Category: Review

*Mild season one and two spoilers below*

After a three-year hiatus due to the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023, the best show on television is finally back for season 2!

For those who haven’t yet gone down the severed rabbit hole, AppleTV+’s Severance is a brilliant, distinctly anti-capitalist mystery-box series that shows how powerful workers are when we unite and how our shared humanity is our greatest weapon against our corporate overlords who want to strip us down to just our working parts.

The show centers on a shady and powerful “wellness” corporation, Lumon Industries, that offers its employees a seemingly ideal form of the so-called “work-life balance.” The severance procedure is for Lumon employees who undergo a painless brain operation wherein a microchip is inserted into their brain that prevents its employees from remembering what they do at work all day. The severed employees go down an elevator shaft to the Severed Floor in the basement of Lumon at around 9 A.M., the chip in their brain activates, and in the blink of an eye, they’re coming back up again around 5 P.M., chip deactivated, and they’re totally unburdened by whatever work they did all day, which Lumon assures them is “mysterious and important.”

Likewise, the employee’s work-self, or the “innies,” have no memory of who they are outside of work. The “innie” self is essentially born at work, with no goals or ambitions other than what Lumon gives them every quarter and no relationships other than those they form with the other innies that they see every day between the hours of 9-5. Contact with their “outies” is strictly forbidden, ensuring that “work-life balance” is maintained on both ends. They aren’t even allowed to mingle with other departments, which are kept so far away from each other that they rarely know who’s even on the Floor. The innies don’t even know what work they’re doing, even as they’re doing it.

Our windows into the innie world are Mark S., Helly R., Irving B. and Dylan G., who make up the Macro Data Refinement team. The “data” that they refine are sets of numbers that show up on a 1980s-era computer screen that make them feel one of four emotions: Woe, Malice, Frolic, or Dread. They group the numbers by emotions and move them with a joystick into different bins on the computer. (My theory is that the MDR team is refining people’s personalities from brains Lumon has probably nefariously acquired and then storing those personalities on the same kind of microchips each of the severed folks have in their brains. I think once MDR teams finish refining these personalties, Lumon will insert those personality chips into human beings who are either clinically dead to bring the body back to life, or in people who are threats to Lumon and need to be controlled—but we’ll have to see how this mystery unravels).

This infantalizing and dehumanizing of the innies is obviously ideal for the corporation. Lumon doesn’t have to worry about its employees leaving work early to pick up a sick kid, or taking a phone call on company time, or getting distracted by literally anything that happens outside of the Severed Floor because they know nothing about what happens outside of the Severed Floor. They’re essentially enslaved to the company and also—less comfortably—enslaved to their outies, existing as long as their outies keep going to work. But what do the outies gain from shutting their brains off for 8 hours a day?

Mark Scout (Adam Scott) or outie Mark, is our main protagonist who answers that question. His wife Gemma died in a car accident and he’s wholly unable to cope. He got severed six months after Gemma’s death and when season one begins, Mark has been a severed employee for two years. Even in the pilot episode, we see him crying in his car before going to work, his agony no less than it was more than two years ago when Gemma first was killed. We see in that first episode Mark Scout go down the Severed elevator and his microchip turn on, Mark S. stepping out into the overly sanitized harsh lighting of the Lumon Severed Floor. Mark S. notices a tissue in his pocket (one that his outie was using to wipe his tears and blow his nose just minutes before) and has no idea why that tissue is there. Unburdened by grief or even knowledge of a dead wife, he smiles as he tosses that tissue into the trash.

Mark S.’s best friend at work, Petey, severed because his wife has divorced him and he can’t take the pain and loneliness. Another side character from season one undergoes severance not for work purposes but so she can go through her pregnancy and childbirth without experiencing the discomfort and pain that comes along with it.

We learn in season 2 that Dylan G.’s outie severed because he wasn’t good at keeping jobs long-term and he had a wife and three children to support. Lumon pays well for access to your unvarnished brain. Through our main cast we see that Lumon essentially preys on desperate people to fulfill its corporate needs.

And did I mention there is a religious cult at the center of it all? Lumon Industries was established right after the Civil War by a man named Kier Egan and he’s basically forced onto the employees as their god. He has 9 principles that everyone must adhere to; there are songs to sing to exalt him and remind workers of their holy mission. They’re told by their season one floor manager Ms. Cobel (a delicious Patricia Arquette), that they only exist to “serve Kier.” And there is strict punishment (i.e. torture) for any violations or misconduct.

Anyone who’s worked at a non-profit has probably heard some Lumon-esque musings about “the mission” that would require its workers to stick it out with the “team,” through abuse, poor pay, or any other forms of toxicity because of the importance of “the work.” Likewise, at huge corporations, if pay is significantly higher, it’s also used as an excuse to accept a toxic work environment, complete work that harms people (and your own soul) and acquiesce to the whims and “brilliance” of a wealthy, narcissistic, Kier-like founder (i.e., “That’s what the money is for!”).

There’s no point in wondering if people would undergo the severance procedure if given the chance in real life, even knowing the moral and ethical consequences we see from the show. We self-sever all the time. This universality is what makes Severance so terrifyingly apt: we’ve all shut off a part of ourselves at one point or another to get or maintain a check. It’s a coping method we’ve learned to survive the inherent trauma of capitalism.

Corporations will lie to employees and tell them to bring their “full selves” to work, but seriously, no one really wants that. And Black people and other marginalized people know better than to believe them. Being Black at work—being a Black woman at work—is a liability if you want to keep that job long enough to get another one. So we wear the mask that grins and lies, as Paul Laurence Dunbar said. And we live to work another day.

This is the trap of Lumon and the metaphor for capitalism: enslave yourself to a corporation in exchange for food and housing (fingers crossed), healthcare (if you’re lucky), vacations (if you’re privileged), and retirement (if you’re a Boomer or an old Gen Xer—the rest of us are screwed). They tell us that socialism—where the workers own the means of production and share in the profits of their labor—is the devil; capitalism, on the other hand—which allows for a small group of people to own the means of production and the rest of us to sell our labor to them, in exchange for goods and services—is the way of freedom.

Capitalists mean for us workers to be emotionally deregulated and mentally disassociated—out of our bodies and minds so we can be more easily controlled. The more severed we are, the more pliable we are. Capitalism needs us to be addicted to comfort and convenience. How could we organize a general strike and grind this fascist country to a halt if it would cause us slight discomfort and inconvenience?

Capitalism needs us to accept mass death as the cost of doing business. Why would we wear masks in an ongoing airborne pandemic to protect ourselves, our children, and the most vulnerable in society from a deadly and disabling disease if wearing a mask would be slightly uncomfortable and mildly inconvenient? First, they said it would only kill our grandparents and the disabled and everyone else seemed okay with that. Then we found out that the most marginalized communities would have the worst health outcomes of either Long Covid or death: trans people, Black people, Indigenous Americans. And folks were really okay with that. We saw more evidence of the corporatizing of the U.S. government back in 2021 when Delta Airlines CEO successfully lobbied Biden’s CDC to change Covid isolation periods from a mandatory 10 days down to 5 days, not for scientific or health reasons, but so airline flight attendants could get back to work faster.

We could’ve gotten back to work safely—and preserved the lives of the human work force—if that was a priority, as it should be in a government. In the past five years of this global pandemic, our government could have had HEPA air filtration installed in every public building, in every airport, on every plane when it’s not in the air; the government could’ve offered incentives for privately owned buildings to upgrade their air filtration systems so that our babies in school can stop getting sick every other week; so we could stop getting sick at our jobs, at the grocery store…so we could eat the brown bread at the Cheesecake Factory without contracting a deadly disease. We could’ve gotten “back to normal” by using science and facts and data to help us make informed choices on how to get out of this pandemic whole.

Instead, our capitalist overlords sold us “normalcy” based on nothing but corporate greed and eugenics. And how many complied without a fight? Relieved from the duty of performing goodness and care for self and others by wearing a mask, too many of us eagerly severed the logical part of the brain for the comfort of “back to normal.” Yes, many people will continue to die or be disabled from a totally avoidable disease, but as long as they do it quietly, somewhere off-camera, in the background, where we don’t have to see—

That is the cost of “normal” under capitalism.

Once you can accept mass death in a pandemic, what’s a little foreign genocide? How many peace-loving, tree-hugging liberals turned off their brains to the livestreamed horrors of Palestinian children blown apart by the IOF with American-made bombs for the past sixteen months? Murder of journalists. Abuse of pregnant women. Destruction of the ecosystems. Massive acceleration of climate change. Sexual abuse and torture of Palestinian men and children. Forced starvation. Destruction of hospitals, universities, libraries, culture centers. The genocide of the Palestinians consists of every single issue liberals claim to care about when republicans commit the crimes. Yet being silent while democrats committed genocide and war crimes was the cost of electing the not fascist presidential candidate, we were told. A successful conditioning.

Once we are conditioned to accept mass murder by disease and mass murder by bombing, snipers and forced starvation abroad, what other horrors can we be conditioned to accept at home? Bridges crumbling under our cars? Trains running off the tracks? Plane parts falling out of the sky? Planes crashing in overcrowded, understaffed air space?

Every day of Trump’s second presidency has been chaos and threats of chaos; lawlessness and threats of lawlessness; wars and rumors of wars. By Trump’s executive order and a fascist police state’s eager compliance, human beings are being racially profiled and illegally deported by the thousands. (It’s still only half of the number Biden deported per week, to significantly less outrage.) The ongoing corporatizing of the U.S. government has hastened at an alarming clip as unelected colonizer Elon Musk steals the purse of the U.S. Treasury with the aim of running the government like one of his barely functioning, racist, sexist, toxic companies. The feckless Democrats have decided to do nothing more but yell “Heeeey! They can’t do that!” on social media instead of doing literally anything to stop them IRL because they’re all controlled by the same billionaires and there’s really only one party in America: the fascist elite.

It’s all intentionally overwhelming, and at minimum uncomfortable and inconvenient. And what has capitalism trained us to do when we are faced with discomfort and inconvenience? Shut down. Turn off. Disassociate. Sever. Run back to comfort and convenience—even if it’s false; even if it’s a blatant lie.

“I’m not Mexican,” folks tell themselves as the fascists round up Caribbean and African immigrants and anyone with a tan for deportation. “I’m not trans,” folks tell themselves as the government seeks to strictly define gender in order to roll back all gender-based rights. “I’m not Black” folks tell themselves as the civil rights that Black folks won but everyone else benefitted from get steamrolled away.

Fascists need a compliant army to enforce their fascism. And lucky for them, we’ve all been pre-disposed to comply. Somebody has to open the door and let Elon Musk and his cronies in to illegally take over the government. Somebody has to hand over the passwords. Somebody has to push the buttons. Somebody has to harass, racially profile and detain immigrants. Somebody has to fly the deportation planes. Somebody has to operate the ships that send the bombs to Israel to blow up children in Gaza and the West Bank. Somebody has to assemble the bombs. How much of our humanity will we continue to sever in the name of “just doing my job”; “I have a family to take care of”; “I need healthcare”; or “I just can’t cope”?

In season one of Severance, Petey’s daughter asks outie Mark: “Did you ever think that the way to deal with a fucked up situation in your life is not to shut your brain off half the time?”

Mark doesn’t answer. It hadn’t occurred to him. His pain was too great. He described the grief as “choking on [his wife’s] ghost.” Lumon offered him a tainted release.

Our pain in this chaos—of planes crashing midair, of loved ones being rounded up, of several genocides in Sudan, Congo, and Palestine with America’s name on it—is beyond uncomfortable at this point: it’s agonizing. It’s understandable to want an end to the pain. As tempting as it is to accept the tainted release of shutting off our brains and logging out of this chaos, we cannot afford to sever. We must stay in our humanity and feel this pain so we can fight back against who and what is causing it. This is the only way we heal: to know the truth and to fight for it. Contrary to the popular mantra, “resting” is not resistance, if that’s the only form of opposition you’re taking. We can’t fight fascism if we’re not even awake.

In season one, Lumon thought that a workforce with no outside memories, relationships, or goals and only the brainwashing of the corporate cult would render the innies not human. Without humanity—which instills in each living being the instinct to resist oppression and survive—Lumon thought the innies would be easy to control. But despite their dehumanizing work conditions, the innies’ humanity bled through and literally overrode their programming. They formed relationships with each other and with innies in other departments. They banded together in an anti-capitalist uprising that began the process of dismantling Lumon’s fascist oppression.

In the season two premiere, as fascist systems do, Lumon figured out a way to co-opt the innies’ uprising. Just like the corporatization of the Black Lives Matter movement that elevated a few individual Black “leaders” at the expense of Black liberation; the sanitizing of the radical Dr. Martin Luther King by the government that killed him; and Obama ending the 2020 NBA strike by convincing Lebron it’d be more powerful of a protest if the NBA players…didn’t protest at all and kept playing: Lumon knows how to squash a movement. Like every corporation that a posted a black square on Instagram in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings, Lumon put together a stop-motion animated video using the slogan “Lumon is Listening,” as their nefarious promise to reform themselves, when what they really were admitting to is continued surveillance. And by the end of the season two premiere, our freedom-fighting innies get back in line—not because they believe Lumon is being truthful, but because they have too much to lose by leaving. They’re back in the trap, but a thousand times wiser to their own power, with an agenda that will hopefully bring the company to its knees.

With only three episodes airing as of yet, it’s still too early to tell how the season will play out. Fortunately, since Black people IRL have been fighting fascism in this country for centuries, we don’t have to look to Severance or The Handmaids Tale to know what we must do next. Our ancestors left us plenty of guides. But if any among us are sleep, there’s nothing wrong with art being the catalyst for waking up. The purpose of art is to wake us up! And Severance is showing us it’s time to reintegrate the parts of our brain we’ve pushed aside to cope. Whatever excuses we had for severing in the first place, it’s time to release them all, if we mean to survive what’s coming and what’s long been here.

Be inconvenienced in the name of love—for self and community. Make a plan for where to spend your money that aligns with your values—even if that means driving a little farther or spending a little more or never getting the convenience of two-day shipping again. Principled living requires a sustainable plan. Get comfortable being uncomfortable as the only person wearing a mask in a room. Let the N95 be the symbol of resisting the fascism that says mass death is acceptable. Donate to mutual aid groups and form mutual aid groups in your community so everyone feels a bit more comfortable and supported while speaking up against injustice. Refuse to comply in advance; refuse to do the jobs that you know are harming others.

It’s time to tap back into our humanity and never let capitalism sever us from it again.

Stay watchin’,

Brooke

Join the General Strike here.

“All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. God is change.” —Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower

Los Angeles is on fire. For the past week wild fires have ravaged our county in the north, south, east and west, with the most destructive being the Palisades Fire, which has torn through the communities along the coast of the Pacific Ocean; and the Eaton Fire, which has leveled the historically Black neighborhood of Altadena. Dozens of people have died—so many of them elderly and young disabled Black people—with more yet unaccounted for. And the fires are still burning.

Many are just now learning that 30% of our firefighters are incarcerated men who get paid $10 A DAY to risk their lives fighting these fires, sometimes working 14 hour days with no break or food. Yes, this is slavery.

While Angelenos praise the firefighters doing the work to contain these fires, it’s not far from my mind that in November 2024, this state voted against ending slavery, opting instead to continue forcing incarcerated workers to labor as a punishment for alleged crimes. As fire victims try to find new housing to rent, landlords have been illegally price gouging so they can profit off of people’s pain and desperation. I can’t help but to think that in the same election, Californians voted against rent control by 62%.

To say there’s been extra chaos and confusion here in the wake of the fires is a bit of an understatement. While in the red-flag zone and glued to the citizen-run Watch Duty app (which provides minute-by-minute updates on the status of fires and evacuation orders), I got an Emergency Systems alert from the government telling me that evacuation orders were in place for my area. I’d had my car packed just in case, so when the alert screamed at me from my phone, I was out the door and down the highway in seconds. Twenty minutes later, a new alert said, essentially, whoops—didn’t mean to send that evacuation order to the whole city! This happened at least one other time.

But the peace in the storm has been the county’s incredible activists and organizers. The covid mutual aid organization Maskbloc LA has continued to distribute free n95 masks to anyone in need—not just for covid and respiratory illness prevention, but now also to prevent inhalation of toxic particles in the wildfire air. In fact, because they’ve been doing this work despite an environment that is hostile to covid safety, they were able to distribute four times as many masks to residents than the actual city government. PLEASE, L.A., learn from the aftermath of 9/11 and wear an N95, P100 or higher quality mask in this toxic air!

The non-profit community center and social movement WalkGood has also compiled a list of resources to donate, volunteer, or receive support if you’ve been impacted by the fires. These orgs and the hundreds of volunteers who have flooded impacted areas and had to be turned away because the organizers were over capacity got me thinking about God.

More specifically, it’s got me thinking about iconic sci-fi writer Octavia Butler’s writings about God and climate change. In 1993, she wrote the prophetic climate novel, The Parable of the Sower, which begins thirty-one years into a future she would not live to see: the year 2024. On November 6, her Parable protagonist Lauren writes in her journal that the U.S. has just elected a despotic president to rule over a country marred by climate change, extreme poverty and extreme wealth. Sound familiar? By February 2025, a fire breaks out in Lauren’s LA suburb. By 2027, Lauren’s entire community has burned to the ground. Because climate change has made California and the entire country drier than ever (in the book), water, food and safety have become precious commodities that people literally kill for.

“People have changed the climate of the world,” Lauren says in the book. “Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.”

But 15-year-old Lauren—who’s never known the good old days in her life—still knows that the good old days are not coming back. And if they mean to survive, as she does, they have to start facing reality and making a plan.

“[The Parable of the Sower is a book about] what happens because we don’t trouble to correct some of the problems that we’re brewing for ourselves right now,” Butler warned in a 2005 interview with Democracy Now, just a year before her untimely death. “Global warming is one of those problems,” she said.

It’s not that Butler was a soothsayer, or as Black people call them, a “seer,” necessarily—though, why rule it out?—it’s just that she was well-read and paying attention to patterns, science and history.

“I was aware of it back in the ‘80s; I was reading books about [global warming]. And a lot of people were seeing it as politics, as something very iffy, as something they could ignore because nothing was going to come of it tomorrow,” Butler said. “What I wanted to write was a novel of someone who was coming up with solutions of a sort.”

This is where God comes in.

The daughter of a Christian preacher, Lauren starts to journal her doubts about her community’s religion—or at least the way it’s being interpreted. I can relate.

As Los Angeles’ city mayor Karen Bass, L.A. city council, L.A. County executives and California governor Gavin Newsom shirked responsibility for their lack of preparedness by blaming acts of God/nature for the 100-MPH winds and the 8-month lack of rain which turned the Palisades and Pasadena/Altadena into a tinder box, I couldn’t help but recall what California used to be.

The Tongva people indigenous to the area colonized as Los Angeles County would regularly enact controlled burns to nourish the land, feed native plants that need fire to germinate (pyrophitic plants) and prevent the levels of devastating wildfire that we’re still experiencing. The excuse that our political leaders “can’t control the wind,” or the rain, for that matter, falls apart when we understand that climate change is indeed a billionaire-funded, politician-approved phenomenon made up of thousands and decades—centuries, even!—of human choices.

The Resnicks, a billionaire couple in town and friends of Newsom, use more water than every L.A. resident combined. This is not to mention billionaire family the Kardashians, actor Kevin Hart, Sylvester Stallone, Dwyane Wade—all of whom have been fined for using well over their allotted water supply at their mega-mansions. As the saying goes, when the penalty for a crime is a fine, it’s only a crime for poor people. While Los Angeles residents have been encouraged to save water and recycle to reduce our “carbon footprint,” the Taylor Swifts of the world take private jets to fly down the street and cause more carbon emissions than some countries do in a year. Sure, we can all play a role in fighting climate change, but the water shortages, the drought, the construction of homes in known fire zones, the planting of invasive species that destabalize the ecosystem, the government’s inability to not only properly warn residents but to help them evacuate beforehand—these are only “acts of God” if billionaires and the politicians they own are the God they think they are.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky.

In Sower, Lauren tells her best friend what she’s been thinking about, what she writes in her journal every night. Her best friend is terrified by Lauren’s thoughts that their gated community can’t keep out what’s coming. That desperate people would one day break through the gates and the community wouldn’t be ready. That the community would have to learn how to live “outside”—what plants to grow, what food to eat, how to find water—if they meant to survive. Her best friend tattles on her and Lauren gets in trouble, learning an early lesson from that Biblical parable of the sower, about using discernment to determine with whom you are safe to share information.

I’m going to bet that our newsletter community here is fertile ground, or at least the kind of folks who are curious about how prophetic Octavia Butler’s novel writing turned out to be, so here are some of Lauren’s musings in Sower:

“There’s a big, early-season storm blowing itself out in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s bounced around the Gulf, killing people from Florida to Texas and down into Mexico. There are over 700 known dead so far. One hurricane. And how many people has it hurt? How many are going to starve later because of destroyed crops? That’s nature. Is it God? Most of the dead are the street poor who have nowhere to go and who don’t hear the warnings until it’s too late for their feet to take them to safety. Where’s safety for them, anyway? Is it a sin against God to be poor? We’re almost poor ourselves. There are fewer and fewer jobs among us, more of us being born, more kids growing up with nothing to look forward to. One way or another, we’ll all be poor some day. The adults say things will get better, but they never have. How will God—my father’s God—behave toward us when we’re poor? Is there a God? If there is, does he (she? it?) care about us?”

Whew. What a question.

As someone who owns a car, had gas money, had things to pack and a loving, beautiful family in the north to evacuate to, I’ve heard from so many loved ones who thanked God on my behalf that I was safe. It felt bad, though I know it wasn’t intended to. Am I, as we church folk like to say, “blessed and highly favored by God,” because I’m not physically disabled or elderly, and I have means and community enough to escape moderate-to-imminent danger?

While the wealthy who lost a home or two will have the resources and political support to rebuild—and live to pay a water over-usage fine again—some Black families’ entire generational wealth was wrapped up in the Altadena homes that they had previously been passing down for two, three, four generations. There’s no telling if they’ll be able to rebuild. Vulturistic land developers have already descended on desperate folks in Altadena, looking to take what’s left of their properties off their hands. Despite the yelling some on social media are doing to tell Black folks not to sell, some will simply have no choice. This is not to mention the unhoused people who lived in both communities destroyed by the fire, who never had enough to build, let alone rebuild, and may still be beneath the rubble.

When I see such inequality in the world, it’s hard to hear churchisms like, Favor aint fair to explain why some prosper and others are absolutely destroyed.

Yet, this has been the crux of Prosperity Gospel for generations—i.e., being specifically financially prosperous is a sign that God is pleased with you. It’s God’s will when leaders are installed into power. It’s God’s will when people die. It’s God’s will when people live. It’s mere coincidence that every president we’ve ever had is a war criminal, and that 7 of the last 10 presidents have been credibly accused of sexual assault. It’s mere coincidence that the richest men in the world, Elon Musk, Jeff Besos, Mark Zuckerberg, have caused more harm to humanity and the planet in the last decade than all the criminals behind bars could in their combined lifetimes. But Prosperity Gospel is how we get the United States of America—it is Manifest Destiny, white supremacy, and justification for slavery and genocide of Indigenous people the world over, all rolled into one unimpeachable so-called Will of God.

“But what if all that is wrong?” Lauren wonders. “What if God is something else altogether?”

“God is change and in the end God prevails, but there’s hope in understanding the nature of God—not punishing or jealous but infinitely malleable. There’s comfort in realizing that everyone and everything yields to God. There’s power in knowing that God can be focused diverted and shaped by anyone and all but there’s no power in having strength and brains and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you. You know that. God will shape us all every day of our lives. Best to understand that and return the effort. Shape God.

“God is power, and in the end, God prevails. But we can rig the game in our own favor if we understand that God exists to be shaped, and will be shaped, with or without our forethought, with or without our intent. A victim of God may, through learning adaption, become a partner of God. A victim of God may, through forethought and planning, become a shaper of God.”

When I think of the Shape of God in these L.A. fires, yes, I see the theft of water, the exacerbation of drought, a city mayor who tried to appease her Zionist donors by proposing a mask ban in a pandemic and criminalizing the very same mask-wearing protestors and activists whom she’s now relied on to help get N95 masks to the city. I see a millionaire governor who went down to an unhoused encampment in L.A. and personally tore it apart with his own hands and threw people’s homes and belongings in the trash. This is how they have chosen to shape God.

And I’ve also seen the organizers who have been working with the unhoused for decades spring into action to help the newly unhoused (a reminder that it could be any of us at any time, with one simple Act of God). I’ve seen volunteers be turned away because organizers have more help than they could dream of. I’ve seen GoFundMes paid out to families in need in record time through small donations from many people across the country. This, too, is the shape of God.

I love Butler’s interpretation of God here because so much of what I have previously learned of God makes humans seem far more passive than I’ve witnessed with my own eyes. The African Holocaust and slavery weren’t “God’s will,” or the fulfillment of some ridiculous curse on the descendants of Ham, as white supremacists have historically used as religious justification. White imperialist enslavers made those choices and shaped God in their own, twisted image.

We can pray for an end to the genocide in Gaza, or we can see that human beings are pushing the buttons, dropping the bombs, sniping children in the head, and hold those humans to account. Arrest the war criminals when they vacation in your countries. Shut down the factories that make the bombs. Shut down the ships that send them to Israel. Shut down the politicians who made genocide their lasting legacy. This is how we become partners with God instead of its passive victims.

“Nothing is going to save us,” Lauren says. “If we don’t save ourselves, we’re dead.”

Lauren is also called a prophet by her fellow survivors when the things she warns of come to pass. Like Butler later would, Lauren rejects the label.

“‘No.” I shook my head, remembering. ‘No one could have been ready for that. But. . . . I thought something would happen someday. I didn’t know how bad it would be or when it would come. But everything was getting worse: the climate, the economy, crime, drugs, you know. I didn’t believe we would be allowed to sit behind our walls, looking clean and fat and rich to the hungry, thirsty, homeless, jobless, filthy people outside,” she says.

But seeing the signs are only the first step.

“I think we should make emergency packs—grab and run packs—in case we have to get out of here in a hurry. Money, food, clothing, matches, a blanket. . . . I think we should fix places outside where we can meet in case we get separated,” Lauren shares with her friend before ultimately having to do just that when the fires break out and the survivors are few. She’s studied botany books. She learns how to skin rabbits for food. And she spends the rest of the book building a new community with those who agree: we only thrive together.

“It isn’t enough for us to just survive, limping along, playing business as usual while things get worse and worse,” Lauren says. “If that’s the shape we give to God, then someday we must become too weak—too poor, too hungry, too sick—to defend ourselves. Then we’ll be wiped out. There has to be more that we can do, a better destiny that we can shape. Another place. Another way. Something!” She says.

In the wake of the second inauguration of a rapist who has made his intentions to shape God in the most horrible ways possible very clear, Butler left us these solutions because it was obvious that we would need them. Let’s take what she has left us and go find our ‘something,’ y’all; let’s build and rely on community, and shape another possible world.

As Lauren’s last words in The Parable of the Sower say: “Weʼve got work to do.”

Donate to wildfire victims here; sign up to volunteer here.

Stay watchin,’

Brooke

It’s Wicked week! In honor of the most radical film of 2024 being released on digital this week, I’ve got another major breakdown of the story of my favorite green revolutionary for you. When I love something as much as I love Wicked: Part One, I’ve got to know everything. Back in early November, after my first watch (and the hour-long convo I had with friends afterward in the parking lot of Universal Studios), I immediately went home and watched a bootleg recording of the Broadway musical on YouTube (just search for the code words “Slime Tutorial” and they’ll pop right up!) so I could see how the upcoming movie sequel Wicked: For Good will end. Once actress and activist Angelica Ross put me on to how wild the novel is that the musical and film are based on—Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire—I had to read that too.

After hours and hours (and hours! and hours!) of watching the film, the film commentary from Director Jon Chu and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the deleted scenes, the making-of documentary, and the Broadway musical; and after reading the novel (while listening to the audiobook—a lifesaver if you also have trouble staying focused while reading!), I’m here to break down the best (and worst) differences between the book, film and show, as a treat to thank my paid subscribers for your support! But don’t worry about spoilers for Part Two; I’ll only cover the parts of the book and the Broadway show that are featured in the film Wicked: Part One. Let’s get into it! (Watch a deleted scene from the film and find a link to the script below!)

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What makes humans different from animals? Some vegans have been arguing for ages that a living soul is a living soul. But humans who have amassed power—usually by violent force—have created hierarchies of life: not just between species, but also within humanity itself. When we dehumanize something/someone/or a group of someones, we declare that their life is less valuable and therefore less necessary to be saved. Toni Morrison sums this up in her novel Song of Solomon: “Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? Or would you take it?”

MANUFACTURING CONSENT

This question is at the heart of the 2024 studio blockbuster film Wicked: Part One. Based on the Tony-winning Broadway musical (which was adapted from the best-selling novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Wicked tells the backstory of the infamous green-colored witch from the classic tale The Wizard of Oz. Also adapted from a novel of the same name, the 1939 film starring Judy Garland as a teenaged Dorothy presented the green lady as a wicked witch whom the Wizard of Oz tasked Dorothy with murdering in order for her to get back home to Kansas.

Wicked not only gave the witch a name—Elphaba Thropp, named after the author of the Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (L-Fa-Ba)—it also gave her a backstory and a total rewrite. Elphaba was never wicked, the story goes. She was simply a young woman born with green skin. Once she learned that the Wizard of Oz was a powerless fraud (as Dorothy later learns as well) and a genocidal maniac, Elphaba sets out to stop his reign of terror. In her choice to go against the Wizard, she is demonized as wicked and labeled an enemy of the State.

But her demonization began long before she got close enough to the Wizard to uncover that the emperor had no clothes. Growing up without a mother in the musical/film, her father, the governor of Munchkinland, withdrew any lovingkindness from her. Other children taunted her for her green skin and were terrified of her telekinesis powers. When she enrolls at Shiz University on a fluke—she accompanies her disabled sister NessaRose to school, gets upset and accidentally reveals her powers, impressing Madame Morrible, the head of sorcery—she’s immediately outcast, mocked and feared.

Though there used to be Animals who talked and studied alongside humans at Shiz, the Animals are mysteriously disappearing, with only Dr. Dillamond, Elphaba’s goat professor of life sciences, remaining on the faculty. Even as a professor, Dr. Dillamond is still below Elphaba in the hierarchy of life. Munchkinlanders like Boq, though able-bodied, are very short and toward the lower end of the hierarchy as well. NessaRose, visibly disabled and using a wheelchair, is slightly above her sister Elphaba and Boq as the beloved daughter of the wealthy governor and a beautiful human possessing a typical skin color and size. At the top, of course, and the most popular at Shiz are Galinda, a blonde white woman of the Upper Uplands, and Fiyero, a white man, and an actual prince.

Casting a Black woman, Cynthia Erivo, as Elphaba is no small thing. Usually portrayed by white actresses like Idina Menzel who originated the role on Broadway, Elphaba is finally being played by an actress who has been marginalized by race. In the novel upon which the musical and now the film are based, Elphaba longs for white skin like her siblings at one point, so, it definitely matters that Elphaba in the film version, as played by Erivo, does not. In a pivotal scene, as Elphaba sings, “The Wizard and I,” and fantasizes about the Wizard “degreenify[ing]” her, the lighting around her changes to reveal the actress’s deep brown skin. This is presumably a signal from the filmmakers—along with the presence of other Black people in Oz and at Shiz— that, unlike in our world, white supremacy isn’t the ultimate determining factor of who is considered human and who is less/not human. There are other factors at play in this fantastical world.

(My main criticism of this otherwise flawless film is that it could use a clearer breakdown of what those factors are! Talking Animals is normal, as are very small people, but green skin is terrifying and scandalous? The math is not adding! But I digress.)

Though Elphaba experiences many things Black women experience—going from pet to threat when a mentor can no longer control her; being betrayed by a white woman like Galinda as soon as solidarity becomes inconvenient—Elphaba’s still not exactly experiencing racism.

Though she’s discriminated against “for the color of her skin,” there is no group of green people in Oz to make up a race of people who are systemically oppressed. The discrimination she faces is actually ableism from a skin disorder, a presumed skin “deformity,” which leads to her dehumanization. Perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference, as all forms of discrimination are intended to remove from its victims the sacredness of life. The more Elphaba does not fit in, the more she is not only dehumanized but animalized.

As soon as Elphaba chooses not to use her powers in service of the Wizard, she is further relegated to animal status. Madame Morrible calls her a “beast” and a “savage” to instill in the minds of her fellow human beings that Elphaba is not one of them and is a threat to their lives. Through dehumanization, Morrible manufactures consent of the humans to take Elphaba’s life from her.

GROVELING IN SUBMISSION

Because Black women are constantly dehumanized in a racist and sexist world, many Black women have found in Elphaba a kindred spirit. Since Wicked premiered, I’ve seen dozens of social media posts from Black women suggesting that Elphaba represents the 92% of Black women like them who voted for Kamala Harris, and Galinda represents the white women who betrayed the sisterhood by voting for Trump (again!). In their analogy, Trump is the epitome of the world’s evils, the fraudulent wizard who has tricked people into raising him into power. Kamala, a Black woman, and Trump’s opponent, and by extension her supporters, must naturally be the Elphaba in the scenario. But there’s a bit of a complication to that interpretation.

At the time of Elphaba’s opposition, the Wizard has been in power for years and is actively committing a genocide of Animals. As the leader of Oz, he is systematically killing, imprisoning, and committing ethnic/species-cleansing in Oz, removing Animals’ ability to speak and pushing them out of the region.

This is made more clear in the novel Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, but capital A Animals are those like Dr. Dillamond, who can talk and think and otherwise behave as humans do. Lowercase animals, on the other hand, are used for food. In the novel, Dr. Dillamond conducts scientific research to prove that there’s no fundamental difference between Animals and humans, and therefore Animals should not be discriminated against. Dr. Dillamond meets a very different fate in the novel for his efforts. (Become a paid subscriber to read my breakdown of the novel vs. the film vs. the Broadway musical coming this week!)

If only Dr. Dillamond had access to Toni Morrison! As she taught us, “the very serious function of racism [speciesism, for our purposes here,] is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

In the past fourteen months of the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians, we have seen livestreamed children begging the world to stop their oppression. We have seen lawyers arguing before the International Court that Israel is committing blatant war crimes under international law. We have seen the International Court conclude that Israel is committing a plausible genocide against Palestinians.

And still, over decades, and now daily in U.S. mainstream media over the past 14 months, we have seen in bold lettering, the Palestine Exception. The NYT, BBC, The Guardian, the Washington Post have invented new forms of passive language to excuse Israelis’ point-blank execution of Palestinian children, the destruction of all universities in Gaza, the explosion of hospitals, the murder of doctors and nurses and hospital directors, pregnant mothers and hundreds of Palestinian journalists. We must follow international law—unless we’re killing Palestinians. We must stop human rights abuses—unless the victims are Palestinians. We must stop genocide—unless we’re genociding Palestinians. There will, as Morrison says, always be one more thing, one more goal post to move on the hierarchy of life. The Palestine Exception means that all lives matter—except the ones that don’t at all.

Who has been dehumanizing Palestinians while committing the genocide in Palestine over the last two years? It’s not Trump. It’s President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and a bipartisan U.S. Congress. Despite the fact that more than 50% of Americans say the U.S. must stop funding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Under the Biden-Harris administration, anti-genocide protestors are jailed, fired, demonized in the press and expelled from their schools by the powers who want to continue genocide without opposition. This is fascism. Right now. Our current leaders are fascists. And that means—

My sisters in Christ, I’m going to hold your hands when I say this—Galinda is you too.

Galinda betrayed her solidarity with the oppressed (Elphaba) for an opportunity to advance her own power in the government. Galinda chastised Elphaba for being so combative with the Wizard, putting both of their lives in danger with her quest to save the Animals from genocide. Stop me if this sounds familiar. When Kamala lost—after refusing to bend on her unconditional support for Israel’s genocide—many people chastised anti-genocide protestors for withholding their votes from Kamala, using Galinda’s own words to Elphaba to do so: “I hope you’re happy, how you’ve hurt your cause forever! / I hope you think you’re clever!!”

Some who are against genocide struggled with whether to vote for Harris as her administration carried out a livestreamed Holocaust of Palestinians. Many wrestled with what the best choice would be—stay home; protest the two-party oligarchy by voting third party; or elect Kamala and try to “push her left,” even as she said she could think of “nothing” that she would do differently than Biden if she were president.

A two-party oligarchy relies on illusions of power, illusions of choice to keep the populace in line. It presents false binaries: sacrifice Palestinians for the chance of abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other civil rights here at home. Way too many voters, way too many American politicians, and way too many journalists believed the false binary and chose what they believed was their own survival. Way too many of us believed in the illusion of power that having a Black woman face of Empire would bring.

But Elphaba refused to be the token colored tool of Empire, even as she was the perfect candidate for State seduction. She was vulnerable, with a fragile support system and a learned self-hatred. She was just starting to make a friend in Galinda and was just starting to learn her own power, thanks to Madame Morrible’s encouragement. She had the world to gain by joining the Wizard and everything to lose by opposing him. The Wizard, Madame Morrible and Galinda knew this and all played on Elphaba’s deepest desires (to be seen, loved, celebrated, and accepted; to do good in the world) and her deepest fears (that despite her best efforts, she would never be loved and accepted). This is how a fascist state keeps control over its population, teasing them with their own aspirations; taunting them with their own fears. Galinda reminds Elphaba that all she has to do is apologize to the Wizard and Elphaba could still have all she ever wanted.

But Elphaba cuts right through the manipulation, straight to Toni Morrison’s measure of humanity: would she save a life, or would she take it? Elphaba recoils at the thought of sacrificing the Animals’ lives and liberation for a faulty sense of her own.

“I don’t want it—I can’t want it anymore,” she sings, and releases her fantasies of human acceptance, aligning herself fully with the Animal world.

The second she finds out that the Wizard is committing the genocide of the Animals, that he needs her complicity to have any power at all, she immediately snatches her power out of his grasp. She rejects him and his illusions of power, safety, even love, immediately. She will not be his tool to oppress others for the sake of “representation.” “Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love, I guess I’ve lost!” She sings. She decides that the “love” the Wizard promises her “comes at much too high a cost.”

She will not be a prisoner to her own fears and ambitions. She will be free.

Elphaba, in all of her fictional glory, shouldn’t be co-opted. She has a moral clarity that aligns with many real-life people who’ve also made real life choices to fight against genocide over the past 14 months—under the pain of death; under the pain of forced unemployment; under the pain of social ostracization, demonization, and imprisonment. These choices should not be minimized. They take courage that most people are socialized to lack. Most people are taught how to be Galinda: to not rock the boat, to choose the path of least resistance, to stomach incremental change and reap the rewards of being a cog in the system.

“I hope you’re happy, how you’d grovel in submission to feed your own ambition,” Elphaba shoots back at Galinda for her choice to abandon the mission to save the Animals and instead try to save herself and “change things from the inside.”

TOO LATE TO GO BACK TO SLEEP

I believe James Baldwin had the overabundance of Galindas in the world in mind when he said that “Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.”

Elphaba is a rare person of courage, of passion, of love. Her path is not glamorous or easy. Her ostracization and demonization are warnings to anyone who would choose to follow her: Cowardice is free; courage costs.

It is beautiful that so many people see themselves in Elphaba’s struggle—it is no easy feat to survive being systemically othered since childhood because of who you are. It’s wonderful to have Black women examples on screen like Elphaba, overcoming similar struggles and healing their inner child as they find and claim their power. But it is even more powerful that Elphaba’s oppression led her to a place of moral and political clarity: she knew she would never be free, loved or accepted by a system that imprisons, hates and expels the Animals. As long as she could be animalized at the drop of a hat, she saw in the Animals a joint struggle and an inextricably linked fate.

Elphaba flew off on her broomstick not to escape the Wizard but (*mild Part 2 spoiler*) to join the Animals in their fight. This is perhaps the most radical act and character on film in 2024. To reduce this message of solidarity and community struggle to a one-time vote in U.S. electoral politics is to miss not only the point of the character and the film but our own potential to do and be more in real life in the struggle for liberation. The U.S. is still committing genocide with Israel against Palestinians. There is still time to join the fight against our tax dollars doing this evil work.

It is this kind of inspired courage that causes films like Wicked to be intentionally misinterpreted, if we’re even allowed to see them in the future. Filmmaker Adam McKay warned on Twitter last week that he “wouldn’t be surprised to see the movie banned in 3-5 years,” due to it being “one of the most radical big studio Hollywood movies ever made.” He tweeted: “On a pure storytelling level Wicked: Part [One]…is nakedly about radicalization in the face of careerism, fascism, propaganda.”

His prediction isn’t so far-fetched. Netflix has already removed 19 films by and about Palestinians from its catalogue, furthering the erasure of Palestinians and the silencing of opposition to genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine. As South African apartheid survivors and Black American civil rights legends understand: the Palestinian struggle and the Black struggle for liberation are more alike than they are different. If books about Black struggle are already being banned, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that a film starring a Black woman who revolts against a fascist system and might inspire others to do the same would be banned as well.

Would you save my life? Or would you take it?

When Elphaba is confronted with this choice, she sings, “Too late for second-guessing, too late to go back to sleep,” in her show-stopping final number, “Defying Gravity.” She’s woke now and there’s no turning back from her mission for liberation. While the film is still available, I hope those of us who found kinship with Elphaba are led to reflect on the Elphabas that we know in real life, who are in our families, in our communities, in our workplaces and schools yet who aren’t given the love and support it’s so easy to give a fictional character. Who are the Elphabas around you who you witness speaking truth to power and walking in integrity but get shunned and mocked? And what can you do to not only support the Elphabas among you, but to unleash the inner Elphaba that fear and ambition have locked away?

Let the lessons of the film spark us to interrogate deeper what Elphaba was willing to sacrifice and what her choices really mean—not just in the movies, but in our lives. I hope her story inspires us to become our highest, most courageous selves. In order to defy the forces that are coming against us, and the fascism that’s already here, we’ll need to.

Stay watchin’!

Brooke

It’s the hap-happiest season of all! Yes, holiday, but also: Awards. And though I believe our liberation lies in divesting from Hollywood systems of power—starting with their awards as the measure of a film’s quality—this is the time of year when critics get all the screeners for every movie, all the screenplays, vinyls of the best scores and soundtracks, and other fun paraphernalia. It’s a movie-lover’s dream. (Follow BGW on IG so you can see when I post all of my film goodies!)

As a cinephile and an awards voter, I take the job seriously; I watch and consider every movie. I read the screenplays. I attend the Q&As with cast and crew here in Hollywood. I read the books they’re based on. Every year, I send off my ballot, knowing that the final awards nominations will be absolutely eye-roll inducing or infuriating —Emilia Perez when I Saw the TV Glow is RIGHT THERE?!!—but, alas.

These nominations are a constant reminder that Hollywood systems of power have an agenda that is never in the best interests of marginalized people. They invisibilize or prop up stories of us based on the lens through which they want us to be seen, for their benefit. That’s why you’ll never see award show predictions here at Black Girl Watching. It doesn’t serve us to think about movies and TV from their frame of worthiness. But achievements in film and TV should absolutely be celebrated. So here’s my celebration of the 28 best movies of 2024!

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ANCESTORS TALKIN:

The Piano Lesson: There’s a moment in this beautiful film from first-time director and nepo baby Malcolm Washington, where a preacher, played by Corey Hawkins, has come to the limits of what his organized religion can accomplish. He implores Danielle Deadwyler’s Berniece to call on her ancestors for help defeating the ghost of their family’s enslaver who is haunting them. In yet another stunning turn from the criminally underrated Deadwyler, Berniece calls on the ancestors and they come. This film, based on August Wilson’s play of the same name, is not just an achievement in filmmaking, but a reminder that our ancestors have been through what we’re going through and even worse; they have wisdom and tools and protection to share with us. We just have to ask.

Watch The Piano Lesson on Netflix.

Dahomey: French-Senagalese writer-director Mati Diop is back with my absolute favorite film of the year. With Dahomey, Diop documents the theft and plunder by the French of thousands of artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey and its recent return of 26 artifacts to the present-day country of Benin. In her brilliance, Diop doesn’t shoot Dahomey like a typical documentary; she shoots it like a narrative film and even gives voice to the stolen artifacts that are returning home to a changed world after more than a century. This blurring of documentary and reimagination creates space for healing, giving the ancestors back the voice that was stolen from them and putting them in conversation with their present-day descendants who are still battling the effects of white supremacist colonization to this day.

Watch Dahomey FOR FREE for 30 days on MUBI.

Moana 2: In this Disney sequel, wayfinder Moana is tasked with reuniting all of the people of the Pacific Islands for their own survival. To do so, she must enlist the help of her last wayfinding ancestor to defeat a terrible god who has intentionally divided the people. I love when kids’ movies subtly address colonization and teach children that ancestors never leave us and want to help us. And the music slaps!

Moana 2 is the number one movie in the world, three weeks in a row! Catch it in theaters or eventually on Disney+.

ART AS A HEALING AGENT

Sing, Sing: My favorite film from TIFF ‘23 finally made its way to screens this year, dramatizing the true stories of incarcerated people (many who played themselves in the film) healing through an arts program at the infamous New York prison Sing Sing. The program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) is an actual program that has helped incarcerated people work through emotional distress, pain and anger by performing in plays for fellow incarcerated people and has been credited with lowering recidivism rates once the actors are released from prison. Starring Colman Domingo and formerly incarcerated Clarence Maclin playing a version of himself in his debut scene-stealing film role, Sing Sing is a powerful argument for abolition and a must-see film.

Sing Sing is out of theaters and not yet available on streaming, but will likely be on Max with other A24 movies soon.

Daughters: Another heartbreaking film on the horrors of the prison system is the Netflix documentary Daughters. This film follows young Black girls whose fathers are incarcerated over the course of their lives and shows the devastating impact their absence has on the girls. But one organization puts on a Daddy-Daughter Dance at a D.C. prison to reunite the incarcerated fathers with their girls in an afternoon of healing. The best film out of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Daughters will absolutely break your heart and ignite a passion for abolition.

Watch Daughters on Netflix now.

Exhibiting Forgiveness: Painter Titus Kaphar tells a version of his own life story in his debut film as writer-director. Played by Andre Holland, a Black painter who uses his artwork to process his painful childhood has his emerging success nearly derailed when his abusive father reappears looking for forgiveness. *Spoiler* I really dislike when Black women are discarded in fictionalized stories for the purposes of a man’s growth and development—especially when things happened differently in real life! Justice for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor! Still there are many beautiful things to love about the film—the paintings most of all.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is available to rent or buy.

Fancy Dance: Fancy Dance is one of the last films I saw of the 2023 season, and it was one of the best, in no small part, thanks to Lily Gladstone. Her powerful performance as a grieving sister and aunt trying her best to take care of her niece while she searches for her missing sister with Child Protective Services, white family members and the FBI breathing down her back was stellar. It is Killers of the Flower Moon in the present day if its director Martin Scorsese had stepped aside and let an Indigenous woman writer-director tell an Indigenous story. It’s the best work of Gladstone’s career, telling an Indigenous story by Indigenous people and using Indigenous dance as a spiritual healing agent.

Watch Fancy Dance on Apple TV+.

I Saw the TV Glow: This film!! One of my favorites coming out of the Sundance Film Festival by trans writer-director Jane Schoenbrun and starring Ian Foreman and Justice Smith in particularly thoughtful and effective performances, actually shows the audience what it’s like to experience the gender dysphoria that so many young trans people feel before transitioning. Using a ‘90s Buffy the Vampire Slayer-type of show, The Pink Opaque, as a catalyst, two kids start questioning their identity and reality, and take different paths when they learn the answer.

Put down Emilia Perez and watch I Saw the TV Glow, on Max.

Bob Marley: One Love: I love Bob Marley’s music and Rastafari message of global Black liberation. This film captures the essence of Marley’s story and lets us relieve the glory of his music—though I have not forgotten what the film’s star Kingsley Ben-Adir said about Black Americans.

Watch Bob Marley: One Love on MGM+ and Paramount+.

FIGHTING FASCISM:

No Other Land: This may be the best film of the year that will not get mainstream distribution. Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers came together to tell the story of Israeli apartheid, genocide, torture, and abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank—before October 7, 2023, and beyond it—and the enduring Palestinian resistance. It’s hard to watch. It’s devastating. It’s necessary. And it’s the truth. Which is why mainstream platforms don’t want you to see it—especially as they continue to manufacture consent for the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. I was fortunate to see this film at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, where Free Gaza protests took place in front of the U.S. Embassy near the festival.

No Other Land is currently unavailable to stream as it awaits U.S. distribution.

Wicked: I never cared about the retelling of the Wicked Witch of the West until this moment when she was portrayed by a Black woman. Now, with that context, the story of an outcast who comes to understand her own power in order to fight back against an evil fascist regime has so much more significance. Still, I’ve seen enough misreadings of this film that I will have to do a deep dive on the meaning of Wicked in the next newsletter. But in summary, Wicked ingeniously shows how to fight fascism: You align with the most marginalized and oppressed. You reject “representation” in the fascist regime and instead tell the truth loudly. And you do it even if you have to do it alone; even at the risk of your demonization and ostracization . There is no negotiating with fascists or trying to “change it from the inside.” There’s only defying fascists and refusing their empty promises of power when we know our collective power is so much stronger and will last.

Just like a great musical—every song is a banger, I haven’t stopped singing them! And all of the performances, from Cynthia to Ari to Jonathan Bailey as a Fiyero, are pitch perfect. My only quibble is with the lighting in Fiyero’s “Dancing Through Life” number. Why is it backlit like that??? Otherwise, the 2h40m fly by. 9.9/10. Though I haven’t forgotten what Cynthia Erivo said about Black Americans either.

Watch Wicked in theaters now.

Union: This documentary shows how mistreated Amazon workers in a New York warehouse unionized their workforce against one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world—Jeff Bezos—and his cronies. It’s both inspiring for what’s possible when workers of the world unite, and heartbreaking when major issues interfere with unity.

Rent Union here.

The Wild Robot: I cannot say enough about this lusciously animated film: The decadent score by Kris Bowers; the heartfelt performance by Lupita Nyong’o; the original song “Kiss the Sky” that plays over the most emotionally resonate montage in the film; the story of a robot who chooses to override her programming to help a baby bird in need and who teaches all of the other animals to override their programming too, in order to form a conscious community that can survive together. The way things are is not the way things have to be! I love how radical children’s storytelling can be and I hope the kids—and adults!—who watch this film carry the message of what’s possible into their own communities in real life.

The Wild Robot is now available to rent.

Mufasa: The Lion King: I see what you did there, Barry Jenkins! Many have been critical of the auteur’s decision to cash out with a Disney bag by directing the live action Mufasa: The Lion King. Even Jenkins has been on the defense ever since his participation was announced. Let’s face it: Mufasa is an obvious, corporate IP money grab. Literally no one asked for this live-action prequel or for Lin Manuel Miranda’s uninspired retread of The Lion King’s most iconic songs. Still, I see what Jenkins tried to do with it. First: the visual effects are incredible; there were so many luminous shots and camera angles that immersed the audience in the feeling of being chased, of falling over cliffs, of being washed away by a raging river.

The Moonlight director is also known for examining Black masculinity in his works, and Mufasa is no exception. Played by Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Mufasa and Taka (who will become Scar) show how masculinity can be strengthened for the good of everyone when socially “feminine” traits are adopted, and how masculinity can devolve into a toxic, deadly force when these attributes are rejected in favor of competition, dominance and submission. And I’m all for a story about how snow-white lions, “the Outsiders,” are colonizing and genociding the African prides and only Mufasa uniting all of the (presumably “Insider”) Africans can fight these literal white devils. I see you, Barry! Ultimately, and unfortunately, Jenkins was hamstrung by the literal title and premise of the story: no matter how socialist the efforts are, in a Disney movie, someone still has to be king. But, A for effort!

Watch Mufasa: The Lion King in theaters on Friday, December 20.

OVERCOMING GRIEF:

Hard Truths: In this searing drama, Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays a woman on the edge; a pulsing ball of rage and slight who sees danger and insult everywhere she looks. Though at times comical, Hard Truths never laughs at its main character, but unfolds her, allowing her humanity and deep grief to seep through her rough edges until a final moment of gushing release. A favorite of mine from the Toronto International Film Festival, Hard Truths and Jean-Baptiste provide a raw portrait of depression unlike any I’ve ever seen and dares us not to look away.

Watch Hard Truths in Theaters.

Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words: Get ready to bawl your eyes out. This documentary is the chart-topping rapper’s opportunity to tell her own story of grief and trauma after being shot by Tory Lanez and betrayed by her best friend in the wake of the back-to-back deaths of her mother and grandmother. It is a lesson in the misogynoir Black women face even within our own community—let alone outside of it. It is a triumphant reclaiming of truth and a testimony of surviving and thriving, with stunning and compassionate directing by Nneka Onuorah.

Watch Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words on Prime Video.

Mother, Mother: I don’t want to spoil this beautiful abolitionist dream of a film, so I’ll just say that two grieving mothers teach each other about accountability, community and healing in the most gorgeous way. This film by Somali-Canadian writer-director K’naan Warsame in his debut, is abolition in action. It is another possible world. It shows that even in our grief, our rage, our despair, we can still choose a path of healing and wholeness that is the exact opposite of what we’ve been taught to believe is justice.

Mother, Mother is still seeking U.S. distribution and is unavailable to stream.

Memoir of a Snail: This is a stop-motion animated film, but it is NOT for children, I repeat, do not sit your children in front of this hilariously heartbreaking grown-up animated film!! Memoir of a snail follows the story of a young girl whose mother introduced her to a snail obsession before passing away. Snails are her only comfort as she manages grief after grief throughout her life. This surprisingly funny film will break your heart and put it back together again.

Memoir of a Snail is available to rent.

SUPPORTING WOMEN’S WRONGS:

Anora: This sex-worker Cinderella story has topped my list ever since I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. With a dash of The Hangover, this modern-day Pretty Woman embodies for me what my favorite sex worker educator Raquel Savage always says: “Sex work is not ‘empowering;’ sex work (like any other job) is work.” And no matter how well we can sell our skills and labor in exchange for money, the billionaires, the oligarchs—they are the ones who are ultimately in control. The only thing “wrong” that Anora does is put her faith in the American-Russo dream of dancing your way into exorbitant wealth. The greatest lesson of the film is that the wealthy will always have class solidarity; the only way we can survive them —and win—is if we have class solidarity too.

Anora is now available to rent.

Babygirl: Nicole Kidman is back in her self-destructive, rich white woman bag with Babygirl, where she plays a sexually frustrated high-powered tech founder married to Antonio Banderas with two daughters at home. When an intern who’s into the BDSM fantasies she craves starts working at her firm, she risks everything to explore everything with him that her husband refuses to do. It seems unhinged that she would throw her life and everything she’s worked for away for some 20-year-old intern, but *MILD SPOILER,* once she reveals she’s not had an orgasm in 16 years of marriage with Antonio Banderas, her acting a bit unhinged makes total sense. And because this is not a Tyler Perry Production, Nicole’s character will not be punished (by men or women) for her explorations of sexuality and pleasure past 50. Line of the year: “If I want to be humiliated, I’ll pay someone to do it for me.” 10s across the board for Nicole!

Watch Babygirl in theaters now and coming soon to Apple TV+.

Challengers: This Zendaya-led film is what NeNe Leakes would call “Pure innocent fun.” It follows Z and two white boys in their tennis-obsessed love triangle from high school through adulthood. And while I do think Z’s costars have more interesting story arcs and character development and she serves more as the tennis ball tossed between them or the net keeping the boys apart, (I realllllllly don’t like that!) the filmmaking, the cinematography, the camera angles, the fashion, the direction and the pulsing ‘80s techno music all made for a fun time at the movies.

Watch Challengers on MGM+.

She Taught Love: I am usually against Black women teaching men anything—and especially not while in the throes of terminal cancer!!!—but Arsèma Thomas (Queen Charlotte) is such a gem in the starring role as Mali and seeing this film on the big screen proves that even more. The camera loves that face! And the writer-star Darrell Britt-Gibson is charming as her exhausting love interest, so I have to support Mali’s choice to spend precious, precious time teaching a grown man things he should take it upon himself to know, and root for her happiness. (Thomas’ line-reading of “Get the f*** off my steps!” in the break-up scene lives in my mind anyway.) Celebrate this film’s gorgeous cinematography and subversive ending and cast Arsèma as the lead in everything, on IMAX next time!

Watch She Taught Love on Hulu.

The Last Showgirl: Pamela Anderson’s comeback movie is right up my alley. Anderson plays a Las Vegas showgirl whose decades-long career in the same show is coming to an end with only two weeks’ notice. Confronted with the reality that she might not have anything to show for her career, and due to ageism, has no way to pivot into a new one, Anderson’s showgirl defiantly rejects the idea that she has to defend her choices—even when it hurts people she loves. She loved being a showgirl for the time she got to do it, and isn’t that what life is about? For someone who has felt the urge to defend my choice to pursue a fickle art over financial stability, this film is a balm.

Watch The Last Showgirl in Theaters now.

TWISTED COMING OF AGE

Inside Out 2: Another animated banger made the list of my favorites this year and it’s no surprise that the story of a 13-year-old girl trying to manage her changing emotions had me absolutely verklempt. Riley is, by all accounts, being raised in a healthy, loving household, and she is still riddled with anxiety and struggling to build a strong sense of self. Just imagine what kids in less stable homes are going through! This film and its predecessor offer the audience the language to express emotions in a healthy way—even in the most stressful situations. We need more films that are this instructive while still being incredibly entertaining.

My Old Ass: This film will hit millennials particularly in the gut. Aubrey Plaza stars as a 39-year-old on a mushroom trip who finds herself face to face with her 18-year-old self during her last summer before college, when everything was easy and beautiful and fun; her last moment of joy before everything changes forever. This tear-jerker comedy will have you questioning your whole life and (hopefully) finding peace with the person you’ve become anyway.

Watch My Old Ass now on Prime Video.

Nickel Boys: Debut director RaMell Ross makes one of the most visually compelling films of the year with this adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Nickel Boys is the traumatic story of two young boys in the South who are imprisoned in a juvenille “reform school” that is simply a stand-in for a plantation. They have no way of using the law to liberate them from their indefinite sentence, no way of escape—except, perhaps, aging out or death. As you can imagine, this is an extremely heavy film whose first-person filmmaking puts the audience directly into the shoes of the main characters as they try to survive horrendous child abuse. While I’m not sure Black American audiences specifically need this experience in empathetic filmmaking—we already know or can imagine these kinds of horrors—I still see its value.

When I spoke to the director at a talk-back, he was sharing his perspective that the theology of Christianity has permeated the way we tell stories on screen, with the camera operating as the distant Christian God, looking down, over, above and through us on earth. Even when a story is told from a particular character’s point of view, even with the most extreme close-ups on that character and also their perspective, the camera is still just a bit removed from the character, making the audience a bit removed. When the camera is a stand-in for the main character, as we experience in Nickel Boys, it’s a one-of-a-kind style that my friend Charles thought was more in line with the Buddhist ideology of Metta, a loving-kindness meditation wherein you become the other as the audience becomes the main character in Nickel Boys. This Metta filmmaking is an incredible and effective achievement that has more than earned its effusive praise—and while I’ll only ever watch it once, I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Nickel Boys is now in theaters.

UNEXPECTED SPORTS BIOPICS:

The Fire Inside: Ryan Destiny, the star that you are! The glamorous R&B artist completely disappears into the role of Claressa Shields, the real-life young, impoverished boxer from Flint, Michigan, who goes on to win the first Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing. But unlike the typical sports biopic, The Fire Inside continues Shields’ story, sharing her struggle for racial and gender equality in the sport when even gold medals prove not to be enough. Brian Tyree Henry infuses heart into the role of Shields’ loving but frustrated childhood coach who can only take her but so far. While I would’ve loved for Shields’ mother to have a more developed role, the chemistry between Destiny and Tyree Henry create a compelling watch that proves why the actors themselves and the people they portray deserve the big screen.

Watch The Fire Inside in theaters on December 25.

Unstoppable: Jharrel Jerome shines in the true story of wrestling sensation Anthony Robles, the champion from Arizona who was born with one leg. Despite egregious ableism both inside his family and out in the world, Anthony excels beyond all expectations, and as usual, Jerome rises to the occasion. I hate to use the word “inspiring” because so many stories of disabled people overcoming unnecessarily ableist obstacles are described that way and used to bludgeon other disabled people who aren’t able to overcome. But Anthony’s determination to reach his wrestling goals does change the trajectory of so many people’s lives around him—including his mother Judy, played to effect by Jennifer Lopez. In a meaty supporting role, JLo’s Judy learns from her son how to stand up to her abusive husband and to fight for the life she deserves. You’ll cheer the way a sports movie compels you to cheer for the hero, and Unstoppable truly gives us an incredible hero; but I hope it also makes us think about the ways abled people make disabled people’s lives harder for our own comfort, and get busy doing something about that instead of just celebrating the people who are exceptional enough to overcome.

Watch Unstoppable on Prime Video on January 16, 2025.

I hope you enjoy these films as much as I do!

Stay watchin’,

Brooke