konjahman
Joined Sep 2002
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konjahman's rating
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konjahman's rating
So... there is so much here. I stumbled upon A. Sayeeda Clarke's short film trying to find an answer to a question. "Why were people claiming Black people are being killed for their melanin?"
When I first watched it, there was so much going on. Mainly, with the school. Why? It seemed like a statement was being made about the central character and his environment.
Then of course the premise. Melanin is never mentioned by name but there are allusions to it. Even as I write, it seems Clarke did not really know her subject. The premise is not even possible, yet PBS/ITVS funded it anyway.
It really bugs me that this along with all the other episodes of FutureStates have been shoved down the memory hole. Now all we have are reviews like this one to let people know whoops, they did it again.
Empathy would have told compassionate people, "hold up, stop...let's not go there." But they did.
Now I feel like a full review is not even really possible, because people who haven't seen it will have no way to evaluate my review.
Here we go anyway.
The characters are dressed in pseudoArab costumes. Is that an allusion to Afrocentricity?
The main character has no friends or family he can turn to in his time of need. He teaches at a school, but has no relationship with anyone in his community that can assist him and his wife (girlfriend?). Has anyone at the school ever faced such a challenge. Are there no elders in this community he can turn to for support?
He teaches at a school full of children. The school is privately funded, but Bato has no means to pay for his child's birth? Why couldn't he turn to the parents of his students? What kind of world is this?
Instead of seeking community support from those who rely on him to teach their children, our hero quickly turns to crime. His attempts fail, so he has to resort to the thing he is campaigning against.
Too bad PBS/ITVS has removed this and all the other FutureStates episodes from the internet. Odd doesn't even begin to describe a world where we can watch films from the early 1900s online, but a movie just over ten years old has vanished without a trace. It would help to discuss the issues this presents out in the open. Most importantly, how did this get into production in the first place? The whole idea of someone selling their melanin is ludicrous. There will be no future where that happens.
Then, of course, why is it even an issue? Humans are not earth's only source of melanin. There is even fossil melanin from before we have any record of humans over 100 million years ago. No one ever stopped to think they were headed down the wrong path.
One of the issues is the way "extraction" is laced throughout the film. The socialist fist pump poster "Not One Drop" makes it clear who is pushing the ideology behind the film. There is even a shot where Bato is removing the flyers from the school before he goes in. "Turn your color into cash" and "you may be worth over $200" are prescient examples of art imitating life.
Why is this art imitating life? Because right this second melanin is worth over $506 a gram more than gold. Did Clarke know this before starting production? Does she know it now?
In an interview with PBSNewshour she states:
"Just like the current times, one little thing, one mishap, one big doctor bill, can put you in a tragic situation. And even if you're living and your intention is to follow your truth, a little mishap can throw you off."
"White" seems like a mishap that throws people off.
When I first watched it, there was so much going on. Mainly, with the school. Why? It seemed like a statement was being made about the central character and his environment.
Then of course the premise. Melanin is never mentioned by name but there are allusions to it. Even as I write, it seems Clarke did not really know her subject. The premise is not even possible, yet PBS/ITVS funded it anyway.
It really bugs me that this along with all the other episodes of FutureStates have been shoved down the memory hole. Now all we have are reviews like this one to let people know whoops, they did it again.
Empathy would have told compassionate people, "hold up, stop...let's not go there." But they did.
Now I feel like a full review is not even really possible, because people who haven't seen it will have no way to evaluate my review.
Here we go anyway.
The characters are dressed in pseudoArab costumes. Is that an allusion to Afrocentricity?
The main character has no friends or family he can turn to in his time of need. He teaches at a school, but has no relationship with anyone in his community that can assist him and his wife (girlfriend?). Has anyone at the school ever faced such a challenge. Are there no elders in this community he can turn to for support?
He teaches at a school full of children. The school is privately funded, but Bato has no means to pay for his child's birth? Why couldn't he turn to the parents of his students? What kind of world is this?
Instead of seeking community support from those who rely on him to teach their children, our hero quickly turns to crime. His attempts fail, so he has to resort to the thing he is campaigning against.
Too bad PBS/ITVS has removed this and all the other FutureStates episodes from the internet. Odd doesn't even begin to describe a world where we can watch films from the early 1900s online, but a movie just over ten years old has vanished without a trace. It would help to discuss the issues this presents out in the open. Most importantly, how did this get into production in the first place? The whole idea of someone selling their melanin is ludicrous. There will be no future where that happens.
Then, of course, why is it even an issue? Humans are not earth's only source of melanin. There is even fossil melanin from before we have any record of humans over 100 million years ago. No one ever stopped to think they were headed down the wrong path.
One of the issues is the way "extraction" is laced throughout the film. The socialist fist pump poster "Not One Drop" makes it clear who is pushing the ideology behind the film. There is even a shot where Bato is removing the flyers from the school before he goes in. "Turn your color into cash" and "you may be worth over $200" are prescient examples of art imitating life.
Why is this art imitating life? Because right this second melanin is worth over $506 a gram more than gold. Did Clarke know this before starting production? Does she know it now?
In an interview with PBSNewshour she states:
"Just like the current times, one little thing, one mishap, one big doctor bill, can put you in a tragic situation. And even if you're living and your intention is to follow your truth, a little mishap can throw you off."
"White" seems like a mishap that throws people off.
When we are told "show don't tell," this movie demonstrates what that means.
Director/writer Gavin Hood shows us the who, what, where, when and how in a community. Since this is a movie, the pretext is "something is going to happen." The context is a sparse community somewhere. The subtext is the title of this review, a quote from Ayi Kwei Armah. Who could have predicted the ending?
The ending tells us the monster the storekeeper built to protect his shop doesn't discriminate. Like any system it does what it was designed to do. That monster did its job ruthlessly and with heart wrenching consequences. Just as in Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein, the monster ended up destroying its maker.
What I liked most about this short film is since there is no dialogue, we can take this same story, set it anywhere on the planet, and it will have the same effect.
All that and I haven't even watched Tsotsi, yet.
Director/writer Gavin Hood shows us the who, what, where, when and how in a community. Since this is a movie, the pretext is "something is going to happen." The context is a sparse community somewhere. The subtext is the title of this review, a quote from Ayi Kwei Armah. Who could have predicted the ending?
The ending tells us the monster the storekeeper built to protect his shop doesn't discriminate. Like any system it does what it was designed to do. That monster did its job ruthlessly and with heart wrenching consequences. Just as in Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein, the monster ended up destroying its maker.
What I liked most about this short film is since there is no dialogue, we can take this same story, set it anywhere on the planet, and it will have the same effect.
All that and I haven't even watched Tsotsi, yet.