A Prospect newsletter about big ideas
 â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â
View this email in your browser
<[link removed]>
THIS IS A LIMITED TRIAL for "BASED," a newsletter about big ideas.
TO OPT IN, please log in to "My Account
<[link removed]>" and click "Manage Newsletters."
Â
Â
Reclaiming Black Trauma
Once a spectacle produced by and for white people, Black artists and
entertainers now present it on their own terms.
There is a long-standing American tradition of taking pleasure from
creating a spectacle out of Black trauma. From human zoos to the
ubiquitous presence of dead Black bodies on social media, much of the
American public has frequently found a sadistic joy in watching Black
people suffer. Slave narratives-a genre that has been mined
relentlessly for gold-are some of the most common examples of this.
These forms of entertainment have almost always been produced by white
people.
Recently, however, Black producers and entertainers have taken Black
trauma and explored it in a way that has moved it away from spectacle
toward healing.
**Get Out** (2017), Jordan Peele's blockbuster horror film, sparked a
multitude of conversations about racism and its scarring effect on a
Black person. Its critical and popular success opened the door for more
such projects.
This conversation is not just happening in film, but in all forms of
entertainment.
**Random Acts of Flyness**, a 30-minute late-night show created by
Terence Nance for HBO, is another example. The series, which was created
in 2018, has been called
<[link removed]>
a "visionary, and speculative exploration of Black life in the United
States," and continues to serve as a microcosm of Black consciousness.
Nance and his collaborators-a host of talented Black writers,
producers, and directors-investigate the ways in which Black people
inhabit a place in America. The series explores the saddest thoughts,
starting with the idea that a Black man cannot even ride his bike
without being stopped by the police, and comes back around to express
the joy that comes with creating and maintaining such a core component
of American culture today.
[link removed]
Par for the course, trauma turns up in almost every corner of the
series. To a tuned-in viewer, the concept that just living as a Black
person can be traumatic is always there, hanging in the background. It
is fitting, then, that Nance explored this territory in the very first
episode, most particularly in a skit entitled "Everybody Dies."
The skit is modeled after a late-night cable variety show from the
'70s and '80s, anchored by the deviously pessimistic "Ripa the
Reaper." Ripa, a parody of the Grim Reaper from the "Department of Black
Death," hosts the show with as little empathy as possible, ushering
murdered and otherwise abused Black children to the other side. All the
while, she sings of the inevitability of death.
Ripa shows little emotion until the end, when she is fatigued and
overwhelmed by the Black death, and tries to launch herself to her own
demise, only to stumble back through another door and continue the show.
The viewer gets the impression this is not the first time Ripa has been
so desolate over her position and that she is tethered involuntarily to
the gig.
The morbidity of the skit is the point. The delivery in the form of a
variety show encourages the spectacle. There is nothing cool or
funny-the hallmarks of a variety show-about dead children, but for
the American public, there seems to be something endlessly intriguing
about the death of Black children.
For years and years, Black trauma has been made into entertainment
entirely by white people. Only in the past decade or so have Black
people been able to take agency and control of this narrative, whether
in film or television or comics. In doing so, Black creators have
managed to isolate and reconceive a motif that is much more powerful,
accurate, and resilient.
~ RAMENDA CYRUS, JOHN LEWIS WRITING FELLOW
Follow Ramenda Cyrus on Twitter <[link removed]>
[link removed]
THIS IS A LIMITED TRIAL for "BASED," a newsletter about big ideas.
TO OPT IN, please log in to "My Account
<[link removed]>" and click "Manage Newsletters."
Click to Share this Newsletter
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States
Copyright (c) 2023 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
<[link removed]>.
To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
<[link removed]>.
To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here
<[link removed]>.
