Racism and pop culture

In the wake of this week's tragic events involving police officers, this entry is going to be a little different than usual. Instead of a review, I'm taking a look at how race and racism have been explored in some recent films and TV.

If Quentin Tarantino has been consistently criticized for anything over the course of his career other than gratuitous violence, it would be his gratuitous use of the "n-word". In his on-screen appearance in Pulp Fiction, he speaks lines written by his own hand in which he uses the word repeatedly, and in the more recent films Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, there are so many instances of the slur used against one main black character, it becomes uncomfortable to most viewers. In those examples, Tarantino would cite historical accuracy as the reason to include it so many times, but the frequency honestly could have been cut down. However, the use of language can never be considered as vicious as the use of physical force.

Just like Django, Samuel L. Jackson's character in The Hateful Eight, Major Marquis Warren is a bounty hunter who takes pleasure in getting money for "killing white folk." Throughout the film, he's called a nigger by other characters who refuse him any respect. One shocking moment in The Hateful Eight involves race, but not just that particular word.  Warren describes in detail how he forced a white soldier to strip naked, walk miles in the cold, then perform a sex act in exchange for a blanket. Warren tells this story solely to stoke anger in the racist father of the soldier so he can have an excuse to shoot the old man. In both Django and Eight we're led to sympathize with the black characters when they have the chance to gun down their oppressors, but this method of retaliation against racism shouldn't be encouraged in anything but fiction.

Like Tarantino, Michael Moore is a liberal white director who sympathizes with downtrodden minorities, but he might not always have the right answers. In his most recent documentary Where to Invade Next, he travels to foreign countries to speak to citizens about policies that he thinks the United States should borrow. For the most part, I agree with the points he brings up. France has gourmet school lunches, several parts of Europe have universal health care, and Italian employers offer eight weeks of vacation time per year; all of these could help make America a more pleasant place to live. Moore also visits a couple prisons in Norway and finds they focus more on preparing inmates for the real world rather than punishment, and he points out that Portugal has all drugs legalized and regulated, with positive effects. This leads him to express one theory that I can't wholeheartedly agree with.

Moore posits that the United States began the war on drugs to oppress black people, primarily men, who had historically been using hard drugs more than whites. He says the ability to throw people in jail for drug offenses allowed the country to use these prisoners for their labor and essentially bring slavery back in vogue without anyone raising an eyebrow. I think this is a conspiracy theory that doesn't hold water and that the outlawing of drugs was a well-intentioned but perhaps misguided attempt at eradicating a threat to public health. It's more likely that more drug arrests are made in urban areas because that's where police focus their efforts.

This leads me to think about the depiction of modern prison life and race relations in Netflix's Orange is the New Black. The show was originally based on the book by Piper Kerman and was focused on the fictionalized Piper Chapman, but expanded to include numerous diverse points of view within the womens' prison. It's shown that the inmates of Litchfield gravitate to groupings of their own race with few exceptions, which tends to happen in real prisons. The following two paragraphs contain major spoilers for the fourth season.

Chapman inadvertently gathers a group of white supremacists when she tries to oppose the competition to her business threatened by a Hispanic group. Piper tattles that Maria is starting a gang, and considering her background with gang activity, extra years are added to Maria's sentence. This was another unintended consequence of Piper trying to assert herself as a leader. With nothing to lose, Maria turns to selling drugs in the prison salon, though it's worth noting that the most frequent buyer is white "Nicky" Nichols.

The newly formed white power group takes umbrage any time that someone of another race seems to be given a privilege, like Taystee getting to work in Warden Caputo's office, but of course the neo-Nazis raise no objections when white celebrity Judy King gets a private cell. Judy herself has been accused of racism, and at first this seems to be a stereotype based on her Southern heritage, but an embarrassingly racist puppet show is brought up from her past. When Taystee and Cindy have the idea to sell a photo of Judy to a tabloid, Judy takes the opportunity to give Cindy a kiss for the photo to prove her lack of prejudice. She then seems to get along with the black women but this may be just for appearances. Soon the racial groups come to blows at the encouragement of one of the guards, and a later attempt at authority results in a preventable death. The parallels to the real world couldn't be clearer.

I hope that anyone reading this doesn't have to be reminded of this, but nobody should be judged based on the color of their skin. Period. It's an unforgivable pattern that African Americans get shot by police much more often than any other race. Some misunderstand the Black Lives Matter movement to be racist against white people or hateful toward cops, but its original intent was to focus on the disproportionate loss of life within that minority. It's supposed to be about awareness, not revenge. Those that take it as an excuse to attack police, like the reprehensible shooter in Dallas, are no better than a racist officer misusing his position of authority.

Return to Labyrinth by Jake T. Forbes

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of Jim Henson's Labyrinth, so what better time to experience the manga sequel Return to Labyrinth. It was published by Tokyopop as four volumes between 2006 and 2010, written by Jake T. Forbes, and illustrated by Chris Lie.

In the movie, Sarah Williams had to rescue her infant brother Toby from the Goblin King, Jareth. Over a decade later, Toby becomes the main character, and neither he nor Sarah seem to remember that they've been to the Labyrinth before. Jareth lures Toby into coming back to the otherworldly maze by having a goblin steal his homework, and reveals that he wants Toby to succeed him as King and save the Labyrinth from falling apart. At first, Toby and Jareth are the only returning characters from the film, but they're eventually joined by some familiar faces, as well as new characters.

The main antagonist is a sorceress and queen of a nearby land named Mizumi, who has been wanting to take control of Jareth and his labyrinth ever since he spurned her advances. She creates for him an "ablation" named Moppet, who is servant to Mayor Spittledrum and whose true nature is revealed later on. Mizumi is assisted by her daughters Moulin and Drumlin as well as demons comprised of water, and she fulfills the task of teaching magic to Toby before his coronation as King.

Toby's new friends include a wingless fairy called Hana, her companion Stank, and a goblin named Skub who reminded me of Dobby the house elf who helps Harry Potter. The characters that fans of the movie will recognize include Sir Didymus and Hoggle, as well as (spoiler alert) the return of Toby's heroic but forgetful sister Sarah.

This story was originally planned to be told in three volumes but halfway through the writing process it was expanded to four to give things more room to breathe. I was impressed when I learned this was the debut fiction writing that Forbes had done; up to that point he was an editor and adapter of other writers' manga. This is a worthy followup to a cult classic film, and Forbes couldn't resist dropping in references to other Jim Henson works. He also has Henson's sense of fantasy adventure storytelling mixed with humor; these goblins are big fans of puns. The story can still be understood if you've never seen the movie as there are a number of flashbacks showing what happened.

Usually at this point I'd direct you to the author's website, but he doesn't seem to have one. These books were also difficult to find in nearby libraries. If you're interested in purchasing the series, Amazon is probably the best bet.