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11: On Critiquing Black Art
57 Plays5 years ago
If you saw Queen & Slim, you probably have thoughts on the movie. But when it comes to critiquing Black art, can we ever see things objectively? Mindful Musings is now Geneva Says - more at brittanygeneva dot com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Milestone
00:00:02
Speaker
What up, what up? It's Brittany Geneva, this is Mindful Musings, and I'm giving you two podcasts in two weeks, okay? Can I just get a little bit of a pat on the back, okay? Like, wow, I'm so proud
Why Review 'Queen and Slim'?
00:00:20
Speaker
of myself. But normally I want to do one every two weeks, not weekly, but this week I had to do one
00:00:30
Speaker
off schedule or whatever because I you guys I cannot even explain how many people have literally like called me personally to be like Brittany you need to watch Queen and Slim and report back with your findings I'm like wait a minute like why like why is this gonna be so like
00:00:55
Speaker
polarizing for me, like, the number of people who are asking me like, Brittany, watch Queen and Slam and let me know what you think made me think like, what the fuck happens in this movie that the, you know, it would make me have like a visceral reaction or something.
Initial Reactions to the Film
00:01:11
Speaker
So I actually, like, went
00:01:15
Speaker
and did something I never do, which is randomly on a Tuesday afternoon, go to the movies. I went on Tuesday to the theater by myself and there was like two other people in there and watched Queen and Slim. Cause I was like, okay, I guess I just need to see it. And there was so much conversation. I was like, if I don't see it now, it's going to get completely spoiled and I'm not even going to be able to go in there.
00:01:42
Speaker
have like my own opinion so I was like let me hurry up and do this I'm gonna be honest with you after you know I would say I was like all right I'm ready I'm ready to have some opinions I'm ready to have some some thoughts some controversial hot takes after I was over I was like I mean it was cool
00:02:08
Speaker
Like, I wasn't I didn't leave they're feeling strongly. One way or the other. Oh, this is the world's best film or the world's worst film. I did have a few opinions. Although this is not what the podcast is going to be about the podcast is not going to be about my opinion of the movie. But just to quickly share, I think it was
Cinematography vs. Emotional Impact
00:02:32
Speaker
a stunning movie, beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns. The movie was beautiful. Daniel Kaluuya and Jodi Smith were gorgeous to see, beautiful skin, beautiful lighting to make them look good because a lot of, you know, Hollywood, like, I don't know what to call them, people who liked, people don't know how to make
00:03:00
Speaker
dark skin look good on camera. They overexpose it or they do things to make it look ashy. So the ability to make these two beautiful brown people look perfect was amazing. It was beautifully shot aesthetically. The music was absolutely amazing. I immediately went and found the playlist on Spotify. So
00:03:25
Speaker
like surface level wise, right? Like it was beautiful to look at. It was entertaining literally to listen to with the music. And I mean, the movie overall like was entertaining. Like I wasn't like bored or falling asleep for all of the movie. There were a couple of parts where I was like, all right, let's hurry it up here. But for the most part, I was like into, you know, like, OK, what's going to happen next? But overall, I thought the movie was very disappointing. It didn't deliver.
00:03:55
Speaker
on what it could have been. You know, seeing that trailer and just hearing the synopsis of the movie, you feel like, oh shit, like this is about to really be
Missed Opportunities in Storytelling
00:04:05
Speaker
something. Like there was such a good opportunity here to tell a story that was moving, that was thought provoking, that was, you know, reflecting of not always portrayed like elements of black life or whatever.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I just feel like it totally fell short and totally didn't deliver on what it could have been. The potential was outrageous and the actual outcome was meh.
00:04:39
Speaker
That said, that's my opinion and it's not an uncommon opinion I now see.
Challenges in Critiquing Black Art
00:04:44
Speaker
I feel like there are plenty of people who are not disagreeing with me, but there are also people who think this movie was amazing and this is the black love story we've always needed.
00:05:03
Speaker
What I have seen and what this podcast is going to be about is the fact that whenever we have black art like this, especially when it's a marquee, you know, we have Lena Waithe involved and we have Daniel Kaluuya who it seems only does hit movies. Like we have these heavy hitters.
00:05:26
Speaker
So we feel, you know, Beyonce doing photo shoots at the red carpet premiere. We have these big black cinema moments and it's impossible for us to judge that neutrally. Like we cannot just watch the movie and have a takeaway from the movie and then just leave it there and be like, and that's what I think. And now we're going home.
00:05:56
Speaker
It's always so extreme. On the one hand, you have people who are judging it way too harshly. Like your expectations are on a million and you would never expect that much from any other movie, but you are expecting so much from this black ass movie.
00:06:21
Speaker
And then on the other extreme, you have people who have no standards for movie watching when it comes to black shit. It's like, if it's black, we can't judge it. We can't criticize it. We can't call out opportunities for it to have been better. We can't point out things that didn't make sense.
00:06:43
Speaker
It's like, damn, can we just watch a black movie and just think our regular thoughts without it having to either be the savior of a movie generation or impervious from any type of criticism whatsoever? Like, can it just be regular? Like, that's not all our fault, of course. If there was black cinema and black stories being told
The Need for More Black Stories
00:07:12
Speaker
on a regular basis and it was completely common, then any one piece of art wouldn't be such a big deal. So obviously, we have not had the opportunity to have so much of this
00:07:29
Speaker
that it's now become commonplace, obviously. But then on the other hand, we have started to have more and more.
Critique of Black Lives Matter Representation
00:07:38
Speaker
And I kind of am starting to feel like, can we just judge black art fairly without having any one extreme or the other in terms of our expectation?
00:07:54
Speaker
I feel obviously the fact that this has a Black Lives Matter theme, and this is like, it's been spoilers the whole time, but now I'm really about to be spoiler because I'm gonna talk about specific scenes. So I would definitely suggest you don't keep listening if you don't want spoilers, but also if you've made it this far, you might as well keep listening. So anyways, just make your own decisions. Now you have the facts.
00:08:20
Speaker
with the Black Lives Matter theme, with this, you know, they've shot a white police officer. You're introducing, like, as a filmmaker, you are setting it up so that people are going to want it to be more deep and meaningful and serious. So right off the bat, that, I mean, that's kind of Lena's fault. Like, you frame this movie in Black Lives Matter and police shootings.
00:08:49
Speaker
In that way, we are going to think about it as being more serious. We're going to think about this as like, how are you, are like, are you being responsible with the use of that narrative and those images for this film? Because don't just throw black people getting killed by police in irresponsibly. That needs to be thoughtfully
00:09:15
Speaker
included because we know that that's traumatic and that's not something that people want to relive if they don't have to. So if you are making us relive it, it had better be because the movie is going to really give us something great to leave with where we say, I'm glad that I saw that again because ultimately it brought me to this higher level of understanding or this deeper thought or whatever.
00:09:43
Speaker
This movie did not do that. Like this movie used, in my opinion, Black Lives Matter and these really visceral images in a way that did not advance anything and did not advance a thought or a takeaway that I can leave and say, huh,
00:10:00
Speaker
I'm really glad that I saw that
Plot Issues and Realism Concerns
00:10:03
Speaker
that way. I mean, everyone obviously is talking about that scene where the young man shot the police officer in the face and it was just so gratuitous and unnecessary. And then it didn't even tie into anything. Like there was never another reference or another
00:10:22
Speaker
point at which we say, oh, I see why that happened. It just happened. And it's just like, what the fuck? Like, don't just throw fucking shootings unnecessarily into the middle of this movie and then like go about your merry way. And I'm like, if you choose to tell a story that deals in that serious of a topic, you have to be more responsible with it. So on the one hand, I am sort of like,
00:10:49
Speaker
higher expectation for this movie because you do need to, if you are a black filmmaker and you're going to use those images, you need to do a better job of it than anybody else. And she didn't do that. And then on the other hand, I'm also like, this movie deserves lots and lots of criticism. Like it was plot holes, like the whole time I'm like,
00:11:16
Speaker
I just have to try so hard to suspend disbelief. I don't believe anything. I almost have a problem with the core premise of the movie. Would they even run in that situation? I feel like if that happened in real life, the girl would have ran and the dude would have been like, good luck. And he would have gone home and been like, let's see if we can hire Ben Crump and beat this case. So I already didn't believe the core
00:11:41
Speaker
the core thrust of the movie, but I'm like, let me put that aside and just say, okay, they're on the run now. And let me just watch it from here. And even that, like, some things were just outrageous. They were just outrageous. Like, nigga, this is outrageous. You have this man walking into a gas station with the intent of pulling a gun on the owner so that he can, you know, get some free gas.
00:12:09
Speaker
And the owner, a white man says, well, I'll give you a full tank if you just let me hold the Glock. And she was like, okay, what the fuck? Like, that's just dumb. It's actually dumb. It's not even like funny. It's just dumb. And there were just like, that was like a big thing that didn't make any sense. But there were small things that didn't make sense. At one time, their car broke down.
00:12:36
Speaker
And they had to push it kind of a long way to get to a mechanic to fix it. And they arrived there like moments later without a drip of sweat. Nigga, you just pushed the car like down the side of a country road. Like you would be fucked up by the time you finally got to the damn repair man, you know?
00:12:58
Speaker
Let's just think and they are like fugitives on the run for doing like a heinous crime and they make it from Ohio to Florida unscathed. I'm sorry.
00:13:12
Speaker
I'm sorry, it's just, it's so implausible that I can't even put aside the implausibility to just enjoy it because it's too, you're asking me to make too much of a jump from what I know to be logical and reasonable.
00:13:31
Speaker
And this is not a fantasy movie. I talked to someone that was like, oh, but you can watch a superhero movie and put aside disbelief. Yeah, because it's a fucking cartoon. This is dealing in a fantasy land with a fantasy name.
Predictability and Narrative Choices
00:13:48
Speaker
I mean, Gotham City is not a real fucking city. So yeah, I can watch Batman and say this isn't real. But you have in Queen and Flynn, they have set this movie in a real town with a real situation.
00:14:01
Speaker
These two people start out on a real date talking about they met on Tinder. So this is immediately set up to be like, this is my everyday life today. They met on Tinder. They get in the car. They get pulled over by the cop. This is real, real, real, real. And then when they transition to the being on the run, suddenly it's fake, fake, fake. Like, no, you can't have it both ways. Either the shit is a realistic depiction of today's life or it's complete fantasy. But don't like try to straddle both because it's weird.
00:14:31
Speaker
And this movie was weird in that it kept trying to toggle between this is real life. What's happening today? And like, this is more of a fantasy and like kind of a romantic, you know, movie that is portraying something that we wouldn't actually see in today's world. So to me, that was just that put me off kilter. Like, I was confused about that. And the fact that
00:15:00
Speaker
Ultimately, you know the ending ends up being like so predictable Oh my gosh, the ending was I mean who if you couldn't predict that like I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't mean to judge you but I'm judging you that thing was predictable as fuck like that as soon as the dude showed up with gold teeth I was like nah this shit is about to go all the way left
00:15:23
Speaker
And that's exactly what happened. And then I was reading another review today and I fucking realized that the review pointed out at no point in the movie did they ever call each other queen or slim or was there even like a reference like
00:15:42
Speaker
you know, maybe somebody else is having a conversation or they show the news and the and the anchor woman says, you know, these fugitives are being dubbed Queen and Slim, you know, something to give me a sense of like, oh, that's where the name of this movie came from. It's just like the movie is called Queen and Slim. There's never a reference to either of those names. Goodbye. It's just fucking weird. So. That is
00:16:07
Speaker
why, you know, all of those things considered is why I'm like, I cannot truly believe that I'm seeing headlines on like essence.com. That's like, this is the black love story we always needed. No, it was not. First of all, they were not in love, they were in you're here conveniently, and I need you to survive. And this is a love this if you do want to call it love, it's based totally on tragedy, we don't need any more tragic
00:16:35
Speaker
black love stories. So this is really like, this is wrong on a lot of levels. So I'm like, but that just goes to show you that we are so committed to elevating black art that we will
Is 'Queen and Slim' a Black Love Story?
00:16:50
Speaker
give things kudos that do not deserve kudos. This movie was not good. I'm sorry. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was not good. It was not a good movie. And any review that says it was good, anything that says like, oh my gosh, this is the black art that we need to elevate, it is not. It was, I mean, I'm sorry. I'm actually not sorry at all.
00:17:16
Speaker
It's not good. So I wish that we could just be more neutral. But then at the same time, I don't want to like, be there was one guy, he actually ended up deleting his post. But this one guy post on Instagram, like, this movie was so terrible that he's never gonna watch another Lena Waithe movie or Malina Matsukas movie again.
00:17:38
Speaker
okay now sir now sir that's all that's also extreme by no means am I saying this movie was so bad that I have to like reject all black films and never look at another thing that Lena Waithe puts her pin to you know
00:17:56
Speaker
can we just be regular? Like, can we just go to the movie and look at the movie and acknowledge like it wasn't very good.
Hope for Balanced Critique in Black Cinema
00:18:03
Speaker
There were a lot of plot holes. It was, you know, it was not a good attempt. But you know, better luck next time. Can we just be more neutral and not
00:18:14
Speaker
place so much pressure on black art, whether it's quote unquote positive, or you can't say anything bad about it, or quote unquote negative, or you can't just let the thing be what it is, you know, like, let's just, I know that we don't often get this kind of thing to review.
00:18:38
Speaker
So when it does come, we get very excited, but I would love to see black art get to a point where it can just be what it is and not what we make it and not what we believe it has to be. So that obviously is an industry issue. We need more opportunities to make things.
00:19:05
Speaker
But then also as a people and as a society, we just need to look at things a little bit more evenly and not make every single thing that comes out life or death of all art or creative endeavor for black people. I just want there to be more like,
Final Thoughts and Engagement
00:19:28
Speaker
calmness because this movie did not deserve the hype that it's gotten but it's also not like throw it away it's trash I mean it just wasn't very good but I still found it entertaining I could find like I can say it entertained me and it wasn't very good you know like I didn't I wasn't in the theater like falling asleep or wishing that I didn't pay that ten dollars it was fine
00:19:53
Speaker
It was just regular. I was like, okay. I enjoyed looking at Daniel Kaluuya. That skin was looking real nice in that little sex scene. Anyways, all right. This is how you know it's time for me to wrap up because I'm getting sidetracked.
00:20:12
Speaker
You know, that that's my two cents. I hope that it lived up to the expectations that people had of me when they asked me to share my opinions. But yeah, that's it. Thank you for listening. Appreciate you as always. This is Brittany Geneva. You can find me on social medias. Brittany underscore Geneva and talk to you next time.