Pegged as a bildungsroman or a rom-com gone wrong, Nappily Ever After marks the latest of inclusionary narratives that afford black actors a check and the black collective the illusion of progress. The Netflix rom-com appears to include the black woman into the fairy tale genre. What happens, of course, is that black characters remain…
Category: Movie Reviews
A womanist analysis of mainstream and indie films.
Sorry to Bother You is not a Bother at All, A Black female Perspective
Introduction Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, an innovated theory of society as a hyper-site for ridicule and conformity is nothing short of fascinating. A product of magical realism, the film employs protagonist Cassius Green— a melanated black body who attempts to negotiate the western subject by way of capitalistic ambitions as resulting in a…
Black KKKlansMan, A Review
Amidst the contemporary climate of inclusionary activism emerges seasoned director Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman. Based on a book of the same title by protagonist Ron Stallworth, the book and movie entertain via depicting black entry in a white space. This activity occurs multiple times at once throughout the film, the most notable being protagonist Ron Stallworth…
Oceans 8, Drowning the Black Female Body
Jumping on the bandwagon of the #metoo movement is the latest installment of Oceans 8. The film features an all female cast starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Sarah Paulson. The film symbolically represents a so called diverse wave of feminism that includes the black woman and woman of color, a quota filled…
Traffik, A Black Female Perspective
Hundreds of thousands black women go missing around the world globally, but their abductions often fail to make as much as a ripple in the water let alone the news. “Where are our girls? a term that went viral a few years back to raise awareness for the missing girls in Nigeria, provoking an ethereal…
Black Panther, A Review
Telling It Like It is Lets start off with facts. Black Panther was a comic created by Stan Lee, a white man. So the moments where the film felt utterly stereotypical is not accidental, and perhaps most evident when W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya) rides on a rhinosorous during battle—depicting the continent as imagined in the minds…
Proud Mary, A Review: The Strong Black Woman as Superhero/ Assassin Medley
Proud Mary (2018) is a tale of emancipation well carried by Taraji P. Henson (Mary), Billy Brown (Tom), and Danny Glover (Benny), but poorly written and developed by the non-black males behind the scenes. Mary (Taraji P. Henson) a long time affiliate of Benny (Danny Glover), works to free herself from the chains of a…
Roman J. Israel, Esq, A Review
Roman Israel —-the character and the film, illustrate a harsh reality of heartbreak, humility, and the attempt at humanity by one who has been dehumanized. Like many of the great black ancestors, film protagonist Roman Israel (Denzel Washington) spent decades fighting for change—reaching for the impossible to the mental exhaustion imbued by his physical efforts….
Suburbicon, A Review
I had never heard of Suburbicon prior to being invited to attend a pre-screening event. As a black woman interested in explicating blackness, seeing the movie was initially of little interest to me. But as a plus-one, the endeavor became a low stakes opportunity to meta a white film targeting an audience of white liberals. …
OWN’s Black Love Docu-Series, A Review of Episode One
If you watch Maury, black love is dysfunctional, careless, and rooted in lust. The same can be said for many other “reality” television shows from court series to VH1 shows that anchor themselves in portraying the black man and black woman as hyper-sexual entities incapable of functioning in their shared state of incivility. The black…
Whispers of a Womanist 