Black visionaries and racist food systems
Imploring you to watch movies by Black directors because they’re excellent films and not because you feel it part of your civic duty towards a sort of racial enlightenment. Treating the movies this way as some sort of to-do list assignment would miss the point.
In the end diversifying your queue won’t make for any revolution, doing as much heavy lifting as buying anti-racist literature (meaning none). These actions in and of themselves won’t impel about any fundamental change unless you also protest, donate, volunteer, vote.
(If it is education-as-film you want, the first step, of many, might be watching Ava du Vernay’s 13th on Netflix. Operating like a history lesson, the expository documentary that shows how racism roots itself in the criminal justice system. It is unmissable and digestible, even if its contents give you psychic heartburn, as they should.)
For your viewing pleasure, now and always: two great and starkly different films by two visionary Black directors.
A trippy and forgotten modern gem: Ganja & Hess
Bill Gunn was an actor, writer, and filmmaker. Hired by a studio to make a “black dracula” picture, he turned the assignment inside out, wrangling a phantasmagoric movie into the recognizable framework of the age-old vampire tale. On its swooning surface, Ganja & Hess (1973) is plotted genre-fare, easy to follow. After being stabbed by his assistant with an ancient knife, black archaeologist Dr. Hess Greene (Duane Jones, Night of the Living Dead) resurrects (if he even died??) with a thirst for blood. Soon enough the assistant’s window, Ganja (Marlene Clark), comes riding into town and the two become lovers.
The film is sumptuous, at times droll, and cosmically shambolic. The fragmented montages have worsened by both time and unfriendly editing, but I quite thrilled to the ecstatic and heightened chaos that resulted. Ganja & Hess is also oblique enough to feed multiple interpretations. Some things you might think about are: the blood-as-addiction metaphor; how Christianity bristles against African tribal traditions; anthropology with supernaturalism; faith vs magic; the suburban luxury of Hess’s colonial estate, which houses mostly African art and relics; how Ganja treats the Black butler vs how Hess does. All this, to the jumbled tune of gospel-rock, tribal chants, and industrial non-melodies, to show, perhaps, the schisms of identity in the lives of Black Americans. (The soundtrack was composed by Sam Waymon, aka Nina Simone’s brother and a musician in his own right). .
The Europeans at Cannes got it, loved it, the only American film in 1973 at Critics Week; the (white) American film reviewers lambasted it, failing to understand the *purposeful* ambiguity employed by Gunn, an established playwright and screenwriter. He took them to task in a NYTimes op-ed. (“It is a terrible thing to be a black artist in this country — for reasons too private to expose to the arrogance of white criticism.”) The distributor did one worse, recutting it into a titillating blaxploitation picture, the very thing he wanted to avoid.
The film has since been restored and it’s legacy lives on —Spike Lee remade this film as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus — but it is still SO woefully underseen. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.
A rightfully praised must-see: Do the Right Thing
Pertinent then, and now, and all the years between, Do the Right Thing (1989) is compact but expansive film, one of the few enduring works of indie cinema that reverberates through the decades. Spike Lee’s storytelling has never been more taut.
Many by now are familiar with the contents of Michelle and Barack Obama’s first date night movie: rising racial tensions between residents in Bed-Stuy. But Do the Right Thing also highlights racial inequity in the food system through its contextual environs. Set in a historically Black neighborhood, the only source of nourishment for its residents comes from an Italian-American pizzeria. The owner Sal speaks with pride to the sentimental, but ugly truth that the locals grew up on his food — an observation underlining more pernicious issues, like the lack of nutritious sustenance that pervades communities today. Black and brown people in America are more likely to live in food deserts, areas deprived of healthy and affordable food options, and food swamps saturated with unwholesome offerings (corner stores shilling processed junk, McDonalds).
Across from Sal’s, another source of food: the bodega owned by Koreans. Lending practices have historically prevented Black people from qualifying for business loans, a fact that isn’t lost on the older folks around the corner marveling and lamenting the success of these immigrants who, as they probably correctly surmise, stepped off the boat but a year ago. The structural limitations that disadvantage Black business owners have become even more apparent during the pandemic: Only 12% of Black and Latinx business owners successfully received a PPP loan, which favored applicants with a preexisting relationship with the bank (see how the cycle feeds itself). 40% of black-owned businesses are expected to close.
This is just a glimpse at how racism operates in the food system, which also includes exploited labor, land access, hunger, food insecurity, just to name a few. Civil Eats is a great resource if you’re eager to learn more.
And if you want to donate:
Kia Feeds the People Program (coming soon)
More organizations via HEAL Food Alliance