The Wild Reed

Sunday, February 18, 2018

The Important Cultural Moment That Is Black Panther

I saw the film Black Panther this past Thursday night and I have to say I thought it was very good. And it wasn't just the movie I appreciated, but also how many of the African-Americans audience members came dressed in traditional African attire, and how happy and excited they were at the prospect of seeing a movie that is clearly very important and meaningful to them and indeed anyone who longs for a world were all are recognized, represented, and valued. Black Panther plays a big role in ushering in such a world. Accordingly, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that its making and release signify an important cultural moment.

But why exactly?, you may ask. . . . Well, Black Panther is the first film of the Marvel cinematic universe to place a black superhero front and centre. It also features a black director (Ryan Coogler) and a majority black cast (including Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan, Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya, Lupita Nyong’o, and Forest Whitaker). In addition, it explores questions and issues about race and identity to a depth never before attempted by a film in the "superhero" genre.

To celebrate these milestones, I share a compilation of excerpts from some of the most erudite and insightful reviews and commentaries I've come across concerning the important cultural moment that is Black Panther.

Enjoy!

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Black Panther has become the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, with Chadwick Boseman pictured as the new King of Wakanda, T’Challa. The Black Panther movie was always going to be a big deal, but there was no guarantee that it would honor the source material and/or resonate with audiences. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of creatives like writer/director Ryan Coogler, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, and stars like Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, and Forest Whitaker, the Black Panther solo film is well on its way to becoming both a cultural and financial juggernaut.

Black Panther has now broken Fandago’s pre-sale record for first quarter films, as well as that for superhero movie pre-release ticket sales in general. It looks like the film will hit somewhere in the ballpark of $150 million domestically over its 4-day opening frame, giving it one of the MCU’s biggest solo debuts to date. In addition, early reviews for Black Panther praise the movie for being not only a socially and politically important superhero blockbuster, but an entertaining and action-packed one as well. Now, the movie can add another bona fide.

– Matthew Erao
Excerpted from “Black Panther is First MCU Movie
to Receive TIME Magazine Cover”
Screen Rant
February 8, 2018, 2017

Above: Writer and director Ryan Coogler with actor Chadwick Boseman
on the set of Black Panther. (Photo: Entertainment Weekly)

What seems like just another entry in an endless parade of superhero movies is actually something much bigger. Black Panther hasn’t even hit theaters yet and its cultural footprint is already enormous. It’s a movie about what it means to be black in both America and Africa – and, more broadly, in the world. Rather than dodge complicated themes about race and identity, the film grapples head-on with the issues affecting modern-day black life. It is also incredibly entertaining, filled with timely comedy, sharply choreographed action and gorgeously lit people of all colors. “You have superhero films that are gritty dramas or action comedies,” director Ryan Coogler tells TIME. But this movie, he says, tackles another important genre: “Superhero films that deal with issues of being of African descent.”

[. . .] The movie, out February 16, comes as the entertainment industry is wrestling with its toxic treatment of women and persons of color. This rapidly expanding reckoning – one that reflects the importance of representation in our culture – is long overdue. Black Panther is poised to prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences. And, more important, that making movies about black lives is part of showing that they matter. [. . .] In the midst of a regressive cultural and political moment fueled in part by the white-nativist movement, the very existence of Black Panther feels like resistance. Its themes challenge institutional bias, its characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors, and its narrative includes prismatic perspectives on black life and tradition. The fact that Black Panther is excellent only helps.

– Jamil Smith
Excerpted from “The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther”
TIME Magazine
February 19, 2018

Above: The principal cast of Black Panther. From left: Forest Whitaker as Zuri, Michael B. Jordan as N'Jadaka / Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, Daniel Kaluuya as W'Kabi, Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia, Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, T'Challa's mother and the Queen Mother of Wakanda, Danai Gurira as Okoye, and Letitia Wright as Shuri, T'Challa's younger sister.

TIt's finally here – and it couldn't have come at a better time. Black Panther is an epic that doesn't walk, talk or kick ass like any other Marvel movie – an exhilarating triumph on every level from writing, directing, acting, production design, costumes, music, special effects to you name it. For children (and adults) of color who have longed forever to see a superhero who looks like them, Marvel's first black-superhero film is an answered prayer, a landmark adventure and a new film classic.

But wait a minute: Hasn't Black Panther been around since the 1960s, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created him for the comics? So why did it take half a century for Marvel to get him up on screen? Chadwick Boseman already played this superhero in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, a supporting role in a Marvel Comic Universe best categorized as #AvengersSoWhite. That's all in the past. There's no sidekick or second-banana status here. The spotlight is all his – and his stand-alone, solo outing is history in the making.

Thrillingly and thoughtfully directed and written (with Joe Robert Cole) by Ryan Coogler, the film lights up the screen with a full-throttle blast of action and fun. That's to be expected. But what sneaks up and floors you is the film's racial conscience and profound, astonishing beauty. Not just a correction for years of diversity neglect, it's a big budget blockbuster that digs into the roots of blackness itself. Coogler, 31, has proved his skills behind the camera with Fruitvale Station and Creed, but in Black Panther he journeys into the heart of Africa to bring a new world to the screen. The result feels revolutionary.

– Peter Travers
Excerpted from “Black Panther Review:
Marvel's History-Making Superhero Movie's a Masterpiece”
Rolling Stone
February 6, 2018

Above: Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther.

Yes, Black Panther is another multizillion-dollar installment in the burgeoning Marvel Cinematic Universe. But that is not all that it is. Other superhero movies have dabbled in big ideas – the Dark Knight trilogy most notably, and the X-Men franchise to a lesser degree. But their commitments to the moral and political questions they contemplated were relatively haphazard and/or peripheral. The arguments Black Panther undertakes with itself are central to its architecture, a narrative spine that runs from the first scene to the last.

[. . .] It is notable, too, that so many of the film’s central characters are female. In a spirit journey, T’Challa speaks with his dead father, who counsels him to “surround yourself with people you trust.” T’Challa follows this advice and, as a result, surrounds himself almost exclusively with women. On a brief, Bondian foray to a casino in Busan, South Korea, T’Challa brings along Nakia and Okoye as teammates. A later mission has a still-greater female/male ratio of three-to-one. This is a film that does not merely pass the Bechdel test, it demolishes it. Moreover, there is an uncommon richness to the female characters, in their interactions both with T’Challa – as mother, as sister, as ex-lover, as bodyguard – and with one another.

[. . .] In T’Challa’s spirit dream, his father also offers the advice that “it’s hard for a good man to be king.” Which raises the question: Is it hard for a good movie to be king? If the formidable box office predictions for Black Panther are remotely accurate, the answer will be a resounding no – and quite rightly so. All hail the new king.

– Christopher Orr
Excerpted from “Black Panther Is More Than a Superhero Movie”
The Atlantic
February 16, 2018

Black Panther, the latest entry in Marvel’s shared cinematic universe, is a remarkable feat of world building and visual craft. Its setting, the fictional central African nation of Wakanda, is a technologically advanced wonderland light years ahead of the rest of the world that lives and breathes unlike anything we’ve seen from Marvel Studios or the superhero genre at large. Its protagonist, King T’Challa – who fights in defense of his nation as the Black Panther, equipped with a bulletproof suit and imbued with enhanced strength, speed, and agility – is played with both regal confidence and real vulnerability by the versatile Chadwick Boseman.

But what drives Black Panther isn’t its visuals or superheroics. What drives the film is its pursuit of the idea that arguably defines the superhero genre, best articulated in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “With great power comes great responsibility.” And what makes Black Panther unique is that it pursues this in the context of its characters and its setting. It asks not just, “What is T’Challa’s responsibility to Wakanda?” but “What is Wakanda’s responsibility to the world?”

[. . .] Of course, Black Panther isn’t a political thriller. [Its] conflicts and tensions play out in action as much as dialogue, and the ideas come naturally. There are no mouthpieces speaking on behalf of the writers. But it is fair to say that Black Panther is the most political movie ever produced by Marvel Studios, both in its very existence – it’s the most expensive movie to have ever starred an almost entirely black cast – and in the questions its story raises.

– Jamelle Bouie
Excerpted from “Black Panther Will Thrill You
– and It Will Make You Think”
Slate
February 15, 2018

Above: T'Challa / Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) returns to Wakanda after a rescue mission with Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and Okoye (Danai Gurira).

Evan Narcisse, who co-writes the miniseries Rise of the Black Panther with Ta-Nehisi Coates, says he views Wakanda as the representation of an “unbroken chain of achievement of black excellence that never got interrupted by colonialism.” Narcisse’s work also filters Wakanda through the prism of Haiti, the revolutionary home of black liberation in the New World.

Even before his modern rejuvenation, T’Challa and his comic-book homeland offered up the same kind of representations of difficult concepts. As Jamil Smith writes for Time, the character of the Black Panther — the first black comic-book superhero — was created in 1966 during the civil-rights movement and very much represented “a vision of black grandeur and, indeed, power in a trying time.” His creation also coincided with the interconnected rise of both the Black Power movement and a second wave of Pan-Africanism and nationalism. Though created by white writers and shepherded through eras of embarrassing racial stereotyping and caricature, Black Panther the comic has always been notable for the cultural valences of creating a bulletproof, super-rich, erudite, and aggressively independent black hero, and for its willingness to fathom black geopolitical power.

In almost every facet of production, from wardrobe and costume design to the film’s score, Coogler’s Black Panther takes that thread of power and spins it into a diaspora’s fantasy.

– Vann R. Newkirk II
Excerpted from “The Provocation and Power of Black Panther”
The Atlantic
February 14, 2018

As for the allegations of the film being “too militant,” I wanted to just list the many action and war films that are comfortable with putting hundreds of dead brown bodies in the backdrop for a white character, but my editor pointed out that would probably take about a year to type out. Basically, if you think the superhero movie Black Panther is too militant but didn’t react the same way to say, American Sniper, you’re not concerned about militancy.

To be clear, I’m not saying these two films are equivalent to one another. Rather, I’m suggesting that many white movie viewers seem fully comfortable with violence when it’s on the side they recognize (white, imperialistic), but are suddenly outraged by any hint of strength from the side of the traditionally marginalized, regardless of context. Black people, especially, are expected to take on the pacifist, peace-making and non-violence route to the extent that self-defense becomes radicalized. We see this in the way people talk about police brutality (“Why didn’t they comply?”) to the rhetoric of activism (“MLK wouldn’t want this!”) to the way we write history. It’s the same mindset that paints the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist group, instead of a group fighting for their lives.

Also, I’ll be the millionth person to point out that Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party carried guns for defense and in full compliance with laws at the time. If the Black Panther cast acts like the Black Panther Party in the film, they’ll be spending a lot of time running free breakfast programs and medical clinics (which, to be clear, I’m not opposed to as watching that sounds lovely). Here especially, this declaration from the Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program rings especially true: “We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.”

– Charline Jao
Excerpted from “Black Panther Is Neither Too Black Nor Too Militant”
The Mary Sue
June 12, 2017

As comic book lore dictates, Wakanda is rich with a valuable material, known as vibranium, that many other countries would aim to exploit if it weren’t for T’Challa’s fiercely protective father, T’Chaka, who enacted a strict isolationist policy for the country. Black Panther’s early appearances in the comics depicted a Wakanda that holds steadfast to specific African tribal traditions (he’s referenced as a “hereditary chieftain” in Fantastic Four No. 52, where he first appears), yet T’Challa still enjoys the comforts that being the leader of an uber-wealthy nation brings. Wakanda is imagined as a country that is untouched by the evils of colonialism, quite literally hidden away.

This aspect of the fantasy is key. White America’s ongoing obsession with British royals remains oddly prevalent. The marketing of (mostly white) princesses and happy endings remain a lucrative machine for Disney. But this isn’t either of those things. For decades, black people have been left to wonder what might have been were it not for the ravaging influences of colonialism. Invoking kings and queens is often a defiantly political act, and Black Panther is an exaggerated exploration of pride in something that has been taken away.

– Derreck Johnson
Excerpted from “Why Black America Loves Depictions
of Black Royalty. And Why We Need Them”
Slate
February 14, 2018

Above: Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther and Angela Bassett as Ramonda, T'Challa's mother and the Queen Mother of Wakanda.

Black Panther, an adaptation of the iconic comic book that has been decades in coming, proves to be more than worth the wait. This lush, impressively well-acted film, about an African king learning how best to marshal the superpowers with which he’s been endowed, comes draped in anticipation, not only from hardcore fans of the source material, but also from filmgoers already steeped in breathless hype. Director Ryan Coogler, working with a script he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole, doesn’t just meet but exceeds those expectations, delivering a film that fulfills the most rote demands of superhero spectacle, yet does so with style and subtexts that feel bracingly, joyfully groundbreaking.

[. . .] The difference with Black Panther is that, while observing the outlines of the traditional comic book arc, Coogler and his creative team have enlarged and revitalized it. Drawing on elements from African history and tribal culture, as well as contemporary and forward-looking flourishes, Black Panther pulses with color, vibrancy and layered textural beauty, from the beadwork and textiles of Ruth Carter’s spectacular costumes and Hannah Beachler’s warm, dazzlingly eye-catching production design to hairstyles, tattoos and scarifications that feel both ancient and novel.

Although the comic-book-movie universe might not seem to need yet another origin story, this one possesses urgency and genuine propulsive interest most others lack. Once T’Challa’s true challenge is revealed, Black Panther becomes something deeper than the mere formation of one superhero, engaging such subjects as: the legacy of colonialism; collective memory and interior geography; the tension between autonomy and social conscience; and the need for solidarity within an African diaspora at political and cultural odds with itself.

Make no mistake: Coogler doesn’t use Black Panther as an awkward delivery system for such Deep Ideas. Rather, he weaves them in organically and subtly.

– Ann Hornaday
Excerpted from “Black Panther is Exhilarating,
Groundbreaking and More Than Worth the Wait”
The Washington Post
February 9, 2018

How should we understand the arc of the film? How should we read this final pivotal moment? Are these distinctions as clean as they appear? Is Killmonger the villain we are made to hate, and T’Challa the hero we cannot help but love?

For [Christopher] Lebron, the movie sides with T’Challa, reducing the Americanized Wakandan to a “receptacle for tropes of inner-city gangterism.” At a time when black life is under assault, he argues, the movie traffics in infantilizing tropes about black men as angry, irrevocably wounded, and in need of rescuing at the hands of superior Africans. For others, the movie appears to sloppily tie liberation for oppressed people to the efforts of the murdering Killmonger.

. . . [A]rt, however, must bear its own burden, not ours. When we examine the movie from the inside, what emerges is a very different and rich narrative. [Director and writer Ryan] Coogler ask us to see Killmonger not as a stereotype of African-American life, but as a commentary on the wider society from which he comes. The movie demands that we resist the temptation to examine Killmonger through the often distorting and unfriendly American gaze. For those eyes, as we learned so long ago from W. E. B. Du Bois, often look on black people in amused contempt and pity.

Killmonger emerges not as the expression of crude tropes, as Lebron and others suggest, but as a tragic figure with heroic qualities who forces us to see the oppression of others as our own. Killmonger’s vision of the world is animated by loss and abandonment. He seeks revenge, no doubt motivated by the terrible feelings of being left behind by the very people to which he owed his birthright. His resentment comes to be a stand-in for the resentment of an oppressed people without a home. In one of the film’s more jarring moments, Killmonger sneers at T’Challa’s isolationism. When T’Challa tells him that “It is not our way to be judge, jury, and executioner for people who aren’t our own,” Killmonger retorts: “Not your own? Didn’t life start here on this continent? So ain’t all people your people?” Abandoning their own, we are left to think, is what the Wakandans do.

Coogler does not stop there. Killmonger’s feelings of prolonged loss and abandonment are intensified by years of war-induced trauma that personify the dark undercurrent of Western power. This is where his character shifts from the noble to the ignoble, from the heroic to the tragic. Killmonger seeks a version of the very tyrannical rule that he sees as so central to black oppression across the globe. Dreams of liberation for Killmonger, oddly imagined through the prism of empire, set in motion the condition for his ultimate downfall. The desire to liberate is marred by the will to tyrannize, a vocabulary that he seemingly learns from those with whom he has lived. In a moment of irony, Killmonger reclaims Christopher North’s famous 1829 remark about the British Empire—“His Majesty’s dominions, on which the sun never sets”—as a vision for the African diaspora: “the sun will never set on the Wakandan empire.”

Herein lies the lesson Coogler ask us to consider. T’Chaka is partly responsible for Killmonger’s distorted sense of justice in the face of loss and abandonment, but the audience is made to understand and feel that it is the United States and the West that deformed him. It is no wonder, then, that when the Wakandans ask who this man is, sitting at the border of their lands with the dead body of Klaue, they are told (by a CIA agent, no less): he isn’t from Wakanda, he is one of ours.

Here the movie excels, and, with this framing in mind, the final scene takes on powerful meaning. Black Panther is a piece of literature rendered in cinematic form. Coogler does not treat the movie as a pure imagining of the revolution we long to have, but as an allegorical representation of what happens to a vision of freedom when forged through resentment, loss, abandonment, and deformation. This is what we are forced to reckon with.

– Melvin L. Rogers
Excerpted from “The Many Dimensions of Black Panther”
Dissent
February 27, 2018

Above: T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) do ritualistic battle for the throne of Wakenda.

But how gay is [Black Panther]? It’s not. But it almost was.

[Danai] Gurira’s [character] Okoye, who is canonically gay in the Marvel World of Wakanda comics, was written as such in early drafts of Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole’s script. In the final film, however, Okoye is with W’Kabi, and the scene first noted as particularly queer in the original screenplay is gone. Cole confirmed that the gay love story was in there at some point, but was unclear as to why it was removed.

It’s an unfortunate removal from a movie that is boundary-pushing in so many other ways — one that so effortlessly talks about colonization, the obligation for the powerful to help the powerless, radicalization, and so on. To finally see LGBTQ representation in a Marvel movie would have added another powerful layer to an already powerful film. Black Panther isn’t a worse movie for the removal, but the choice does disappoint.

– Kevin O'Keefe
Excerpted from “But How Gay is Black Panther?”
Into
February 16, 2018

Above: Danai Gurira (left) as Okoye, head of the Dora Milaje, the all-female special forces of Wakanda, who serve as T'Challa's bodyguards.

[In] bringing Wakanda to the screen [production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter] reached across the whole continent for inspiration, painting with a wide brush that shouts out to a broader African heritage with cultural roots scattered by the transatlantic slave trade – not necessarily speaking directly to any individual culture or real-life African country. There’s the Maasai beadwork, the Basotho blankets, the lip plates, the architecture inspired by ancient buildings from Timbuktu and Mali. What they built is a pan-African, afrofuturistic ode to the wider notion of African heritage, diaspora and all. And it’s all packaged in a massive superhero film that is undeniably the first of its kind.

There is a long history of Western portrayals of Africa conflating its thousands of incredibly diverse cultures, creating the false sense of Africa as a monolith. Through Black Panther, Marvel seems to have found a small loophole: Center the story on a fictional country built off the migration of tribes from all over the continent. Put it in the hands of a mostly black, already beloved creative team deeply invested in creating positive portrayals of blackness. Give them the resources and power to make something colorful, aspirational, epic in scope, and truly ambitious. Then welcome it into the world and take note of where it lands in history. If we’re lucky, this is only the beginning.

– Alanna Bennett
Excerpted from “Black Panther Is a Pan-African Medley
Aiming to Reframe the Narrative”
BuzzFeed
February 15, 2018

NEXT: Celebrating Black Panther – Then and Now

Related Off-site Links and Updates:
The Evolution of Marvel’s Black Panther – Micah Peters (The Ringer, February 14, 2018).
Black Panther First Reactions: It's “Astonishing,” “Iconic” and “Will Save Blockbusters” – Andrea Mandell (USA Today, January 30, 2018).
Black Panther Brings Afrofuturism Into the Mainstream – Clarisse Loughrey (The Independent, February 14, 2018).
Black Panther Seeks to Inspire Not Incite Revolution – Stephen L. Carter (Bloomberg, February 18,2018)
Black Panther Actor Florence Kasumba Addresses the Movie’s Lack of Queer Representation – Jamie Broadnax and Abraham Riesman (Vulture, February 16, 2018).
Michael B. Jordan On His ‘Dark’ Preparation for Black Panther Role – Taryn Finley (The Huffington Post, January 30, 2018).
In Defense of Erik Killmonger and the Forgotten Children of Wakanda – Brooke Obie (Shadow and Act, February 17, 2018).
Black Voter Registration Effort Launched at Black Panther Screenings – Avery Anapol (The Hill, February 16, 2018).
Trolls Are Posting Fake Stories About Being Attacked at Black Panther Showings. Don’t Fall for Them – Hilary Hanson (The Huffington Post, February 17, 2018).
Black Panther Roars to a Record $192M First Weekend at the Box Office – Kim Willi (USA Today, February 18, 2018).
5 Lessons from Black Panther That Can Save Our Lives – and Transform Black Politics – Frank Leon Roberts (Medium, February 16, 2018).
A Wrinkle in Time's Representation Is Just as Important as Black Panther – Donyae Coles (Wear Your Voice, February 19, 2018).
After Black Panther, Will Hollywood Finally Admit That Black Films Can Travel? – Zeba Blay (The Huffington Post, February 27, 2018).
Black Panther Sequel Officially Confirmed By Marvel Studios Head – Andy McDonald (The Huffington Post, March 9, 2018).
Black Panther Hits $1 Billion Mark In Worldwide Box Office Numbers – Doha Madani (The Huffington Post, March 10, 2018).
Build Bridges, Not Barriers: Black Panther and the Enduring Chasm between Africans and African Americans – Stephanie Shonekan (Praxis Center, March 13, 2018).
White Writer Calls Black Panther "Hollywood’s Worst Nightmare" and Blames It for White People’s Problems – Monique Judge (The Root, March 20, 2018).
She Started Acting at 88. Four Years Later, She’s Recognized Everywhere for Black Panther – Kelyn Soong (The Washington Post, March 23, 2018).
Five Times Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther Was Comics Accurate (and Five Times He Wasn't) – Trevon Gibbs (CBR.com, May 25, 2020).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Wolvie
• Season of the (Scarlet) Witch
• One Divine Hammer
• What the Vatican Can Learn from the X-Men
• The New Superman: Not Necessarily Gay, But Definitely Queer

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Quote of the Day

NOTE: Emma González is a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the scene of last Wednesday’s horrific mass shooting that killed 17 people. Earlier today, the 18-year-old gave an impassioned speech at a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale. Following is an excerpt.

If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.

But, hey, you want to know something? It doesn’t matter, because I already know. Thirty million dollars. And divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and one-half months in 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump? If you don’t do anything to prevent this from continuing to occur, that number of gunshot victims will go up and the number that they are worth will go down. And we will be worthless to you.

To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you.

[. . .] The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids and our parents seem to be the only ones who notice to call BS. Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers nowadays, saying that all we are is self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn’t reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say that tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say that no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.

– Emma González
February 17, 2018

NEXT: Signs of the Times

Related Off-site Links and Updates:
After Florida, I Had Lost Hope. Then I Saw Emma González – Suzanne Moore (The Guardian, February 19, 2018).
Emma Gonzalez Survived the Florida Shooting. Now She’s Taking on Trump and the NRA – Christal Hayes (USA Today, February 17, 2018).
School Shooting Survivor Emma González Speaks Out: "We Don't Want These People in Charge Anymore" – Elaine Aradillas (People, February 19, 2018).
Parkland Survivors Rip Politicians' "Pathetic" Responses – Lindsey Ellefson (CNN, February 20, 2018).
Change Is Coming in the 'BS' National Debate on Gun Violence – Eric Ortiz (Truthdig, February 19, 2018).
Florida School Shooting Survivors on Face the Nation – CBS News (February 18, 2018).
The Kids Are Going to Save You, America. There's No One Else Left to Do It – Bradley Burston (Haaretz, February 19, 2018).
Florida Shooting Survivors Announce National March Against Gun Violence – Cristiano Lima (Politico, February 18, 2018).
I Lost My Little Brother at Sandy Hook. Here’s What’s Different About the Florida Shooting – Danielle Vabner (The Huffington Post, February 19, 2018).
Gun Reform: Speaking Truth to Bullshit, Practicing Civility, and Effecting Change – Brené Brown (BrenéBrown.com, November 8, 2016).
Trump and Republicans Are Blaming Mental Health for America's Gun Problem After the Florida School Shooting — Here's Why They're Wrong – Michal Kranz and Hilary Brueck (Business Insider, February 15, 2018).
Here Are the Congressional Candidates Who Got the Most NRA Money in the 2016 Campaign, by State – Florida Is No. 3 – John W. Schoen (CNBC, February 15, 2018).
The NRA Invested Millions in These Politicians in 2016 – Heather Timmons (Quartz, February 14, 2018).
This is America: 9 out of 10 Public Schools Now Hold Mass Shooting Drills for Students – Alexia Fernández Campbell (Vox, February 16, 2018).
Are Dead Children the Price of Freedom? – Christian Christensen (Common Dreams, February 17, 2018).
Five Arguments Against Gun Control — and Why They Are All Wrong – Evan Defilippis and Devin Hughes (Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2016).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Social Roots of Yet Another American Tragedy
• Something to Think About – December 14, 2012
• Quote of the Day – December 15, 2012
• Rejoice?
• “I Pray, I Pray”
• Prayer of the Week – June 19, 2016
• Quote of the Day – October 2, 2017
• Discerning and Embodying Sacred Presence in Times of Violence and Strife
• Questioning God's Benevolence in the Face of Tragedy

Image: Associated Press.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Gabriel Fauré's "ChristoPagan" Requiem

Above: The interior of Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall during the intermission
of the January 9 performance of the Minnesota Orchestra.

This time last Friday I was with my good friend Brian at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis. I was Brian's guest for the Minnesota Orchestra's February 9 concert, a definitely highlight of which was the orchestra's performance of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, Opus 48 (concert version of 1900).

Conducted by Bernard Labadie, the performance featured a four-part mixed chorus (Minnesota Chorale) with soprano and baritone vocal soloists (Helene Guimette and Philippe Sly respectively), plus orchestra comprising two flutes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, harp, organ and strings. Yes, it was quite the performance!

I also realized that as a teenager I had sang the Requiem's Sanctus in a little high school chorale group I was a part of in 1980 or '81. I recognized it immediately when I heard it last Friday night, the first time in over 35 years! Indeed, I'd never totally forgotten it and could still hum a good part of it. What I had forgotten, though, was where it was from and who wrote it. Now I know.

In the concert's excellent program notes, written by Eric Bromberger, it's noted that Faure's Requiem has been called pagan rather than Christian. This gave me a good chuckle, especially given my interest in aspects of the pagan spiritual path. Bromberger contends that those who consider the Requiem to be pagan do so because it doesn't include a description of the horrors of damnation or an admission of humanity's unworthiness. It's a fair enough contention, but in stating it Bromberger appears to make the common mistake of equating "pagan" with "non-believer," seemingly in all things sacred.

To be clear: like people on other spiritual paths, those on the pagan path seek, discern, and respond to the Divine Presence. What is perhaps unique about paganism is that this path recognizes the Divine Presence in all things, though particularly in the natural world – the elements, the cycle of the seasons, and the inherent diversity of life. There is an elemental power and beauty in all of these things, a grounding power and beauty that paradoxically transcends doctrine and dogma. I hear and feel such beauty and gravitas in Faure's Requiem.

Indeed, I actually think Faure's Requiem is a wonderful reflection of the inclusive path known as "ChristoPaganism," a range of spiritualities which, as Lisa Frideborg writes "combines beliefs and practices of Christianity with those of Paganism, or observes them in parallel." (For previous Wild Reed posts that focus on this combination and these parallels, click here, here and here.)

Following, with added images and links, is Eric Bromberger's commentary on Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, Opus 48. Enjoy!

Setting the Requiem Mass for the Dead to music is a challenge which makes certain composers reveal their deepest nature, and when we hear their Requiem settings, we peer deep into their souls. From the self-conscious pageantry of the Berlioz Requiem to the lyric drama of Verdi, from the independence of Brahms (who chose his own texts to make it a distinctly German Requiem) to the anguish of Britten’s War Requiem, a setting of the Requiem text can become a spectacularly different thing in each composer’s hands.

The gentlest of settings

What most distinguishes the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré is its calm, for sure this spare and understated music is the gentlest of all settings. Where Berlioz storms the heavens with a huge orchestra and chorus, Fauré rarely raises his voice above quiet supplication. Verdi employs four brilliant soloists in an almost operatic setting, but Fauré keeps his drama quietly unobtrusive.

While Brahms shouts out the triumph of resurrection over the grave, Fauré calmly fixes his eyes on paradise. Britten is outraged by warfare, but Fauré remains at peace throughout.

Much of the serenity of Fauré’s Requiem results from his alteration of the text, for he omits the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) of the traditional text. Berlioz and Verdi evoke the shrieking horror of damnation, but Fauré ignores it – his vision of death foresees not damnation, but only salvation. While he reinserts a line from the Dies Irae in the Libera me, the effect remains one of quiet confidence in redemption. Fauré underlines this by concluding with an additional section, In Paradisum – that title reminds us of the emphasis of the entire work, and Fauré brings his music to a quiet resolution on the almost inaudible final word “requiem” (rest).

The Requiem’s evolution

The Fauré Requiem has become one of the best-loved of all liturgical works, but it took shape very slowly. The mid-1880s found Fauré [left] struggling as a composer. He had achieved modest early success with a violin sonata and piano quartet, but now, in his 40s, he remained virtually unknown as a composer. For more than 25 years he supported himself by serving as choirmaster and organist at the Madeleine, and it was during these years – particularly following the death of his father in 1885 – that Fauré began to plan his Requiem setting. He was just completing the score when his mother died on January 31, 1887. The first performance took place at the Madeleine two weeks later, on February 16.

But the music performed on that occasion was very different from the version we know today. It was scored for a chamber ensemble and was in only five movements rather than seven. Over the next decade, Fauré returned to the score several times and changed it significantly. The orchestration began to grow, and he added two movements: the Offertorium in 1889 and the Libera me in 1892. The “final” version dates from about 1900.

The music: “from a twilight world”

The Fauré Requiem seems to come from a twilight world. There are no fast movements here (Fauré’s favorite tempo markings, which recur throughout, are Andante moderato and Molto adagio), dynamics are for the most part subdued, and instrumental colors are generally from the darker lower spectrum. Violin sections were added only in the final version, and even here they remain silent in three of the seven movements. In the Introit and Kyrie, the chorus almost whispers its first entrance on the words “Requiem aeternam,” and while the movement soon begins to flow, this prayer for mercy comes to a pianissimo conclusion.

At this point in a Requiem Mass should come the Dies Irae, with its description of the horrors of damnation, the admission of man’s unworthiness, and an abject prayer for mercy. Fauré skips this movement altogether and goes directly to the Offertorium with its baritone solo at “Hostias.” This movement, which Fauré composed and added to the Requiem the year after its original premiere, comes to one of the most beautiful conclusions in all the choral literature as the long final Amen seems to float weightlessly outside time and space. Fauré does finally deploy his brass instruments in the Sanctus, but even this movement comes to a shimmering, near-silent close.

The Pie Jesu brings a complete change. In his German Requiem, Brahms used a soprano soloist in only one of the seven movements, and Fauré does the same thing here. The effect – almost magical – is the same in both works: Above the dark sound of those two settings, the soprano’s voice sounds silvery and pure as she sings a message of consolation.

At the start of the Agnus Dei the violas play one of the most graceful melodies ever written for that instrument, a long, flowing strand of song that threads its way through much of the movement. Tenors introduce the text of this movement, which rises to a sonorous climax, and at the point Fauré brings back the Requiem aeternam from the very beginning; the violas return to draw the movement to its close.

The final two movements set texts from the Burial Service rather than from the Mass for the Dead. The Libera me was composed in its earliest form in 1877, and Fauré adapted it for the Requiem in 1892. Over pulsing, insistent pizzicatos, the baritone soloist sings an urgent prayer for deliverance. The choir responds in fear, and the music rises to its most dramatic moment on horn calls and the sole appearance in the entire work of a line from the Dies Irae. But the specter of damnation passes quickly, and the movement concludes with one last plea for salvation.

That comes in the final movement. Concluding with In Paradisum points at the special character of the Fauré Requiem: It assumes salvation, and if Fauré believed that death was “a happiness beyond the grave,” he shows us that in his concluding movement. There is a surprising parallel between the conclusions of the Fauré Requiem and the Mahler Fourth Symphony, composed in 1900: Both finales feel consciously light after what has gone before, both offer a vision of paradise, and in both cases it is the sound of the soprano voice that leads us into that world of innocence and peace. Mahler’s soprano soloist presents a child’s unaffected vision of heaven, while Fauré has the soprano section take the part of the angels who draw us into paradise. Fauré “wanted to do something different” with his Requiem, and he achieves that in a finale that quietly arrives at “eternal happiness.”

Fauré’s Requiem has been called pagan rather than Christian, no doubt by those who miss the imminence of judgment. But it is hard to see this gentle invocation of Christ and the mercy of God – and confidence in paradise – as pagan. Rather, it remains a quiet statement of faith in ultimate redemption and rest, one so disarmingly beautiful as to appeal to believer and non-believer alike.

– Eric Bromberger
(from Minnesota Orchestra – February 2018 / Showcase)

To listen to Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem as performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Robert Shaw, Conductor), Judith Blegen (Soprano), and James Morris (Baritone), click here.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Advent: A "ChristoPagan" Perspective
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son
• Pope Francis' Understanding of Catholicism: An Orchestra in Which All Can Play!
• A Musical Weekend
• Fusion, Fluidity and Grace: The Music of Claude Chalhoub
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Blessing the Dust

Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday

by Jan Richardson

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial –

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

– Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace:
A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Writes Jan Richardson about the significance and meaning of Ash Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday beckons us to cross over the threshold into a season that’s all about working through the chaos to discover what is essential. The ashes that lead us into this season remind us where we have come from. They beckon us to consider what is most basic to us, what is elemental, what survives after all that is extraneous is burned away. With its images of ashes and wilderness, Lent challenges us to reflect on what we have filled our lives with, and to see if there are habits, practices, possessions, and ways of being that have accumulated, encroached, invaded, accreted, layer upon layer, becoming a pattern of chaos that threatens to insulate us and dull us to the presence of God.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Winter of Content

I've noted previously that ever since moving to the U.S. from Australia in 1994, I've had a love/hate relationship with Minnesota winters.

I loathe, for instance, the cold and the ice (the snow, it's true, I'm not quite as adverse to). Yet, on the other hand, I appreciate the pronounced seasons of my second home here in the North Star State, something that's quite different from Australia; and I love how winter stirs in me the desire to go deep within, to retreat and take stock of my life in ways that are quiet and mindful. And, of course, I love the festivals of this time of year, the winter solstice and Christmastide, with all their rich and interconnected symbolism.

I'm definitely not one who tries to conquer winter. By this I mean I'm okay with allowing winter's adverse attributes to influence my decision-making around where and when I go places. True, such attributes don't totally dictate my movements, but for sure I'm much more inclined to bend like a reed to the season's call to hunker down, rest, be reflective. I really think that when we do this we honor and say yes to winter's invitation to become that bit more attuned to the natural world around us; a world to which, because of all our technological advances and their accompanying expectations, we can easily forget we are connected. I've come to believe that when we establish a resonance with the seasons and connect accordingly with the natural world, we honor Sacred Mystery immanent in all things.

I was reminded of all these thoughts when I read a piece in the Star Tribune last month by Kim Ode. As you'll see, Ode shares much of my thinking on the season of winter and its invitation to recharge ourselves by taking a "seasonal state-of-mind shift into slow" and doing whatever brings a "sense of quiet satisfaction."

Following are excerpts from Ode's January 7 Star Tribune piece.

This is the season of hibernation, when we feel gently compelled to hunker down, to snuggle in, to stare into a fire's embers. [. . .] Humans can't hibernate as bears do . . . [but] maybe we once hibernated, back when we, too, were at the mercy of the elements, when caves were cold, firewood scanty, food scarce and geese still were the sole possessors of their down. But then we kept evolving, going on to invent furnaces, grocery stores, insulation, long underwear and cocoa. [. . .] It's thrilling, really, what humanity has accomplished in a few odd millennia. But we've let things get out of hand. We rarely slow down anymore. And when we do, we fret.

[. . .] But [by not slowing down and taking a break] we're sabotaging ourselves. Taking a break actually helps us become more successful. The Harvard Business Review spelled it out in an article, "Resilience is about how you recharge, not how you endure."

In short, if we deny ourselves stretches of recovery time, we increase our chances of screwing up at work or – just as bad, maybe worse – screwing up at home.

So let's consider the question of recharging not in week's vacation doses, nor in 20-minute naps, but rather in a seasonal state-of-mind shift into slow.

[. . .] Happily, our winter climate is ade for slowing down. [. . ]. Don't misunderstand. Slowing down doesn't mean stopping. Human hibernation is more about spending time at a different pace, doing less for a while, or doing anything more thoughtfully. [. . .] We actually were introduced to this pace last year when "hygge" hit the headlines as a rediscovered lifestyle trend. Nordic in origin – Danish, specifically – it's a way of living with a sense of conviviality and comfort. Lots of candles are involved, providing psychic warmth.

Hygge can be a private pursuit, but it also encourages gathering with friends for conversations, for board games, for supping soup that began by soaking dried beans for 12 hours. Because what's the rush?

Bottom line: Whether you call it hygge or hibernating, this is the time of year to do whatever brings you a sense of quiet satisfaction. Maybe it's puttering about the kitchen, chopping vegetables for that soup, or cleaning out the junk drawer.

Maybe it's sorting through old photos and letting yourself get sidetracked by memories. If you don't complete the task, that's okay. You can't flunk hibernation.

– Kim Ode
Excerpted from "Go Slow, for the Winter of Your Content"
Star Tribune
January 7, 2018

Related Off-site Link:
Feeling Frantic? Disconnected? Isolated? Take a Moment to Learn About the Slow Movement – Kim Ode (Star Tribune, January 7, 2017).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Three Winter Gatherings
• In Wintry Minnesota, An Australian Afternoon Tea
• A Winter Reflection
• Winter Beauty
• Winter Light
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Photo of the Day

Image: Some of the beautiful beadwork on display and for sale at the Midtown Global Market in south Minneapolis. (Photo: Michael Bayly)

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Quote of the Day

The great political issue now facing our country is not Democrat vs. Republican or progressive vs. conservative. It's much deeper than that. It's about democracy vs. authoritarianism.

Today we have a president who is undermining the First Amendment by consistently referring to media criticism as "fake news." He has questioned the authority of our independent judiciary. He has tried to make it harder for people to vote by wildly exaggerating the extent of voter fraud. He has viciously attacked those in law enforcement who have investigated him. And yesterday he suggested that members of Congress who don't mindlessly stand and applaud his every word are guilty of "treason."

Our job now is to remind Trump and his allies what democracy is all about. By our grassroots activism we will defend President Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, when he stated, "that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Our job: Stand up. Fight back. Get involved.

– Senator Bernie Sanders
via Facebook
February 6, 2017

Related Off-site Links:
Bernie Sanders: Trump “Is a Fraud” Sending Nation in “Authoritarian Direction” – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, February 5, 2017).
Gangster Capitalism and Nostalgic Authoritarianism in Trump’s America – Henry A. Giroux (Slate, December 3, 2017).
New Report Classifies US as a “Flawed Democracy” – Nicole Karlis (Salon, January 31, 2018).
The True State of Donald Trump’s Union? Unlimited Corruption – Amanda Marcotte (Salon, January 31, 2018).
Media’s State of the Union: Normalizing Lies and Hoping for Compromise – Justin Anderson (FAIR, February 6, 2018).
Trump’s Xenophobic Vision of America Is Inciting Racist Violence – Suman Raghunathan (The Nation, January 27, 2018).
In the Age of Trump: New Report Shows Acceptance of LGBT People Drops – David Badash (The New Civil Rights Movement, January 25, 2018).
Constitutional Crisis in Slow Motion – Charles M. Blow (The New York Times, February 4, 2018).
Trump Wants a Military Parade Because Fascism Isn’t Coming to America Fast Enough – Monique Judge (The Root, February 6, 2018).
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to Trump: “How Dare You Lecture Us About Treason” – Melissa Quinn (The Washington Examiner, February 6, 2018).

UPDATES: Republican Ruthlessness and Democratic Ineptitude Got Us Here – Charles P. Pierce (Esquire via Common Dreams, February 8, 2018).
Democrats' "Resistance" to Trump Is Eroding, and So Are Their Poll Numbers – Will Stancil (The Atlantic, February 9, 2018).
As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats, Hungary Shows What’s Possible – Patrick Kingsley (The New York Times, February 10, 2018).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Something to Think About – January 22, 2017
• Global Condemnation for Trump's Latest Ignorant and Racist Comments
• Hope in the Midst of Collapse
• With Republicans at the Helm, It's the United States of Hypocrisy
• Donald Trump: A View from Australia
• Trump's America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence
• Quote of the Day – April 6, 2017
• Quote of the Day – March 26, 2017
• A Profoundly Troubling and Tragic Indictment
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying "No" to Donald Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• Election Eve Thoughts
• Carrying It On
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Trump's Playbook
• Hope, History and Bernie Sanders

Image: Sen. Bernie Sanders. (Photographer unknown)

Saturday, February 03, 2018

Nakhane Touré's "Tortured Journey to Clarity"

This evening for music night at The Wild Reed I share "In the Dark Room" by South African musician Nakhane Touré. It's a track from his 2014 debut album Brave Confusion, about which Graham Gremore says the following.

Toure’s debut album, Brave Confusion, couldn’t be more appropriately titled. Here is a black Christian male singing love songs about other men in an environment that hasn’t exactly been welcoming towards gay people. The album is an eclectic hybrid of genres and sounds that work surprisingly well together. Think Frank Ocean meets Radiohead meets Antony and the Johnsons with a little Prince and David Bowie thrown in for good measure.

The subject matter is equally as diverse. Touré sings about everything from love to self-loathing to death to self-acceptance. As one reviewer put it, Brave Confusion is “rife with complexities, swathed in a disarming honesty that holds you captive right through his tortured journey to clarity.” The album received four South African Music Awards in 2013, including nominations for Album Of The Year, Best Alternative Album, Newcomer Of The Year, and Male Artist Of The Year.

Following are excerpts from Graham Gremore's 2014 Queerty interview with singer (and now actor) Nakhane Touré.

Your new music video “In the Dark Room” was shot in a prison cell in Constitution Hill, which used to be a prison in Johannesburg.

We initially wanted a derelict lived-in space. Constitution Hill was a very oppressive, cruel place to be in. The video deals with some form of mental imprisonment, a self-hate so drastic, so ugly that it turns violent within you. And while we shot the video I couldn’t help but see the parallels between the location and what we were going for.

Mental imprisonment and self-hatred. Is that what the song is about as well? More specifically, the hatred some gay people feel towards themselves?

Yes, completely. The song is about a searing self-hate, which took on many different guises over the years before the album was released. It’s a very difficult song for me, even though I see it as a groovy pop song, sometimes when I play it live I catch myself falling and I have to re-balance myself.

To contrast that, the album’s opener "Christopher" is much more upbeat.

I wrote the song after the final demos of the album were finished and recorded, and I was listening to a lot of Dirty Mind-era Prince and Busi Mhlongo.

And Christopher was a guy you were chatting with online.

I had not met him [in person] yet. I was supposed to meet him at some bar, but for some reason that did not happen. I was exercising song-writing, trying to see if I could write a catchy “pop” song in the vein of Prince and when I was stuck on the second verse I thought I’d write about this Christopher as a place-holder until I figured out the proper lyrics. At that point I didn’t think that the song would even be in the album. Little did I know that it would be the first single. After the single was released I finally met Chris and now we’ve been dating for about 11 months. I call it a stalker anthem.

How does he feel about being the subject of your first single?

In the beginning he was slightly embarrassed when people realized that the song was about him, but now he’s very pleased about it. And sometimes when I play the song live I change some of the lyrics just to throw him off a little. Although I try not to look at him when I play the song live.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Thank you for recognizing a South African artist. There are many different musicians and artists in this country who don’t have the confidence to come out. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one. Hopefully with this support, more will find the courage to come out.