention or scrutiny in traditional narratives of history. At the end of the day, no matter how much I revered one of the Founding Fathers growing up, he was a slaveowner, as were a lot of those guys.
  5. In another sketch, Jordan Peele plays Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Key plays Tyson’s wife, who is sick of putting up with his nonsense. Every time she tells him he is neglecting his chores, that he is going to make them late for a funeral they have to go to because he isn’t dressed, or that he slept with another woman, Neil turns to the camera and tries to explain and make excuses for why he did what he with astrophysics. At first his wife is impressed and blown away with his reasoning and lets him off the hook, but soon after it’s revealed he slept with another woman she tells him she isn’t falling for his astrophysics reasoning anymore.

Whether To Have Kids Or Not

I’m at this point in my life where making decisions, no matter how big or small, seems to be incredibly challenging. Especially in the wake of the pandemic I found myself contemplating what the deeper purpose of my life actually was. My friends all started having children and getting married and at first I was happy for them, but then around 27 I started to wonder, Am I behind in life because I don’t have my own family yet? I realized that I can’t be happy for my friends if I’m stuck in a place of deep unhappiness, always questioning and second-guessing my choices. But not comparing myself to others is a lot easier said than done.

Of course, a lot of us know that it’s okay to not know if you want kids or not, and that regardless of whether you have kids or not you’ll be ok. But of course, people’s attitudes about whether to have children or not depends on culture and historical social norms. Comedian Chelsea Handler, in a segment on The Daily Show, talks about her decision to not have kids. She also talks about the societal pressure for women to have children, including clips from interviews by successful women who talk about how they are often questioned and criticized for not wanting to have kids.

In a parody of one of those videos on Instagram that show the daily lives of busy moms (to be fair, I don’t have Instagram anymore, so I haven’t watched these videos before), Chelsea talks about what her daily schedule looks like as a childless woman. Some of the activities include going to Paris and meditating on the airplane, eating edibles, wearing heels, and going back in time to kill Adolf Hitler. It was pure genius, and the end of the segment was also genius. In the sketch, she is at an appointment with her gynecologist (played by Julianna Margulies) and the gynecologist tells her that her life is going to be majorly affected by her decision to not have children, and gives her a pamphlet. She tells her that she won’t have to deal with the trauma of childbirth and explains other benefits about not having kids. She ends by telling Chelsea it is a lot to think about, and that because it’s an overwhelming decision she gives her a bag of recreational drugs and offers her tickets to Ultrasound, a concert where Lizzo is performing, and smiles, telling her that she can go because she doesn’t have kids to take care of. Of course, the subject matter about having kids is serious, but this is what I love about the sketches on The Daily Show because they bring humor to these serious and sometimes taboo subjects. The subject of whether to have kids or not is serious, but I love how Chelsea poked fun at all the criticism she is getting. The first thing I saw when I looked up Chelsea’s sketch is all the criticism she got for it, and people genuinely thought she was being selfish or was actually deeply miserable inside. That’s why I had to stop reading the YouTube comments at the bottom of the video, because at the end of the day they are all just people’s opinions.

Honestly, even though it was meant to be humorous watching this Daily Show segment was really encouraging for me because I was so ambivalent about wanting kids, and even though none of my friends pressured me to have kids, I was at a time in my life when I was deeply lonely and depressed and wondered whether I was doing this adulting thing correctly. But honestly, I am more confident that I will make the best decision for me. I understand that the sketch was supposed to be satirical because The Daily Show is a satirical show, but also it was validating in some sense for me because I am still unsure of what I want in life, but I do know that having kids isn’t really a priority for me right now. It’s also how I feel about being on the asexual spectrum. Of course, there are plenty of asexual people who have kids, but at the same time there are also a lot of asexual people who don’t have kids. I didn’t really find out about asexuality until after high school when I met this student at a college preparatory program who told me they identified as asexual and faced a lot of teasing for their sexuality. I didn’t have a label for who I was at the same, I mean, maybe straight, but it wasn’t something I really thought about. I would meet these guys and think it was romantic to have kids with them, but then these crushes always faded with time. When I finally came across the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network in my sophomore year of college, I felt validated. It was definitely challenging grappling with being asexual, and I often thought, Well what if this is all a phase? But years have passed and I am gradually becoming more accepting of my identity. I think just feeling confident in it is a challenge because it’s easy to compare yourself with others, especially with social media. Of course, I understand that I control how much I use social media, and that before getting Facebook I didn’t really care about getting one but sometimes it has been tempting to look at other people’s feeds and buy into this false narrative that everyone’s lives are perfect. I also had to seriously unpack a lot of what I watch in the media. It was easy for me to look at movies and TV shows of romance and think, Gee it’s as easy as being swept off your feet. But as I listen to my friends talk about their romantic lives, I realize that regardless of whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, relationships, whether romantic or platonic, are challenging because you may not always get along with the person or agree with them on everything, and it takes work and commitment to actually have a healthy relationship.

I’m also glad I have Buddhism as well because as I was chanting, I realized that my happiness isn’t dependent on my circumstances, whether I get married, have kids or even have a partner at all. It was easy for me to look at everyone else’s lives and think they were perfect, but chanting gave me the space to look at my life just as it is and appreciate it regardless of my environment. Since it’s a daily practice it is still something I need to remind myself of each day, but it has been helpful to have some affirmation that helps me awaken to a deeper self-worth that doesn’t come from my achievements or even my failures.

In the sketch, Chelsea shows some clips from successful women in the media who are criticized for living a child-free life, and one of the women in the clips is The Financial Diet’s Chelsea Fagan. I love Chelsea Fagan and The Financial Diet, so of course I had to look up the full video, and I came across a video titled “What You Should Never Say to Childfree Women.” In this video, Chelsea unpacks a lot of the stigma that women (and men) face for not wanting children. These criticisms range from “You’re selfish,” “You’re missing out” and “Who will look after you when you get older?” However, this stigma is also connected with a lot of established structures in society about what constitutes a family, and more and more people are moving away from the nuclear family model.

Chelsea touches on one objection to remaining child-free, which is the anxiety that if you don’t have kids, you won’t have anyone to look after you when you are in old age. However, Chelsea reveals statistics that show that many older people with kids don’t get to see their kids or be taken care of by them even in old age, so it totally debunks this idea that older people with kids don’t have to worry about loneliness and isolation. A couple of weeks ago I finished a book that my mom got from the library for me to read called Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, published in 2014 by American surgeon Atul Gawande. Gawande talks about how American society is reluctant to confront the realities of aging and death, and how a lot of aging people in American society are often left to feel isolated and lonely because they are often forced to face these realities alone in nursing homes and hospitals. American medicine hasn’t been too kind to the elderly, and in some cultures children stay with their parents well into old age, but particularly in American society children move out to live by themselves and this can be particularly challenging when their parents get older and they have to take care of them. He meets many aging people in nursing homes and in hospice care and explores how these people grapple with dying and getting older. He also shows how their families navigate the stressful process of grief and taking care of the elderly. As a young person this book was deeply terrifying at first because I’m young and I don’t want to think of dying, but that’s why reading Daisaku Ikeda’s writings on Buddhist philosophy have helped me navigate the challenges of facing these realities of birth, aging, sickness and death. From a Buddhist perspective, these four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death are inherent aspects of life rather than something removed from our daily lives. Even while growing up as a Buddhist, I still had this idea that you had one lifetime and that was it. Hearing about celebrities dying made me anxious about my own death, but as I continued to study Buddhism it reminded me that death is not this transcendent state removed from my daily human life. In fact, Ikeda Sensei says in one of his writings that birth and death are even inherent when we fall asleep at night and when we wake up in the morning. Seeing life and death from this perspective has helped me appreciate my life so much more, because at 27 I felt that life would be easier if I just joined the 27 Club and ended my life, but as I studied Buddhism I realized that I didn’t have to feel ashamed for having problems because problems are part of daily life, and that I can chant to have the life condition to face reality head-on. It wasn’t easy getting through that year but I learned a lot about myself in the process, and that even as I am striving towards success and big dreams I also need to stop and appreciate the little things about life. Being Mortal forced me to look at the reality of American medicine and the realities of aging and death. It was written in 2014 but I think it is especially timely because during the COVID-19 pandemic, many elderly people not only died of COVID-19 but also were isolated in nursing homes during quarantine. Many families in all parts of the world had to watch their elderly relatives on ventilators struggling to breathe as they battled against COVID-19, and not being able to touch them or hold their hand or provide much comfort because they could only do it outside the hospital room to not risk the family member contracting the virus.

But that was a tangent and this blog post is getting rather lengthy so I will continue this discussion in another post.

Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

I finally watched Wakanda Forever after hearing my family talking about it some months ago. Honestly it was really powerful and also touching because at the beginning they pay tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, who played the main character, King T’Challa, in Black Panther. Like many people, I was pretty emotional when Chadwick passed away in 2020 and when they premiered Black Panther I broke down and cried, and afterwards they had a tribute to Chadwick where his co-stars, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson and others, paid tribute to him, and after that I just cried even harder. I honestly wasn’t sure if they were going to make a sequel after Chadwick passed away, but they weaved his passing into the beginning of the storyline in a poignant and profound way.

I also really love the score, which is the genius of composer Ludwig Goransson, who also did the score for the first movie.

In this movie, the nation of Wakanda is grappling with the death of King T’Challa, and apparently there is another nation that has vibranium. Most people thought Wakanda was the only country with the precious mineral vibranium but there is another nation, Talokan, that has vibranium as well. This made me think about the history of colonialism in Africa and the early Americas, where European colonizers exploited Indigenous peoples for their resources and profited off of them and enslaved these peoples for their resources. At the beginning, Queen Ramonda is in a conference with global leaders who accuse Wakanda of not being involved enough in international affairs and makes a comment about their vibranium resources. Queen Ramonda tells them that Wakanda is the only nation with vibranium and they are determined to protect this resource at all costs because human beings outside of Wakanda want to exploit the country for its vibranium. However, one evening when Queen Ramonda and her daughter, Shuri, are sitting outside near a campfire, the leader of Talokan, Namor, emerges from the ocean and is decked out in vibranium. Queen Ramonda is wondering how he got ahold of the vibranium, but Namor tells her that Wakanda isn’t the only place with vibranium and that Talokan has had vibranium for years.

This movie also delves into the history of Indigenous cultures and colonialism. Talokan talks about how when his mother was pregnant with him, European colonizers invaded the land and got the Indigenous communities sick with illness, killing many people. His mother and other people in the community took a substance that gave them the power to live underwater. At the beginning, some scientists are on a marine voyage and they hear a choir of the Talokan people underwater, and the people on the crew of the ship are hypnotized and they start jumping over the boat to their deaths. Two of the scientists escape in time but just barely because Namor destroys their helicopter. As the movie progresses, we see how the Wakandans have to battle an even greater force while battling the people of Talokan. In one scene, Riri, Shuri and Okoye are escaping from the police and they escape them, but then the Talokan people fight them and even though Okoye has her spear to fight them, they end up beating up Okoye really badly and taking away Shuri and Riri to Talokan. When Shuri and Riri are in Talokan they are figuring out how to get back to Wakanda especially because Queen Ramonda is worried sick. Okoye comes back to Wakanda and wants to find Shuri and Riri, but Ramonda tells her it’s her fault for bringing Shuri with her to get Riri. When Shuri and Riri are in Talokan they are figuring out how to get back to Wakanda, but Namor meets with Shuri and he takes her underwater to explore the land of Talokan. He hopes to win her favor, but Shuri is loyal to Wakanda. This makes Namor angry and he and the other people of Talokan go into Wakanda and destroy everything. Namor sees Ramonda in the kingdom and throws these water grenades at the window, and these grenades explode and drown the kingdom in a deluge of water, killing Ramonda. Even though they try to revive Ramonda it is to no avail, and so they not only have lost King T’Challa but also Shuri has lost her mother, too. Shuri puts on the Black Panther suit and drinks an herb she has been working on for so long, and it gives her the strength to take down Namor. After she drinks the herb she finds herself confronting Killmonger, and he tells her that now that King T’Challa is dead they can use their power to take over Wakanda. This makes Shuri angry and she musters up her strength to fight Namor. When she and Namor are in the desert, she is about to kill him but she remembers her mother’s words and understands that she doesn’t have to kill Namor to bring peace to Wakanda. As the Talokan and Wakandan people are fighting each other, Shuri and Namor re-emerge and declare peace between Talokan and Wakanda.

I gotta give mad props to the people in the makeup and costume departments for both the first and second Black Panther movies. The costumes were amazing. And as always, I love Martin Freeman. I also love Shuri and Riri because they are Black women working in the sciences and technology, so I was like, “Yes! #BlackGirlMagic.” Also the Dora Milaje are badasses. And Angela Bassett, as always, is amazing.

The Babysitter (CW: explicit)

It was a Friday night. Kayla and her kids were sitting on the couch watching SpongeBob SquarePants, Kayla cradling her prominent bump. She was about to approach her due date pretty soon. She was going to have another girl. These nine months have felt like nine weeks.

Dave came out from the kitchen, holding a plate piled high with nachos. Steaming chips dripping with gooey melted Velveeta cheese, piles of greasy ground beef, topped with sour cream, guacamole and salsa. Was he going to share some with his wife and kids? I wondered as I folded Mike and Laurie’s laundry, making sure Mike’s Power Ranger pajamas were creased and folded perfectly, the way Kayla wants me to fold them. I have been working as a babysitter for the McRobbins family for four years now. I needed a job to pay for my college tuition, and so far it has provided a good way to pay my bills and also, the kids are too darn cute for me to leave them.

Dave crams nachos in his mouth, and finally he offers the remaining half of the nachos to his wife and kids. Kayla rescues a chip from the cheese pile, scoops up some ground beef and guacamole, and crams it in her mouth. The kids are busy eating Goldfish with their eyes glued to the television. I hear a ping, and walk over to my phone. My girlfriend, Katherine, has just texted me.

Kat: U ok?

Me: Yeah. Love you.

Two minutes pass, then my phone pings again.

Kat: Love u more.

I put my phone back in my pocket, and continue to fold the laundry.

“Hey, Jenny! Can you get me that pint of Blue Bell from the freezer?”

The soon-to-be-born baby was craving chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I walk over to the freezer, and am about to open the door and take in the cold air, when I hear a loud groan.

My blood freezes.

I hear the plate clatter on the hardwood floor. I walk in and I see the nachos piled on the floor. Bret, the family’s cute Border Terrier, is licking off cheese and meat from the floor with a delighted expression on his face. I’m going to have to clean up his vomit later because he surely can’t be eating that.

But that’s the least of my worries. Dave is grabbing the hospital bag from the kitchen table, and he rushes over to his wife, who is red in the face and panting, clutching her stomach in pain, gritting her teeth as another intense wave of contractions courses through her body.

“Jenny, call the doctor.”

I nod, and scroll through my contacts. Kayla had me to keep Dr. Gross’s phone number in my contacts for when the due date came. I quickly enter the ok button, and wait as the dial tone rings.

“Welcome to Medical City. If you are in labor or have an emergency, press 1…”

Without waiting for the other options, I press 1.

“Please hold.”

Some elevator music plays on the other line. A sweet voice answers the phone.

“Dr. Gross’s office. This is Linda. How may I help you?”

“I have a patient named Kayla McRobbins. She is in labor.”

“Wonderful. I will let Dr. Gross know.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. See you at the hospital.”

I hang up.

Kayla is a puddle of sweat and tears as she bends over in pain.

“Dave, they’re ready.”

“Thanks, Jenny. We’ll see you and the kids when we get back from the hospital.”

I help Kayla walk to the door. She clings to my arm.

“Breathe.”

She remembers what she learned during the birth class, and takes quick breaths in and out.

I help her into the car, and watch as they drive off. I go back inside the house.

“Mom’s gonna be ok.” I reassure the kids. They are no longer watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Bret is looking up at me with a pained expression. I should have told him to not eat those nachos.

Then I hear a ping. I check my phone but haven’t gotten any messages. I hear another. It’s coming from the kitchen. Dave left his phone by accident on the kitchen counter. I pick it up. The messages are from a woman I don’t know named Carla.

Carla: Hey babe. U free to talk?

Carla: We had such a good time last night on the phone.

I freeze. Wait, it can’t be. Is Dave…cheating?

I know I shouldn’t be nosy. But seriously, it’s Dave’s fault. I wouldn’t have gone through his phone if he was a little smarter and listened when his wife told him to create a PIN for security reasons.

I scroll through the text thread, and my blood runs cold.

Dave: Hey baby.

Carla: Hey.

Dave: Send me some sexy vibes.

Carla: I am wet. My fingers are touching myself. When I think of you on top of me…

Dave: I’m getting wet too.

Carla: I am moaning. My finger is rubbing that spot. I want you to feel my body all over.

Dave: My hands feel their way through your tits. I want to cream all over you. I want to grab your juicy ass and—

I put the phone down. I am nauseous. I literally cannot read anything more from this jackass. How long has he been with this girl? Is this his ex from college he thought he left behind? I know he once dated a woman named Carla Richards during the Stone Age, but there are so many Carlas out there…

My head spins. I nervously look at Mike and Laurie as they gently rub Bret’s upset stomach and coo to him baby words to make him feel better. I would rather die than ruin these sweet little souls’ lives by telling them their dad is a liar, a cheater, a jerk. I can’t do anything right now. Dave and Kayla are at the hospital. What am I going to do? Drive up there to the emergency room and tell Kayla during her strenuous labor that her husband is cheating on her with his ex? Gosh, that would really ruin everything.

I quietly chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to calm down. So glad my friend told me about Buddhism because I don’t know if I can handle all the thoughts and anxieties running through my head right now.

It turns out I didn’t have to really do anything. A couple of months later, Kayla found her husband’s phone and saw he was texting Carla, and she kicked his ass out of the house for good.

“But baby, please, what about the kids? What about us?”

“DAVE! LISTEN TO YOURSELF RIGHT THIS FUCKING MINUTE. I SPENT NINE FUCKING MONTHS CONCEIVING YOUR THIRD KID AND I TOOK CARE OF THE KIDS WHILE YOU SHOVED NACHOS DOWN YOUR BEERGUT STOMACH AND HAD PHONE SEX WITH SOME CHICK FROM COLLEGE! DO YOU THINK I GIVE A FUCK WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU AND ME TEN YEARS—NO, FUCK THAT, TEN SECONDS FROM NOW?”

I heard the door slam and a loud “FUCK YOU” that definitely didn’t come from Kayla this time. I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast for the kids and Baby No.3, Greta. As greasy rashes of bacon danced in the frying pan with sunny side up eggs, my blood ran cold. I wish I had told her sooner but what was I to do? She was in the hospital, about to give birth. I didn’t have time to tell her Dave was cheating on her. I turn the stove off and dish out the breakfast for the kids.

Kayla walks quickly into the kitchen, wearing a black suit and sleek Louboutin heels. Her mascara is smudged and her perfect cherry-red hair is a mess. She sees me and then breaks down in tears. Just stands there and cries. I don’t know what to do.

She then comes over to me and gives me a hug. Her tears and mascara smudge on my cheek, but I don’t even care. We quietly stay like this for a good five minutes and I don’t let go once.

She pulls apart from me and sniffles.

“Do you think you need a day off?”

She nods, then her lips tremble and she cries even harder.

I grab my phone to dial her boss, Miranda, but she puts a hand on my arm.

She shakes her head and whispers, “It’s ok. I’ll email her later.”

We make our way quietly to the couch and watch some TV, the kids’ cacophonous cries echoing behind us from the kitchen.

A Funny Little Love Affair with Southern Cooking

Currently I am reading a novel by Donna Tartt called The Little Friend. It came out in 2002 and honestly I have trying to read this novel for a while. Mainly because the cover looked really intriguing, so haunting and mysterious. It shows a close-up of an old-style-looking doll whose eye is looking to the side in a worried expression. The novel is about a young woman named Harriet who is still grappling with the death of her brother, Robin, after he was found hanging dead from a tree when he was a child. Harriet asks around about his murder but no one seems to know what to tell her. The novel takes place in Mississippi in the 1970s, and as I was reading it for some reason the idea of Southern cooking came up. It is totally random, but I kept thinking about Southern cooking, and it reminded me of Paula Deen. As a child I loved watching Paula Deen’s cooking on the Food Network. She had this one recipe I was obsessed with called Not Your Mama’s Banana Pudding, and in my pre-vegan days I craved some of this banana pudding. I was quite fortunate a few years down the road to have joined a volunteer orchestra because one of the moms of the participants sold this delicious banana pudding in these tubs. It was a delicious creamy yellow mixture of banana pudding, topped with Nilla wafers and whipped cream, that had me craving at least ten tubs if I had my druthers and could buy all the banana pudding in the world. It was pure goodness, and of course my poor vegan stomach couldn’t stomach that delicious dish anymore, but when I had it it felt like serious Southern comfort food. Also watching Paula Deen making doughnuts in the Dutch oven was a treat. I then begged my parents if I could make doughnuts in the Dutch oven. I can’t remember if I even went through with that plan, but it was a great idea while it lasted.

And in all honesty my vegan ass still loves the smell of Southern fried chicken and other Southern foods. Even if I can’t eat them. Hearing the sizzle of the drumsticks as they hit the deep fryer, tasting the key lime pie in that little Flying Fish diner in Arkansas as I paused to make room for my stomach, that fried catfish po’boy dunked in tartar sauce digesting itself in my stomach. Smelling that spicy sizzle of steaming crayfish piled high atop a mountain of butter-drenched corn-on-the-cob. At least I still can eat things like grits, cornbread and collard greens. You can never go wrong with those. And I love to put maple syrup on my grits, and vegan butter. I used to put veggie sausages but then I found out that the veggie sausages had egg whites in them, so I stopped eating them. My favorite Southern favorite? Eggs and biscuits. Of course, it’s not an exclusive Southern favorite because plenty of people in the West, East, and North eat eggs and biscuits, but somehow it just always made me feel Southern.

Of course, overtime and after a much-needed continuous education about racism and antebellum slavery (sorry, Paula Deen), I have had to reform my love affair for Southern food and the South. But even with my reforming education and changing perspective I still savor the delectable creaminess of piping hot 20-minute Quaker grits on a Sunday morning, rivers of melted butter and sugary maple syrup traversing those mountains of white hominy. I still love a good vegan version of country fried steak at the vegan diner in Chicago. I still chow down on collard greens and fluffy cornbread even without the eggs in it. I’m just gonna try to be more woke while I eat them.

Movie Review: One Night in Miami…

Last evening I watched this movie called One Night in Miami… Actress Regina King directed the film, and honestly I am so proud of her for directing this movie because she is an amazing actress and this movie is just so incredible. It is based on a play by Kemp Powers, and I haven’t read the play yet but now I want to after seeing the movie. It’s kind of like with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; after seeing the film adaptation of the play by August Wilson, I really wanted to read the play and luckily I found a copy of it at the library. It definitely helped me appreciate the work of August Wilson more.

The film is about four influential figures in Black history (Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown, and Cassius Clay, who changed his named to Muhammad Ali) when they were at the height of their careers and reflecting on what role they play in the Civil Rights movement. The film takes place on February 25, 1964, in a hotel room in Miami. Honestly, the acting was incredible. And the movie shows how complex the issue of racism was during the Civil Rights because there were issues even within the Black community such as colorism. Jim Brown is sitting with Malcolm X while Sam and Cassius are going out to the liquor store, and Malcolm is criticizing Sam, Jim and Cassius for selling their talent to white people when they could be uniting with the Black community against racism. Jim makes a point that even within the Black community, there is discrimination against darker-skinned Black people, and that unlike Malcolm he has a harder time because he is darker skinned than Malcolm is.

Malcolm accuses Sam of selling his work to white executives who don’t really care about his work and just want to make a profit off of him. But Sam doesn’t take Malcolm’s insults for long, and goes into a story about how he started the British invasion. His record company had a Black musician named Bobby Womack record a song and the white British rock group, The Rolling Stones, said they wanted to record it, so Sam lets them record it and it hits number one on the music charts. However, even though it seems that The Rolling Stones are getting all of the royalties, they can’t because Bobby Womack recorded the song first, so Sam and Bobby Womack get royalties and money in their pockets each time the song is played. This proves to Malcolm that contrary to what Malcolm told him, he respects and values his worth as a Black musician in a predominantly white industry. Malcolm tries to further argue that Sam is selling out to white people because he plays a song on the record player that reminds him of Sam, a song by white singer Bob Dylan called “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Sam actually takes inspiration from that song, and he goes on the Johnny Carson Show later on and sings a song he was working on called “A Change is Gonna Come.” Malcolm accuses him of pandering to white audiences with songs like “I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons)” and “You Send Me.” (I listened to these songs after watching the movie and they are incredible.) But what he doesn’t know is that Sam is working on a song that is in align with the Civil Rights movement.

Earlier in the film Jim Brown meets with Mr. Carlton, a white family friend of his, on the porch of his house. At first Mr. Carlton and Mrs. Carlton are excited to see Jim because he has worked so hard in his career as a football player, and Mr. Carlton lets him know to reach out to him if he needs help. But then Mrs. Carlton asks Mr. Carlton to later help him move some furniture, and Mr. Carlton goes in to help, and Jim offers to help him move the furniture. But Mr. Carlton laughs and says they don’t allow Black people in their house (he doesn’t use ‘Black people’, he uses the n-word to describe Jim.) This moment reminded me not just that this was the 1960s in the deep South where Jim Crow was alive and well, but that even successful Black people were still treated as second-class citizens no matter how much success they got in their careers. It kind of reminded me of this book I read called Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, and in one part of the book she says that in 2013 an employee at a Manhattan deli falsely accused Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker of shoplifting and was frisked. It was a disturbing story but also not uncommon for many Black people, even successful people like Forest Whitaker. It showed me that we still have a long way to go in overcoming centuries of prejudice in this country and practices such as stop and frisk that disrespect the humanity of marginalized communities. It showed me that even though Forest Whitaker is this super successful actor and has gotten a lot of acclaim for his movies, he still has had to deal with racism as a Black person in this country. Likewise, even as a successful football player, Jim Brown wasn’t allowed in a white person’s house to do a simple thing like help a family friend lift their furniture.

Malcolm’s relationship with Sam, Jim and Cassius is interesting and the movie shows how Malcolm’s opinions of them impact their friendship. Cassius expresses interest in joining the Nation of Islam with Malcolm X, but then Malcolm later says he is leaving the Nation of Islam to start his own organization because his relationship with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam has tensions. In addition, Malcolm’s friendship with the three men is under public scrutiny by the government because of The Nation of Islam’s activities. Malcolm has to have two members of The Nation of Islam guarding the door to the men’s hotel room because Malcolm is at risk of being assassinated. Malcolm works on his autobiography before his assassination. I thought it was so interesting seeing how all of these men produced the work they did in the play, because growing up I only saw the end result, like I heard “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke growing up, but it was interesting how the movie illustrates the back story behind the song, which is this dialogue between him and these three other men about their role in a time of racial discrimination and unrest.

Jim retires from his football career to pursue acting full-time. At first, his friends seem skeptical because Jim doesn’t seem like the guy who would star in a Western movie, but Jim is serious about the acting work he is doing and dedicates himself to it. He says he loves football and it is still his passion but he is exploring other passions. It reminds me of when I watched this movie called Last Holiday, and in the film Georgia’s sister tells her she is going to make her debut as a country singer, and Georgia tells her there is no such thing as a Black country singer. But after working on a project on Black musical traditions and the significance of the banjo in Black culture, I realized there are a lot of Black country musicians such as Darius Rucker and Mickey Guyton, and many others whose music I have yet to explore. One of the most poignant scenes of the film was when Malcolm tells Sam it seems he doesn’t care about his music career but he went to five of his shows, and one was in Boston. At the show in Boston, another Motown singer, Jackie Wilson, performs and the crowd goes wild. Jackie finishes and wishes Sam good luck, but tells him to not fuck up. Sam’s microphone ends up going out, and it’s implied that Jackie did something to the microphone to make it not work when Sam performed. Sam is figuring out what to do, because the audience starts booing and throwing things at him, and the band immediately leaves the stage because they can’t take the humiliation anymore. Sam then has a eureka moment and leans down to tell some of the female concertgoers he is going to sing an acapella version of “Chain Gang,” so he stomps his foot to the rhythm of the song, and the girls go along with it, and pretty soon the concertgoers act as an acapella chorus for Sam while he sings the song. It brings everyone together and people stop booing him. The audience is predominantly Black, too, so there is that element of solidarity where the audience gets to sing this song they enjoy. It is a call and response type of rhythm that involves audience participation, so the audience isn’t just passively listening to the music but actively playing a part in the performance. It was a huge contrast to the scene early in the movie where Sam is playing for a white audience at a ballroom, and when he is playing his mic stand falls over and he has to pick it up, and everyone in the audience is talking or falling asleep or walking out while he performs. This shows that compared to the Black audience he performed with in Boston, the white audience didn’t value his worth as a musician.

Overall, this movie was really good and I highly recommend it.

One Night in Miami… 2020. Directed by Regina King. 1 hr 54 m. Rated R

Episode Synopsis: Bridgerton, season 2, episode 3 (“A Bee in Your Bonnet”)

The episode opens with Anthony and his father hunting a deer in the woods. This is a flashback to Anthony when he was younger, and they aim to kill the deer. At first they fail to shoot it, but then they come out from hiding behind the rock and out in the open they see the deer. They finally kill it. They come back home and are talking, and Anthony’s dad sees a bee, and he swats the bee away but it stings him and he ends up getting an allergic reaction to the sting. Anthony tries to save him but his dad ends up dying. It is also really sad, too, because Violet, his mom, is pregnant and she has to see her husband die unexpectedly right before her eyes. Anthony immediately has to take his dad’s position as the new viscount and he is totally unprepared for this. She falls into a deep depression and his death takes a psychological toll on her. She goes into labor and the doctors tell Anthony that he has to decide for her whether the unborn baby gets to live or whether Violet gets to live. It is a scary decision, but Anthony tells the doctor to go with whatever Violet decided. Violet is deeply in pain during this time, and Anthony doesn’t know what to do so he leaves the room. Then in another flashback, he finds his mom sitting depressed on the couch and Anthony asks her if she could come to dinner with him and everyone else. Violet tells him she doesn’t have the energy to sit with everyone and is still grieving her husband’s death, and tells Anthony to give her some grace because she is truly trying her best to keep going in spite of everything going on.

When Anthony visits his father’s grave, he recalls these flashbacks and it affects how he moves on in life. But his mom sees him visiting his dad’s grave and she talks with him, that yes it is painful that he passed away but he still needs to become happy and find someone he is in love with. Anthony is torn because he is matched up with Edwina Sharma, but secretly he has mad passion for her sister, Kate. Edwina is unsuspecting of Anthony and Kate’s sexual tension, but she thinks that Anthony is a trusting guy who has Edwina’s good intentions in mind. But Kate is an excellent bullshit detector and she warns Edwina that Anthony doesn’t really have her good intentions in mind, and to steer clear of him. Earlier in one of the episodes, Anthony has high expectations for the woman he wants to marry, and he goes on dates and evaluates the women based on his own standards, and ends up crossing a lot of ladies off on the list because they don’t suit him. However, when he is riding his horse outside, he finds someone wearing a blue cloak riding too, and he runs to catch up. Kate takes her hood off and when Anthony sees her, he is absolutely smitten. But Kate disses him one night at a ball after hearing him talk to other men about how undesirable he finds most of the women he meets.

However, in this episode, Anthony is playing a competitive game of pall mall (a version of croquet) with his siblings and the Sharma sisters, and Edwina thinks it’s a fun game, but Kate and Anthony compete with one another to win, and Kate challenges Anthony by hitting the balls each time. Their balls end up being hit really far away, and so they both have to go into the woods to fetch them. Kate isn’t worried about getting her dress messed up, so she goes into the mud to retrieve the balls, but Anthony goes in, too, and they end up getting muddy together. Anthony realizes then that he isn’t in love with Edwina much at all, but instead is in love with Kate. He realizes this again when they are in the garden and they are talking about Anthony being committed to proposing to Edwina, but then he sees a bee land on Kate’s neck and that triggers a panic attack in him because his father died of a bee sting and he doesn’t want Kate to die of the bee sting, either, so he hyperventilates and Kate is trying to calm him down. The bee goes away, but Anthony and Kate realize they are in love with each other and try to kiss, but are interrupted by footsteps.

Eloise, in the meanwhile, is sick of everyone telling her to find someone. She is trying to find who Lady Whistledown is, and she approaches Madame Delacroix, but Madame Delacroix tells her to mind her own business. Penelope, Eloise’s friend, still will not tell Eloise that she is actually Lady Whistledown. Penelope is helping Madame Delacroix find clients for her dressmaking business, and she approaches Madame because she herself is a businesswoman as Lady Whistledown, and needs help. Penelope’s family, in the meanwhile, is dealing with the killing of their father and the financial hardships that have come with it. The new Lord Featherington isn’t helpful to them either, but Portia (Lady Featherington) hatches a plan for one of her daughters, Prudence, to win the approval of Lord Featherington and marry him. At first Prudence and Penelope are uncomfortable because Lord Featherington is their cousin, but Portia needs to get them out of this financial predicament, so she has Madame Delacroix make a dress that shows off Prudence’s bosom and has Prudence fan her face so that she can appear attractive to Lord Featherington, but he isn’t interested and instead continues to read his newspaper. It turns out that Lord Featherington is interested in Cressida Cowper, who, with her mom, is basically the Regina George of the show (if you haven’t seen the movie Mean Girls, Regina George is a mean girl who gossips about everyone at the school and gets a new girl named Cady to join her clique, the Plastics.) Prudence tries to win the Lord’s approval but Portia feels embarrassed and disappointed that Prudence can’t win his approval and tells her to let it go.

Benedict Bridgerton is an artist and is trying to go to art school, but is nervous about winning acceptance to a school he really wants to go to. His brother, Colin, gives him a substance to put in his tea to alleviate nerves around the school decision. It is kind of like their version of weed brownies in a way, because I just remember that scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower where Charlie, who is socially awkward, is given weed brownies and is so high during the rest of the party. Benedict puts a bunch of the substance in his tea and ends up totally strung out at dinner, but he finds out he got accepted into the school and he, Eloise and Colin celebrate, but Eloise and Colin are also worried because he is so high.

Movie Review: Jojo Rabbit

A coworker at my job recommended this movie to me one time and like so many times I put off watching it because I got busy and was doing other stuff. But this time I decided to finally watch it and it was definitely a really good movie. It definitely was eye-opening just the way the plot turned out. And it teaches a good message about propaganda and stereotypes in children, that children are conditioned, taught and trained to be prejudiced and un-learning ingrained bias and prejudice isn’t an overnight thing, but rather a process involving empathy and vulnerability. Jojo’s mother, Rosie, is hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (played by Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic, and at first when Jojo finds Elsa is hiding in their attic, he freaks out and she has to silence him with a threat and his knife because if he screams on her, she will be found out and taken away. At first he calls her nasty names and says a lot of hurtful things about Jewish people because that is what he grew up believing. Elsa isn’t fooled and tries to tell Jojo the truth about his life, that he is not a Nazi and that what he has been taught about Jewish people is propaganda and stereotypes. Jojo keeps a book where he draws offensive caricatures of Jewish people and when he asks Elsa to tell him about what Jews are really like, she tries to say positive things about being Jewish but then he tells her to say negative things about Jewish people because again, he was taught growing up in the Hitler Youth to hate and discriminate against Jewish people. However, as he gets to know her he sees his own humanity and also her humanity as well, and starts to see more clearly how painful and scary living through this war was.

It was interesting because at the end when the Second World War is over, Germany is now fighting Russia, and Yorki, Jojo’s friend, shows they still haven’t overcome their prejudice about other groups, so instead of trashing the Jews he trashes the Russians and thinks of them as the enemy. However, even though Yorki becomes a young soldier and is proud to fight, Jojo starts to see around him the destruction of war and the cruelty of the people who he once followed as his mentor, like Captain Klenzendorf, the Hitler Youth leader (played by Sam Rockwell). Honestly this movie reminded me of the time I was studying about the Holocaust in middle school, and I saw this book in the library called Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. I haven’t read it yet, but it got me wondering about young men who grew up being trained as future Nazis and following Hitler. It made me think of an episode from the British show The Crown, because Prince Philip flashes back to his childhood going to boarding school in Scotland, and how he endured tormenting, harsh living conditions and the death of his sister in a plane crash. His sister married a member of the Nazi party and Philip had a lot of resentment about that, but when she died he really suffered so much pain and grief. There is a scene when he is in her funeral procession, and throughout the city Nazi flags are draped from windows and Philip is looking around at this feeling disillusioned and pained, especially because the headmaster of his school is Jewish. His father blames him for his sister’s death and basically calls Philip worthless, and because Philip is already struggling with bullying and neglect at his boarding school, he is forced to grow up very quickly.

In Jojo Rabbit, Hitler puts a lot of pressure on Jojo, even though he is only ten years old and still doesn’t know much about the world. But the movie shows how quickly young people are taught to hate others just because they are different. When I was in my African-American Studies course on Afro-American history, we watched the movie 42, and there is a scene where Jackie Robinson is playing the game, and a white man and his son are sitting in the bleachers and the white man starts screaming the N-word at Jackie. The camera focuses on how the son reacts and he at first is figuring out whether to go along with his dad or not, but unsurprisingly he imitates his dad and starts calling Jackie the N-word, too. I remarked in class how shocking it was, but the professor threw up his hands and was like, “Well, of course, these kids weren’t born racist. They were taught to be racist.” As a sensitive person I didn’t know how to react, but as I thought about it more and saw Jojo Rabbit, I realized what the professor was trying to tell me. It’s not until Jojo actually sees Elsa’s humanity and gets to know her that he overcomes the bias he grew up with. It reminds me of Buddhism because it’s hard to see someone’s Buddha nature, or this respectworthy nature we all have regardless of our identity, because we have fundamental ignorance, or this inability to see people’s Buddha nature. But when we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, we see people’s inherent dignity just as they are. This is not easy to do because many of us, myself included, grew up with preconceived ideas about others and who they are and how they are supposed to act, think and feel according to what we have been taught growing up. But it’s not until I educated myself, watched movies, listened to people’s stories and chanted to respect the inherent dignity of each person’s life, including my own, that I was able to see the inherent dignity of my life and the lives of people around me. Even if I don’t always get along with the other person or agree with them on everything, I chant to see their Buddha nature and through gradually transforming my life condition I transform my relationship with the other person. It’s still a process and I can’t totally say I am perfectly woke and free of bias, but I’m working on getting better.

I also really love the scene where toward the end Jojo is walking through the deserted fields after the war and he sees a beautiful blue butterfly flying around. He marvels at this beauty, and I thought it showed how Jojo transformed throughout the course of the movie. At the beginning Jojo during his training is forced to kill an innocent rabbit by wringing its neck. Jojo thinks the rabbit is sweet and doesn’t want to kill it, and the captains and other boys tease him about it. Jojo panics, then drops the rabbit on the ground, trying to free it, but then the captain, frustrated, kills the rabbit himself and flings its dead body across the forest. Jojo is taught during his training that he cannot be sensitive and that it is in his nature to hurt people and living things. But the few women in his life, Rosie and Elsa, encourage him to embrace his sensitive nature and be vulnerable. Rosie is sad because Jojo just wanted to live his life, but now that he has internalized a lot of this Nazi propaganda, he thinks he needs to develop a thick skin and hide his vulnerability to be a true man, even though he is only ten and still figuring life out. Elsa tells Jojo about her fiance, Nathan, and Jojo plays a mean prank on her at first by making up a letter by Nathan telling Elsa that he found someone else and wants nothing to do with her, but because deep down Jojo is sensitive, he realizes that his joke really hurt Elsa, so he writes another letter pretending to be Nathan and tells her that he was just joking and wants to still be with her. Elsa tells Jojo that he will fall in love one day, and Jojo thinks it’s silly but over time as he gets to know Elsa he really does fall in love with her. There is a really sweet moment when he is going to declare his love for Elsa and we see his stomach and that there are little cartoon butterflies flying around in his stomach because he is so nervous and so in love.

There is one powerful scene where Jojo once again realizes how traumatic this war has been and how it brought out so much cruelty within people. Earlier he sees five people hung from gallows at a public square. He tries to turn away from it, but Rosie forces him to reflect and just understand what happened. She wants him to face the painful reality of this time during the Nazi regime and the war, because it has brought out the cruelty in people. Unfortunately, it’s not until Rosie herself is hanged that Jojo realizes the inhumanity of the Nazi regime, and starts to feel deep pain for his mom and for all the people who lost their lives fighting against an inhumane regime.

Movie Review: Belfast

This Saturday I watched the movie Belfast, which came out in 2021. I saw during the Oscars it got a lot of praise and many people said it was a really good film, so I decided to finally watch it. Honestly I was a teary mess after watching it. Within the first five minutes I was blowing my nose and crying tears. It was just a really powerful movie. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who I just saw in the film Dunkirk. It is based on Branagh’s life growing up in the 1960s in Belfast, Ireland. The main character in the movie, Buddy, and his family live through political unrest on the streets and struggle with money, and his dad is always on business in England. The family doesn’t want to leave Belfast because they have such strong roots there, but due to the violence they witness each day they are faced with whether to go with their dad and move to England permanently or stay in Belfast.

It has a really powerful message about home and never forgetting your roots and memories of your life and childhood. When Buddy is talking with his grandfather about the family moving to England, Buddy says he wants his grandfather and grandmother to come with them to England, but the couple wants to stay in Ireland because they have such strong ties there even with the unrest going on. The beginning was super intense because Buddy is just out playing in the street like an everyday kid and enjoying playing with his friends, but then he turns around and sees across from him people shoving each other, yelling and throwing things. The way the camera does it is powerful because it seems time slows down and the fighting in the background is muffled, but as it turns around we see Buddy standing paralyzed, not knowing whether to run or stay because what he is witnessing is so terrifying and vivid. Then someone throws a dangerous object at him and the children and families on the other side, and his mom has to run out and shield him from the fighting. This movie showed me that war can really impact the lives of not just adults, but also children. Buddy watches television with his brother, but also can’t always just go outside and pretend like the unrest doesn’t exist because he and his family deal with it every day.

I’m glad I watched this film because it’s been a really long time since I have been to Ireland. When I was in middle school I took a trip to Ireland and I’m not sure if we went to Belfast, but I definitely remember going to Sneem and Dublin. I was probably too cranky and teenager-y to appreciate Ireland at the time and really didn’t know much about it other than what I had read about during orientation before going on the trip, but it was definitely a beautiful place to be. But I only visited there for a few days and of course, with any place, there is only so much you experience in a few days compared to living there your entire life. As I get older and have studied about world history and read more books, watched movies and listened to people’s stories, I have learned that everyone’s experience about growing up somewhere is a part of who they are. I also didn’t know Van Morrison was from Ireland; I grew up listening to “Brown-Eyed Girl” and so many other hits by him, and so I really loved the music for Belfast because a lot of the songs were by Van Morrison.

The acting was incredibly powerful. I saw Ciaran Hinds in There Will Be Blood and loved his acting in that one, and I loved his acting as the grandpa in Belfast. I also love Judi Dench and loved her role as the grandmother in this movie. The mom also played an amazing role; I cried because there was one scene where she has to run after Buddy because he and his friend are looting one of the stores, and the friend pressures Buddy to steal something from the shop, and when his mom finds out she freaks out and tells him to put the stuff he is stealing back even though it’s stuff they really want but cannot afford. She and her family are sitting in the living room and she cries because she has grown up in Belfast her whole life and has known the community for such a long time, but everything has changed due to the political unrest and no one can live daily life peacefully without the threat of war. But she knows that if they continue to stay in Belfast during this tumultuous time, they are constantly going to be living in fear of war. At the beginning when Buddy encounters the unrest, the family’s car is destroyed when people rioting light the car on fire and it explodes. This shows again how Buddy can’t just live a blissful childhood because he witnesses trauma and war outside his house nearly every day. However, he does get to experience some sweet moments, such as the cute girl he has a crush on in class and wants to marry someday. And the time he and his family are out dancing and his dad is singing and dancing with his mom to the popular song “Everlasting Love” by Love Affair (the first version and only version I heard growing up was the one by Gloria Estefan so it wasn’t until I saw this film that I heard this version of the song.)

Movie Review: Little Women

I had heard about the remake of Little Women for quite some time, but I had not gotten around to seeing it. It was made in 2019 and was directed by Greta Gerwig. I love some of Gerwig’s other films such as Lady Bird and Frances Ha. I found both of these films quite relatable because Lady Bird (played by Saoirse Ronan) is a fierce independent teenager who wants to leave her hometown of Sacramento, California. She wants to be taken seriously, and she has dreams of going to college on the East Coast, but her family cannot afford the tuition. She wants to have sex but her mother doesn’t want her to grow up too quickly. I cannot relate to the sex part but I definitely remember wanting to get out of my hometown when I was in my senior year of high school, so I ended up applying to colleges that were far away from my hometown. However, I got really homesick during my first year because I had this idea about college being this time to just be independent, and it was but it was challenging because it was a new environment and I was away from my family. I also kind of related to Frances, because even though I didn’t have a situation where I was living in New York City and struggling to pay rent (which is what Frances is struggling to do) I really am struggling to figure out my purpose in life. Frances is figuring out her purpose in life and it’s tough, but along the way she learns so much about herself.

I haven’t read Little Women before to be honest. I read many other books in high school but Little Women wasn’t one of the books on the curriculum. I do know it’s a must-read classic though, and so many people I know have read the book, so I found a copy at my local library. I was able to follow the movie though pretty well. I really related to Jo March, who is one of the sisters in the movie, because she is independent, opinionated and wants to be a writer. While her sisters are strong and independent like her, they also want to get married and have families, but Jo doesn’t really want to get married or have a family yet. She wants to focus on her writing career, but she struggles to feel as if her writing is good enough. There is one scene where she is with her friend, Friedrich, and he reads a draft for a novel she is writing and tells her that he doesn’t like her writing and doesn’t think it will sell. She ends their friendship because of what he said and from there on, she struggles to have confidence in her writing. Even when people tell her she is a good writer, she struggles to think so. There is one powerful scene where Jo and her sister, Beth, are sitting at the beach and Beth asks Jo about her writing. Jo dismisses it and says she isn’t working on anything and doesn’t want to write because she doesn’t think anyone will care. Beth tells her to write a story for her, and when Beth passes away, Jo is inspired to take up her writing again. I thought it was beautiful when she takes one of her journals and props it up on her desk and starts writing all of these pages for her novel. She stays up until the wee hours working on this novel and she finally submits it to a publisher. The publisher is reluctant at first when he reads about the character in the book because he thinks readers aren’t going to like that the character defies a lot of the societal expectations such as getting married and falling in love, and Jo also has to negotiate the royalties and how much of a cut she will receive for publishing the book.

It kind of reminds me of Begin Again, because Gretta produces her first album, but she doesn’t know much about how the music industry works. She works on the album with Dan, who is a record executive struggling in his career, and they visit the record label he works for, and Dan’s business partner Saul explains to her about record sales and how much musicians make from selling the records after they are distributed. Even though she makes negotiations with Saul about getting a share of the sales and getting Dan his job back, the reality is that the label wouldn’t give her a lot of freedom that she has being an independent artist. She saw how Dave, her ex-boyfriend, became commercially successful but he went on tour a lot and got lonely and success changed him, especially when he reveals to Gretta that he had an affair with his production assistant, Mim, while away for business. Instead of releasing the album, Gretta decides to distribute it online for $1, and it ends up being a huge hit with people.

After watching Jo spend a lot of time working on her writing, I feel encouraged to keep writing. I have struggled with writer’s block, perfectionism, feeling like my writing isn’t good enough unless it is in a certain voice or style, but seeing Jo triumph in her struggle to follow her own path in life encouraged me a lot. This movie showed me that it’s important to follow your own path and your own dreams, whatever happens or how much people around you change. Meg later on in life tells Jo she is getting married and wants to start a family, and Jo breaks down and cries because she thought Meg wanted to be a successful actress, so she tries to convince Meg that she doesn’t have to marry and can instead become the successful actress she always wanted to be. But Meg tells her that even though their dreams are different from each other, it doesn’t mean her dreams of starting a family and getting married are less important. I am at this stage in my life where I am figuring things out, like whether to get married, have kids, go to graduate school, live on my own, when to retire, what kind of career I should have. And I’ve learned you are going to hear a lot of different opinions about what you should do. Some people will support your career path, like Jo’s sisters and mom supported her writing ambitions. And others won’t. But seeing Jo navigate those ups and downs while remaining true to herself inspired me a lot. I realized I can’t be happy for others if I’m not happy for myself. I would see on social media photos of my friends’ weddings, their newborn babies and toddlers, their graduate school acceptance posts, and I would think, “I’m happy for you” but then I would wonder “Am I behind?” I would go to friends’ baby showers and weddings and at first I was happy with my dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall and moving to New York City, but a couple of years ago I started to feel lonely and wondered whether I should do these things, like getting married and having children, so that I wouldn’t feel far behind in life. I understand now that plenty of women have great careers and also manage to have families and get married, and they understand that love doesn’t need to overshadow all other things in life, but honestly it’s hard to feel happy for others when you are unhappy. I think that’s what I love about Buddhism, is because it encourages me to not limit myself to only a few dreams but to dream big. Dreams can be marrying, raising kids, having a successful career, retiring well, becoming happy. I often chant now to have a successful life because I want to think about the long term. Thinking in the short term only made me miserable because I was only focused on my own needs in the here and now without thinking about what I wanted in the future.

Timothee Chalamet’s character, Laurie, was interesting. He kept falling in love with Jo and then he also fell in love with Amy. Amy though was already happily engaged to a wealthy man, but Laurie, drunk at a party one time, digs on her for marrying into wealth, embarrassing Amy in front of her fiancée, Fred Vaughn. Amy is also an incredible artist, but like Jo, she struggles with rejection and feeling like her work is good enough. Laurie tells her to not marry Fred and Amy feels incredibly disrespected that he would tell her that, and to not speak to her again. However, they reunite and they get married and have a family together. I think this was a very difficult moment for Jo because earlier in the movie Jo and Laurie are dancing together and acting silly, and they are really great friends. But when it comes to having a more serious relationship, Jo turns him down and says that if they marry, neither of them will be happy in the marriage. Laurie tells Jo he has loved her all this time, but Jo tells him she can’t marry him. Laurie is hurt and tells her she is going to want to marry one day. Then, later, Jo is feeling lonely and confesses to her mom that while she is happy for her sisters moving out and getting married, she feels lonely and that she wants love but doesn’t want to do it out of a need to fulfill society’s expectations of women. Her mom asks her if she genuinely loves Laurie and Jo finds it hard to make up her mind about whether she loves him. She decides to mail Laurie a letter declaring her love for him and that she changed her mind, but when they meet he accidentally lets it slip that Amy is his wife now. Jo is pained because she thought Laurie would still be available for her and wait on her to change her mind, but by then it is too late because Laurie’s priority is finding a partner and because Jo wasn’t ready he moved on. Laurie asks if they can still be friends, and while Jo says yes, I felt so much pain for her. Someone had fallen in love with me in college and I wasn’t interested in being in any relationships but I missed the signs, but because my feelings for this person were so on-and-off I didn’t know how much I loved him until a couple of years ago when we reconnected. I thought he was still available, but by the time I did he informed me he was with someone else. I think I mainly did this out of loneliness and I also struggled with low self-worth at the time. I think I just had the idea of this person in my head and wanted to relive those sweet moments of attraction we shared even though I never really acted on it, but I learned that people change and I had also changed. I had come out of a relationship a few years ago and it was sad but I eventually moved on. Part of me wonders if I want to date because everyone else is, or because I genuinely want to find someone to be with. Although I was encouraged that Jo ended up reuniting with Friedrich, who she had an amazing relationship with, because Friedrich wanted to follow Jo in her dreams and respected her independence. I am hopeful that whether I end up with the guy of my dreams or not, I can still respect my life and continue following my own path in life.

It’s really cool that Timothee and Saoirse got to work on this movie together again because they got to work together in Lady Bird. In Lady Bird Timothee plays a guy named Kyle, who is rich and is the main attraction of Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan). Lady Bird experiences similar heartbreak to Jo because she and Kyle sleep together and when they are cuddling up, Lady Bird assumes he lost his virginity to her, but then he looks at her funny and admits he didn’t lose his virginity to her and has had sex with women many times in the past. Lady Bird is disappointed and crushed that this fact killed the magical moment of them having sex, especially because it’s her first time having sex, but Kyle tells her that she is going to have so much un-special sex in her life. Lady Bird cries and I felt for her because it seemed that Kyle didn’t actually want to get to know her or respect her as a person, and that he just only wanted her for sex.

I want to write more about the movie, but I am still figuring more of my thoughts out. But I definitely recommend you watch it because it’s a really beautiful film.