The devil finds leisure

ABSTRACT

In 1976, James Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work is published, a scathingly telling piece of cinematic critique at the height of exploitation and the ongoing efforts of the Black Liberation Movement (BLM). Prior to that in 1963, Baldwin had published The Fire Next Time, a poignant letter to a nephew on the state of America in the midst of eventual civil unrest. What is presented is a fictionalized letter to a family member that takes the reader through a day-in-the-life of a racialised self within a society that does the work of racialising through forms of leisure entertainment, all in the midst of a pandemic and global civil unrest. Within that day, Baldwin’s work serves as the inspiration for this recollection and criticism, as very little has been discussed about fiction as entertainment for consumption and the implications of this consumption. Here, the devil finds leisure as much as work.

KEYWORDS:

• The White Gaze
• racial imaginations
• racial reconciliation fantasies
• film theory
• James Baldwin
• racialisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Howard (2018) touched upon the impact of the history of minstrelsy in the United States on contemporary Canadian Blackface. In this article Howard noted that Cool Runnings, its popularity, and that popularity inspired re-enactments by White fans. This re-imagining of our Jamaica along with this fictionalization of egalitarianism served as forms of anti-Blackness, in particular Black Caribbean-Canadians in Canada.

2 It is good to note here on race and media that Denzin (2001) stated, ‘media and the cinematic racial order are basic to understanding Race relations in any society. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries these intertwined racial orders, the media and the relational, are themselves products of ongoing systems of racism’ (p. 244).

3 ‘Bling is Black’ indicated the need for status-signalling as an important aspect of the burgeoning Black middle classes around the world, particularly South Africa, that is often times informed by displays of conspicuous consumption coming from the United States (Martínez-Roca and Vazi 2012).

4 Just in case you don’t know, cousin, 2 Chainz is a United States-based Southern hip hop artists, known for expanding the trap style of the genre (influenced by places that drugs are illegally sold). He also collaborated with Tampa-based Jamaican producer, RiecesPiec.es.

5 Outrage was mixed, as the writer sarcastically questioned, ‘so Suits and Scandal would be withdrawn from cable television programming in the country? So now I could watch something on free-to-air television that I had never been interested in previously?’. In Cooke, M. (2015, November 12). How much cable TV can Jamaica sustain?. The Gleaner.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20151112/how-much-cable-tv-can-jamaica-sustain

6 Of further note, cousin, Engles and Kory (2014), assists us in an understanding that such an assessment cancels out the treatment of the non-White bodies that circled Ann Darrow, captured her, and coveted her. The male ‘gaze’ trapped her, but another ‘gaze’ was elevating her above the savaged. A White ‘gaze’ that captured Black souls (on screen and looking screens) at any expense, and even at the sacrifice of the sacred.

7 The next time you may see it, notice that the 2017 version did try to avoid the first trope, but only a little, as Samuel Jackson’s character had a bloodlust to kill Kong that came out of nowhere story-wise (Accardo 2002; Frazier 2007).

8 As Jones (2010) noted, others also have missed this character point-of-view, and even thought that ‘Christopher’ was an already transformed Wikus. I know I did when I first saw the film.

9 But Moses et al. (2010) remarked that this was to be Wikus’ fate, our principle point-of-view character.

10 A joint police and military operation in the impoverished suburb of Kingston is quite common in their efforts to go after ‘criminals’, according to Chappell (2020, June 23). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests-jamaica-t/son-of-woman-killed-in-security-operation-seeks-attention-for-jamaicas-poorest-suburbs-idUSKBN23C2JY

11 It is good to point out here that Jacobs (2009), as Teju Cole noted, the ‘one-dimensionality of the Nigerian characters [was] striking’ in District 9. They were just raw criminals.

12 While Adichie (2009) said, ‘[for] the estimated 1.5 million Nigerians who now live in South Africa, to be Nigerian is to walk under a cloud of negative stereotypes’. The depiction of Nigerians in District 9 was based on real-life drug dealing, fraud, thievery and other activities that we as leisure scholars would likely call deviant behaviour absent of any system analysis.

13 Also in Jacobs (2009), what should interests you cousin, Teju Cole extended his initial criticism by raising, ‘questions of why Blomkamp, who [was] so scrupulously realist in other parts of the film, [had] chosen to depict his Nigerian characters as caricatures. One possibility [was] that he [was] trying to extend the film’s larger argument: that we [were] callous to strangers among us … Or, perhaps it [was] simply a massive blindspot on Blomkamp’s part … .’

14 ‘Zombie’, the word and culturally laden identity had been taken and corrupted from Zombi, along with the even more corrupted description of Haitian Vodou since the travel accounts of Seabrook (1929), ‘The zombie, they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life. People who have the power to do this go to a fresh grave, dig up the body before it has had time to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then make of it a servant or slave, occasionally for the commission of some crime, more often simply as a drudge around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks, and beating it like a dumb beast if it slackens’ (p. 93)

15 In Newman (1999).

16 From Payne (1983).

17 Major Richard J. Daley infamous ‘shoot to kill’ orders during the Chicago Riot during the 1968 Democratic Convention (McCarthy 2006).

18 Please find and order Cacho’s (2012) Social Death, cousin.

19 In Scriver (2009).

20 In the documentary that I highly recommend cousin, Baldwin and Peck (2017).

21 Cousin, there is a long and consistent list of racial reconciliation films: 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy; 1992’s Zebrahead; 1995’s Higher Learning; 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi; 1997’s Amistad; 1999’s The Green Mile; 2000’s Remember The Titans; 2001’s Monster’s Ball; 2002’s Far From Heaven; 2004’s Crash; 2008’s Gran Torino; 2009’s Blindside; 2012’s Red Tails; 2013’s The Butler; 2017’s Hidden Figures; 2018’s Green Book; and, the addition of whatever else that was coming in the years to come). None of this even considered the multitude of adaptations from 1910 to 1987 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that served as the proto-racial reconciliation film, assuring White audiences that Black people were not going to seek revenge for slavery (Stowe 1852).

22 Columbus et al. 2011.

23 The falsehoods of American-based post-racial cinema are often times at the expense of Black bodies (Foster-Singletary 2012; Griffin 2015; Murphy and Harris 2018).

24 The modern-day city of Jackson is quite economically different from the Jackson of the past as depicted in The Help due to White flight (Szulkowska 2017)

25 The words of Morris (2019).

26 In Morris (2011).

27 In Turner (2016).

28 In Baldwin (1976) on p. 30.

29 Baldwin (1976) scathingly continued, ‘for, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop … the housewife, the football player … some governors, presidents … in the eyes of some orphans … and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself … He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do’ (p. 126).

30 While Hughey’s (2009) articulation of the magical Negro/Black person trope, ‘the lower class, uneducated Black person who possesses supernatural magical powers’ (p. 544). Or, an additional consideration is the continued salience of the White savior in film (Hughey 2014). Mueller and Issa (2016) indictment on the movie industry and our own appetites for ‘contemporary representations of racial history and Black suffering’ (p. 132).

31 During the late 1960s and 1970s, WGN was broadcasted to Miami that also was accessible to many Caribbean islands. One of the primary programming, besides Cubs and Bulls games, was Cowboy-Westerns. This led to gun-clap salute at festivals, Cowboy movie-based names for gangs and music artists, among other things (Evans 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rasul Mowatt

Rasul Mowatt, Professor, Department of American Studies, Indiana University USA; Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.