I thought of Beyoncé often while watching writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s (‘Love and Basketball’) new film ‘Beyond The Lights.’ The main character, pop star Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is supposed to remind us of Beyoncé, as well as Rihanna, with bits of Nicki Minaj, Lauren Hill, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan thrown in. In early scenes we see her in elaborate videos wearing hardly any clothes, her skimpy outfits often incorporating glittering chains. She has first blonde, then purple, long flowing hair.
About a decade ago, the powers that be were trying to make Beyoncé a movie star in films like Dreamgirlsand that Austin Powers sequel where she wore a huge afro. But instead of going the way of Diana Ross (Beyoncé’s part in Dreamgirls was based on her life) with a film career fizzling after she was cast in roles that used fewer and fewer of the qualities that made her so compelling in her Lady Sings the Blues debut, Beyoncé abruptly cut back on film roles to concentrate on her music career. Her videos and award show performances have become increasingly cinematic–culminating in the stunning black and white video for “Drunk in Love” and her performance at the Video Music awards lit from behind with huge blazing letters that spelled out “Feminist.” She didn’t need to be cast in some white guy’s film to be a star in front of the camera.
I thought of Beyoncé often while watching writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s (Love and Basketball) new film Beyond The Lights. The main character, pop star Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is supposed to remind us of Beyoncé, as well as Rihanna, with bits of Nicki Minaj, Lauren Hill, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan thrown in. In early scenes we see her in elaborate videos wearing hardly any clothes, her skimpy outfits often incorporating glittering chains. She has first blonde, then purple, long flowing hair. We see her sing alongside a tattooed white rapper, Kid Culprit (Richard Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly, who is like a taller, more current version of Eminem) while she wears shoes with heels so high it’s a marvel that she–or anyone–can walk in them, let alone dance. She wins an award and chugs champagne as she passes screaming, adoring crowds on the way to her limo. She tells the paid detail cop, Kaz (Nate Parker), outside of her hotel room not to let anyone disturb her, so he shuts out two of her hangers-on but relents to let in her controlling mother, Macy (Minnie Driver). When he hears Macy scream, he goes into the room himself where he sees that Noni is seated on the railing of her hotel balcony, many stories up, ready to jump.
This film is the second one this year in which a Black woman director (with a script from a Black woman screenwriter) has cast Mbatha-Raw as the essential center of a film (the art house hit Bellewas the first), and she rewards their faith by giving her all. In contrast to the Jane-Austen-like romantic intrigue in Belle, in Lights she’s a powerhouse, utterly convincing as Noni (if she had faltered for even a moment the film would devolve into camp) whether she’s dancing in a tightly choreographed award show performance, singing (Mbatha-Raw’s voice is the one we hear during all of Noni’s songs: the film has been billed as a love story but doubles as a musical), interacting with other characters, or doing all three: during the award show appearance we see her expressive face send clear messages to both Kaz, who is in the wings and Kid Culprit, who is performing onstage with her. Prince-Bythewood also seamlessly and sometimes wittily incorporates into the film the modern media landscape: music videos, award shows, talk shows (we see two appearances from famous chastiser of his fellow Black people, Don Lemon), Youtube and Twitter, which perhaps shouldn’t be an unusual achievement, but is.
After a summer marked by the incidents in which white police officers killed unarmed Black people, having a Black police officer as the hero may not be the best fit. But Parker is believable and likeable in the role–and like Mbatha-Raw embodies the character with touching sincerity. He does so even in scenes like the one in which he wraps Noni’s cut hand in the shirt off his back, a flimsy excuse for us to ogle his flawlessly muscled chest, abs, and arms. When this moment came the audience I saw the film with laughed–so did I–but none of us did so in a derisive way.
Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Kaz (Nate Parker)
Minnie Driver as Macy, Noni’s hard-driving manager-mother gets a big speech near the end (the big speeches in this film, like contractions in labor come closer together as it speeds toward its conclusion) in which she explains the desperation behind her ambition for her daughter, but we in the audience never manage to see that desperation ourselves, just the steely mask of Driver’s face. She never really softens, not even in a scene when she asks Noni, “When did you ever tell me that you didn’t want this?”
And Noni answers, “When I was on that balcony.”
While watching most films and TV shows–especially those that take place in Los Angeles and New York–I’ve wondered if anyone associated with the production ever looked up and noticed they were surrounded by Black and brown people–who were neither homeless nor worked in cleaning or wait staff positions. Beyond The Lights is one of the few recent films I’ve seen (besides Dear White People) which takes for granted that Black people, especially Black women, are everywhere; they’re not just entertainers but also political consultants and hairdressers. When Kaz is saving Noni he chants, “I see you. I see you. I see you.” Apparently a Black woman director is one of the few people who can see all the Black women in real life who aren’t “the help.”
I should confess that I dislike most mainstream films. I hated The Devil Wears Prada, which marks the last time I ever believed critics’ raving about a multiplex hit with a woman protagonist. But at Beyond The Lights, I had almost as much fun as I did watching Snowpiercer.Lights reminded me of the old ’80s TV series Dynasty (although the story has a somewhat different setting) with better acting and a bigger budget: a compilation of confrontations between beautiful people in (and out of) beautiful clothes: the film even has a scene in which one woman slaps another, echoing Dynasty’s famous fights between women. Parker and Mbatha-Raw have great chemistry together, shown most memorably in a love scene that has Beyoncé’s “Drunk In Love” playing on the soundtrack. Beyond The Lights gives the audience many other simple pleasures and, at least for its duration, makes us wonder what else we could ever want from the movies.
I don’t see movies in the theatre very often. I know, for someone who co-founded and writes for a film site to say that is tantamount to treason. But, it’s true: there has to be a good reason for me to plunk down ten bucks (I’m a starving writer, friends!) to sit in a movie theatre and put up with texting & talking teens and coughing & sneezing strangers, when I’d usually rather be in the comfort of my own living room.
Here are some examples of what brings me to the theatre:
A movie is nominated for some serious awardage.
A movie tells a story about women (other than ladies getting hitched), or is told by women.
A movie’s cinematography demands the big-screen, public experience.
My movie dollars are political speech.
It’s for the last two reasons that I saw Red Tails last weekend in the theatre. First, a whiz-bang action movie involving fighter pilots in WWII is definitely more fun in the theatre than on my couch. It’s the kind of movie in which you want the crowd’s gasps and applause at moments of high tension and release. You want the visceral experience of flight and fear, loss and victory. Second, since Red Tails is the first big-budget Hollywood action movie featuring an all-Black cast—and is both written and directed by Black men—I wanted to help send movie executives a message. See, as I pointed out last week in a preview post, producer George Lucas couldn’t get any company to distribute it—they feared the film would have no foreign market (which is where Hollywood currently makes a huge portion of its revenues). It took Lucas decades to bring the film from idea to reality.
So, the story behind the film means a lot to me. In case I’m not perfectly clear, it’s a damn shame that in 2012 Hollywood is too fearful, too conservative, too—frankly—racist to embrace a film about bona fide World War II heroes who happen to be Black. And don’t give me that argument that movies about the Tuskegee Airmen have already been made.
But on to the actual movie, and to a pleasant surprise.
Although “action” isn’t my favorite genre, I can say without reservation that I really enjoyed Red Tails. Even though there are no women in the movie, aside from an Italian love interest and a brief appearance by her mother (the two speak to each other in untranslated Italian, but it’s safe to assume they talk about a man, so the movie fails the Bechdel Test)—more on that later. The movie is exciting, entertaining, funny at moments, deeply sad at others, and altogether engaging. Plus, as it’s based on the real experience of the Tuskegee Airmen, you might learn something while being entertained (although U.S. moviegoers are often portrayed as only wanting the latter, I suspect most of us actually want both).
Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Major Emanuelle Stance, sans pipe
The style of the movie is an homage to ‘40s and ‘50s hokey action flicks, so you get some corny lines (and some hilarious white-dude dialogue–imagine in a robotic voice: “I sure hope we meet up with those Red Tails again.”), stock characters, clear lines between good and evil, and affected performances—especially from Cuba Gooding, Jr. and His Pipe. Even if you’re not familiar with the movies being imitated, nothing stands out as particularly peculiar and, compared with the majority of Hollywood action flicks, the movie—even though it’s about war and defeating the German military—is rather innocent. Innocent in the way that you kind of hope young men the world over will watch it, and pass on some others.
Now, let me say more about why I’m okay with this movie—and with writing about it on a site that focuses on women in media and almost daily reports on how woefully underrepresented women are—leaving out women. It’s true that some movies are about men—particularly films about men in historic wars who are in combat positions. That’s not to say that war doesn’t strongly impact women, but for the majority of the 20th century, combat was done by men. Do we already have a plethora of films about men in combat? Yes, of course. But there are still untold stories, and although anyone familiar with the history of Black men in the U.S. should know about the Tuskegee Airmen, the sad fact remains that it’s not an often-told story in the nation’s history. Further, including women in this movie (again, there is a female love interest who appears in a rather common and predictable storyline) would detract—and distract—from the central story. If a sequel is, in fact, made—and it takes place when the men return home and are treated as second-class citizens in the country they fought for—it should include women.
Further, if you compare this action movie with basically any other action movie in recent memory, one important element is missing: rampant misogyny. Perhaps the film would’ve been betraying its style if it included the kind of talk and images about women that are so common today, but in this regard it was completely refreshing. My feminist ire wasn’t raised a single time (though the romantic subplot might’ve drawn an eye roll). Perhaps that reveals more about me than the actual film, but the basic respect for women, even when they were almost completely absent, was a relief.
As happy as I am that Red Tails was made and did well its opening weekend (landing at the number 2 box office spot), it does bother me a bit that the historic element of the making of the film—with its Black writers, director, and stars—was all in the name of war propaganda. That’s not to belittle or reduce the accomplishments of the real-life Tuskegee Airmen. But the politics of it all reminds me a bit of The Hurt Locker. More specifically, director Katherine Bigelow was the first woman to win a Best Director Academy Award (and only the fourth woman ever nominated), but she had to make a very masculine and male-centered war film to achieve that level of respect and acclaim. Would a movie about another subject receive the same amount of attention and box-office success as Red Tails?
cast of Red Tails
Red Tails is far from the first film to feature a Black cast, but as someone on Twitter asked us, is it the first all-Black film that white people care about? In other words, we as a culture are very good at making period pieces and then looking at them, with self-righteousness, shaking our heads at how foolish and awful people were back then, and simultaneously congratulating ourselves for being so much better. But, more often than not, “back then” looks more like “present day” than most of us want to admit. (One recent outrageous example: in Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina primary victory speech last weekend, one crowd member reportedly shouts “String him up!” in reference to our current U.S. President.)
We should absolutely honor the heroes of our past, like the Tuskegee Airmen, but let’s not forget heroes like them exist today and have to face different but still very real demons when they come home. I, for one, would like to see more of those movies.
Rotten Tomatoes ranks Red Tails as Rotten, with a 33% rating (although the audience rating is a positive 73%). What did you think of the movie?
