Blog#3 SunkenPlace

 Ramone Wagner

01/27/2021

Blog Assignment #3

In this blog assignment, I will highlight the brief yet, superbly intricate analysis of the great movie Candyman, both its original version of 1992 as well as the newest one of 2021, comparing and contrasting the two. The story of Candyman is vaguely familiar to plenty of us, as it haunted our Halloweens each year-round. According to Professor Due and other critiques, many figure the original Candyman wasn’t intended for a Black gaze but rather for its white audience, in spite of having plenty of Black characters. However, nonetheless it was a very personal experience for Black viewers just being one of the first times seeing so much black representation within horror. The original movie, in terms of thematics, alludes to an idea of demonizing and ostracizing blackness within certain civil societies, specifically Black masculinity and its monstrous portrayal. The original script was said to have a focus on Helen, the white protagonist as the monster, just as the movie ends, unlike her lackluster role within the plot of the newer edition. Professor, before dissecting more, plights us with more excerpts from the Horror Noire documentary in which she, Peele, and company emphasize the thought process going into and aftereffects/impacts of the original Candyman. Peele mentions that Candyman as one of the first Black supernatural killer within film at the time. The characters origin introduces the referencing of historical American racial violence as we learn that the villain/monster that is Candyman is actually that of a mere black artist who fell in love with a white lover, and thus lynched for it, and turned into this nuisance, It was said to be directed based on a short story set in the UK, however its original focus of a discourse within the bounds of class, changed to that racial violence within America theme, a personification of that if you will. They lastly highlight how many elements of the original were a recipe for being problematic and how those were avoided intentionally for the movie's newest edition. The 2021 MonkeyPaw directed Candyman was a rejuvenation of the folklore, with its elemental emphasis to alleviate new ideas to drive such a plot. Professor displays the Candyman roundtable discussion over at Universal studies, where they discuss themes of the film diving into the phenomena that was a monster described as one single entity when in actuality being a personification of this racial terror through generations. Adding the layer that is intergenerational trauma as the recurring and haunting beast, creates the changed angle that is reframing of the Candyman legend through a black lens now, rather than its original white lens. “They love what we make but not us”, was one the many profound lines that they indulged in unpacking, alluding to the mishandling and neglect of blackness in America, but specifically within the contexts of creating.

Blog#2 SunkenPlace

                                                                               Ramone Wagner   

                                                                                                                     01/20/22

AfAm112A

Blog #2

Within this second blog post, I choose to reflect on the overview and thematic comparisons of the two great movies Get Out and Us by Jordan Peele. These movies, we can see, guide us into the meat of course as they have heralded our first looks at the process of surgically analyzing film work and denoting thematic messaging across the two movies, as we shall do with other works. Thus, in the firstly examined Get Out film, we get to highlight Peele’s emphasis on, of course white supremacy, racial motivated horror, but furthermore his depiction of racial isolation as well as assimilation being in a secluded white estate by his lonesome referring to Chris the protagonist, appropriation and/or coveting of black bodies like the father Dean Armitage and how he couldn’t get over his competitive shortcomings to that of Jesse  Owens and thus being obsessed with taking control of blackbodies for his benefit, the idea of analogous representation that is physical and mental slavery and mass incarceration being metaphorically alluded towards with the idea of the sunken place, microaggressions throughout the film that Chris has to navigate through much like in our reality navigating white spaces, and many others that can be interpreted. Now the black horror that is “Us”, compared to its predecessor, alludes to a plethora of non-literal, kind of beyond the surface thematic elements, within a dream-world like effect or impact as opposed to literal and physical. “Us” is understood to be abstract to the point where how one comprehends the ideals of the movie is predicated upon that person's specific interpretation, thus it varying. The movie quite generally can be understood to take a big tug at the ill intentions and/or demon of human nature or humans in general, referring to the inhumane impulses and energies that lie within us. Furthermore, the audience gets to witness intentionality of blackness representation such as the purposeful casting of Lupita Nyong'o as lead role (darkskin representation) and Gabe the father in his Howard university shirt. There is an ultimate theme of alluding to the duality that is the privilege of Americans or of a regular life to live from adolescence up, vs. Those less fortunate and unprivileged that have to struggle in life from early age, even despite doing all the right things (at random/unfair circumstances/ “down below”). There are plenty of other interpretations that can be drawn, like a similarly alluding to isolation in these white spaces like Get Out, but the finalizing depiction of the conjoined hands of the tethered was described a direct jab of the1980’s performative activist movement that was the Hands Across America movement as it was described to have been an effort to build funds for the houseless and such and so the movement was to be seen as the country could solve hunger if people all just held hands. In spinning this historical moment, Peele alludes to a thematic element that is the mockery of institutions that only pretend to care for their the less fortunate populace. Powerful!

Blog #1 Sunken Place 112A

 Ramone Wagner

01/12/2022

Af Am 112A

Blog Assignment #1

In this first blog assignment, I’d like to highlight some of the main takeaways I have taken from the first couple lectures and material thus far in our first two weeks of instruction. The class's goals are to highlight the agency of blackness within cinema throughout history and how it has evolved and developed over time, dating back to the beginning of black representation in horror films. The first couple lecture sessions were laying foundation and overview of the black horror aesthetic. Professor mentions roots of black horror, referencing her very own late mother and how she was the first horror fan in her life, and how it wasn't until after the mother's passing that she was able to grasp the idea of horror being an outlet and coping mechanism for confronting traumas within one's reality, in an “imaginary” extended kind of way. From there we dive into previewing some historical black horror projects, such as The Birth of Nation of 1915. This movie was understood to be a groundbreaking film for cinema/Hollywood moving forward, containing, at that time, new film elements such as wide shots, being immersive, etc. Of course, within the film, blackness was represented in a horrible light, depicting the black man as monstrous and predatory, influencing the terror that permeated against black societies for centuries to come. This was in a sense of our first exposure to the grand power and influence that cinema and media in general has within our country's history, and beyond. This, we learned, is the main theme of the imagery of blackness within early films, delegitimizing reconstruction efforts of African Americans during those times. After time, these false depictions were combatted in many ways, one main way being black artist attempting to create their own films, thus through a black lens, black made horror. Prof credits novels and works like crediting herself in “The Good House”, and “Tales from the Hood”. We then get to the point of recognizing the typical horror character tropes, that often are limiting and furthermore degrading/dehumanizing in a way: such as the sacrificial negro where the character has no purpose beyond being the first to die and another is the magical negro/spiritual guide whose job is only to impose spiritual insight, wisdom to white characters. These mischaracterizations are often still prevalent in cinema today and so it is an ongoing battle to properly represent and liberate black characters within film, specifically horror. The class is just getting under way; we have watched/read a few horror works such as Horror Noire, Lovecraft Country, The Comet by W.E.B Duboise, and most recently a screening of the great Get out. Getting our feet wet into the ideologies of American history relative to black horror cinematography, and black culture altogether.