Meanwhile, the house is still divided into three camps - the Field
Negro and the House Negro and of course true Jungle......
Ama thinking about a distraught La Vonda Staples saying that "A
servant can never be a friend" Perhaps especially a servant who has
had to put up with tha Gawdy, nanny, little Black Sambo, picaniny
image, that was once upon a time foisted on poor Negro folks,
especially down South, and still survives...
Also mulling over the reviewer saying ironically or sarcastically or
innocently or even good naturedly, that "Good people were never anti-
Semites; only detestable people participated in Hitler's cause.".
Well, good people are never sons of bitches, to begin with. And some
others are plain victims of bigotry and ignorance.
Perhaps I've misunderstood the full thrust or import of the latter
statement - in the same way that I jumped the gun, perhaps due to the
wine and what was actually happening in South Africa at the time
('86) so that when I heard Howard S ( who is Jewish by the way) say,
"Some South African intellectuals now believe that the ANC is acting
in a counter-revolutionary manner", I heard something else, something
other than what he was really, actually saying......well he wasn't
saying that ANC had become uncle tom....
In my humble opinion, works of fiction, whether film or in the novel
form can mirror any preferred reality or fantasy whether it's Haley's
"Roots"or Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or Alice
Walker's "The Color Purple".Nor does historical fiction have to be
held to the standard of historical reality or the given point of view
of a documentary, although fiction can mirror an authentic version of
history. As for for those who were not there and therefore do not
remember , the sad reality is as the reviewer said, "It is unfair to
the filmmakers and cast to expect a work of fiction to adhere to the
standards of authenticity we would want for a documentary." and also
that "precious few works of art tackle the Civil Rights era, and what
people coming of age in the 21st century learn about this era often
stems from fictive rather than nonfictive sources."
That being the case, the only option available to the disenchanted
social critic of works that fall short of artistic or historical
integrity would be to create other versions that challenge or present
alternate takes of their own cherished vantage/ disadvantaged points
of view. We have the social and political responsibility to tell that
story without falsifying the historical reality of what was, how it
was......that's one kind of story......although in retrospect,
nostalgia can exaggerate and say that it was either worse or not that
bad..... in the middle of the wilderness, even with Manna falling from
heaven the Children of Israel at some point were complaining to
Moses - and some of the ingrates were even longing back to the
days of slavery in Egypt:
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9877
There's also this article that was posted by Tracy Flemming :"Racism
and Science Fiction"
by Samuel R. Delany...
99% of the historical and fictional sources ( film, novel, biography,
autobiography – and documentary) about the Second World War has not
been from sources close to Hitler – and please permit me to place
Günter Grass, Pope Benedict Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger (born in the
same year as Grass ) - and Joseph Heller, in the same category of "far
from Hitler."
For some, it could be difficult to determine which is superior or
even more relevant - a complete documentary of Malcolm X or the
Spike Lee / Denzel Washington version , the first hour of which , from
my point of view , was almost a complete waste of space. Just for the
record, I too would like to direct my own Malcolm X movie and in the
same spirit do one of Melvin Van Pebbles and one starring Marcus
Mosiah Garvey, most certainly. The Great Barack Obama of the Mighty
United States of America is not yet old enough for us to do one of
him. Given all the very difficult circumstances within which he has to
manoeuvre, hopefully, during his second term he will fulfil most of
his good intentions and complete the good work that he has so
faithfully begun...
Lady La Vonda Staples who probably does not, has not had any is
suggesting to the suggestible, so " You think you can trust your
servants? ….A servant can never be your friend."... No doubt she is
one of those who is "angry that the movie is based on a novel by a
white woman, Kathryn Stockett, and they question whether she is
capable of telling that particular story."
Well, it's possible that she's looking through a glass darkly and is
not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and
that' she's only telling her particular story, just as Alice Walker is
telling another kind of story in " The Colour Purple." of which film
version one cannot say that "the audience never sees an intact black
household, and a black man's abuse of his wife is all the more
chilling because we never see him, only the pots he hurls and the
scars he leaves." :
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=555
A servant can never be a friend?
N.B: Abraham was a friend of the Almighty!
May I never grow tired of citing this particular story " Robinson
Crusoe " written by the first novelist ever to appear in the English
Language, Mr. Daniel Defoe and these most relevant lines that were
quoted by John Maxwell Coetzee, in his Nobel Lecture:, in 2003:
" He and His Man :
"But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him,
and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to
make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak,
and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar there
ever was."
(Daniel Defoe, "Robinson Crusoe" )
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-lecture-e.html
And here, let us take note of language as the tool of empowerment -
even subservience.....and befitting a few paragraphs of postscript to
Professor Pillay's "Thinking Africa from the Cape "
I've seen a Marxist vantage point-of-view film version of Robinson
Cruse, from Man Friday's point of view …. Robinson Crusoe – no Robin
Hood is he - as the colonial master etc. etc....
Some of the atheists and the ungodly Marxist-Leninists sometimes go as
far as to say that this fictionalised Allah – Abd-allah ( slave of
Allah) , this Master- slave, Master- Servant relationship is symbolic
of really slavery and colonialism....
Good thing about language is that it can be used to communicate - it
was used in Haiti … fact is Sister Lavonda, Caliban CAN curse:
--
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