"Obsessed" with Actually Getting Some Work Done

Hello beloved friends/strangers who might be reading this:

Here goes my attempt a preliminary posting.

So I’ve been home (the where-my-family-lives version) for the last week, and promptly after arriving got the final assignments (somewhat belatedly) for four papers for a summer course I took in hyper-condensed form in May.  The assignments were sent out on June 19th, and they’re due on the 30th.  Usually I'm pretty proud of my writing, but unfortunately given the time contstraints I do not anticipate these papers being my best work.

...In any event, this may give you an indication of whether I’ve done any work on my Master’s lately.

Anyway.

Before leaving for home, I went on a Netflix View Instantly binge.   Among other things, I watched “Obsessed” (2009), starring the fabulous Beyoncé.

Um.... yeah.  Well, I gave it a 1, if that’s any indication of how well that went...

Let’s be honest.  I watched this movie because Beyoncé is both hot and (maybe?) vying to be the next Pam Grier, and with that knowledge I wanted to see the chickfight scene at the end because I knew it’d be amazing.  And it was.   But I also felt like I had to shower after watching the movie, so it was kind of a net negative.

Basically, as far as I can tell, “Obsessed” is an updated version of “Fatal Attraction,” except with the protagonist couple cast African American instead of white.  I was hoping that would make for an interesting twist on an otherwise well-worn tale (much like the incredible performance of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” I saw in New Jersey a year or two ago, where the Loman family was African American and the supporting cast was white—not a word of the script was changed, but it added a wonderful new dimension to the story).

Yeah that didn’t happen.  This story is just as banal as it ever was, Beyoncé as would-be jilted wife or no.  The movie is so painfully predictable I started fast-forwarding through the brooding/foreboding husband-driving-places/seductive-villainess-plotting/etc. sequences just so the whole thing would end sooner.

To top it off, my hopes for some glimmer of thoughtful contemplation of race and/or class relations in this miserable little tale were cruelly dashed.  To the contrary, instead of a refreshing, nuanced portrayal of one minority group, the film merely resorted to stereotyping and scapegoating another: the male protagonist, a high-powered executive played by Idris Elba (who I already have mixed feelings about because he was mean to Jim in “the Office”), has a male secretary who is very flamboyantly gay.  Idris calls him a “lady” and everything, he’s *so* officially gay (because all gay men would go for that treatment from a superior in the workplace, right??).  This character unwittingly enables the evil temptress in her evil evil plotting by funneling her gossip about her love interest, helping her successfully invade and almost destroy Elba’s life, all because the secretary is incapable of keeping his mouth shut after being plied with “a few cosmos.”

Sighhhhhhhhhhh.

So let’s get this straight (no pun intended): While *I* was eagerly searching for a hidden progressive discussion of race in this movie, the filmmakers instead switched out what was historically an African American character (the silly, flamboyant, easily-manipulated servant) for a gay man.  Well that feels yucky.  I’m very aware that gay rights are the next frontier of civil rights, but if we could skip the part of this oft-repeated rights-winning process (formerly with women, racial minorities, etc.) where gay people have to be demeaned in film before we can treat them like real people (both legally and in our entertainment), that would be GREAT.

I’m not going to argue that we’re to a point as a culture where members of *any* minority group are consistently treated with equal deference and complexity as white people in movies.  The industry still has a long way to go before they really nail the notion that your movie can have a hero who isn’t white simply because heroes aren’t always white.  No excuses or explanations for their “unconventionality” necessary.

I’m also not going to argue that a group’s portrayal in cinema is the biggest challenge to be overcome on the path to equal rights.  Certainly the rights to marry, equal pay, freedom from discrimination in hiring, etc. are more important than how people like you appear in some crappy movie.  But as someone deeply interested in movies, I believe that images and the stories we tell about ourselves and others matter.   So I wish movies in general and casting decisions in particular could evolve a little, already.

There are certainly counterexamples.  To put in a good word for a favorite genre of mine, both “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) and “28 Days Later” (2002) have brilliantly cool African American heroes/heroines who refuse to offer apologies or explanations for their race.  They simply *are* African American, along with being brave, inspiring, and thrillingly badass.  But again, we have a long way to go before you can consistently count on nuanced, real characters in [non-zombie] movies of every race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.  And I’m getting a little impatient on the matter, as I’m sure many people are.

And with that, my flight back to my other home is descending.  Off goes the laptop!

<3