everything has a reason: the Michael Richards outburst (2006)

Looking at some of John F. Kennedy's speeches, I got that feeling: this was our president.  Today's leaders can only represent half of us, and we seem to have little use for figures evoking bipartisan support: they write books like Chesley Sullenberger, give lectures like Valerie Plame.  Michael Jordan owns the Charlotte Hornets, among other business interests (and he reportedly likes to gamble).  Similarly, Henry Aaron, Cal Ripken and Derek Jeter stick to baseball.  Stephen King was an impressive critic, but seems to have retreated to fiction.  Mark Zuckerberg says, “start a company," Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos run theirs.  Most film stars are actually selective with political comments.

If success is hard, moral leadership might be hardest.  We know the checkered history of famous preachers.  David Letterman stumbled under the mantle of Paar, Allen and Carson.  Mel Gibson kept a lid on his considerable issues until The Passion of the Christ.  EDIT: add Lance Armstrong, Stephen Collins, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer.

Roseanne Barr made an unlikely bipartisan leader.  A gay-rights pioneer, she became leery of the extremes of the modern Left, and is a Trump supporter.  Certainly, she disappointed her fans, this writer included, with her pathetic tweet.  

EDIT, 12 August 2018: This is why I usually avoid writing about recent events.  Roseanne now says she thought (Obama advisor) Valerie Jarrett was white, as if to excuse (arguably, this makes the tweet worse, an attempt to sneak by a racial insinuation).  As someone who enjoyed Roseanne (1988-97), I'd prefer to assume its star is experiencing mental deterioration, may she find the humility to fall silent. END  

At the same time, it’s hard to wake up every day on-thin-ice.  That truth informs the following piece, written in 2017, mostly about events of 2006.  (I'll return to Roseanne at the end of the post.)
 

Coded Race and the Richards Outburst

Ty Cobb was a charter member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.  He was also hypersensitive and a brawler, and the center of an anecdote that illuminates American racism.  On May 15, 1912, Cobb climbed into the stands in New York to beat up a disabled fan who’d called him a “half-nigger.”  (This incident seeded the idea of Cobb as virulent racist, a fabrication according to Charles Leerhsen, author of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty (2015).) 

The 106-year-old anecdote seems very American: we’re still violent, racist and baiting each other.  Nevertheless, it benefits from annotation: in 1912, many considered race more essential than skin color or facial features, and the “one drop of blood” rule classed a person “black” if they had any black ancestry.  This attitude factored into American resistance to Darwinian science (the "Scopes monkey trial," creationism), in that Darwin suggests — in these terms — we’re all black.  The racist (of any color) is self-loathing.

The fan’s insult points to a question for media criticism: can a character’s race be coded?  The following recreates my own train of thought, and therefore may not be complete, while parts may have been covered by other writers (although searches yielded little, as noted below).  I'll focus on a single combination: white actors as coded black characters.

A knowledge of science fiction gives an advantage, e.g. Star Trek’s Spock has (traditional) Asian characteristics, layered with Leonard Nimoy’s Judaism (the Vulcan salute derives from rabbinical practice).  In the 1980s, at least one critic compared E.T.‘s appearance to that of starving African children, a then-current image in Western culture.  E.T. launched a cycle in which white leads befriend innocent aliens (Starman) or A.I. (Short Circuit).  Sometimes, a black actor plays the alien: Joe Morton in The Brother from Another Planet, Louis Gossett, Jr. in Enemy Mine, Damon Wayans in Earth Girls Are Easy. 

Any discussion of race and science fiction brings up Star Wars.  It's rarely mentioned that James Earl Jones was originally uncredited as the voice of Darth Vader.  Jones was known in 1977, and has a distinctive bass voice — everyone knew it was him, but he and George Lucas playfully left doubt.  Or maybe not playful, given accusations of racism aimed at the franchise, decades before Jar-Jar Binks. 

This may sound comically conspiratorial, but we get caught up in what was/wasn’t intentional.  Both Jones’s non-credit and the Chasing Amy parody distract from the obvious: Darth Vader is a “black villain,” with the voice of an African-American then known for provocative roles.  Jones played the first black president in The Man, and based-on-truth films paired him with white women: he played the Jack Johnson figure in The Great White Hope (Best Actor nod) and the paranormal witness in The UFO Incident. 

Like the black hat in a Western, Darth Vader at least nods toward an African-American villain, relatively rare in Hollywood’s sound era (if more evident than black heroes).  The end of 1983’s Return of the Jedi reveals a pale wretch, but the tickets and toys had been sold, concurrent to the extended tease that Anakin might be African (note also the CW’s short-lived Star-Crossed, about the Atrians).  Similarly, J.K. Rowling was a billionaire before declaring Hermione Granger black.  

Bo Derek was unknown when cast as an idealized female in 10 (1979), source of comic anxiety for Dudley Moore.  The 10 trailer pushes mystery: as we first see Derek with cornrowed hair, the narration says Moore “doesn’t know … where she comes from.”  Again, the implication is she’s not-quite-white, but in this case it’s tantalizing.  Derek soon filmed Tarzan, perhaps the most racialist English-language classic.

Like James Earl Jones, Boris Karloff was uncredited in the 1931 Frankenstein (the credits have “?” opposite “The Monster”).  Like Derek, Karloff was not well-known.  He was British (born William Henry Pratt) but had adopted a stage name that (ultimately) matched an intimidating creature, in an era when the Slavic enemy was often demonized.  Karloff reportedly had Anglo-Indian heritage — his skin was variously described as swarthy, yellow, etc. — he played the title villains in The Mummy and The Mask of Fu Manchu (both 1932).   

Race is a background theme in any Frankenstein narrative.  As the daughter of prominent intellectuals, Mary Shelley had lifetime exposure to debates about slavery.  Whether they admitted so or not, Europeans had to suspect Africans were their distant relatives.  Whereas Dr. Frankenstein tries to abandon his sudden kin, whites enslaved Africans — both were hounded by judgment.

We’ve had media criticism exploring race (gender, class) for at least 50 years.  It’s hard to know if it’s doing more good than harm.  At times the writer (or reader) oversimplifies, or seems motivated by resentment or overcompensation.  In the remainder I try to locate understanding, if only for one person.

Michael Richards played Kramer on Seinfeld; he’s also known for his racist outburst/rant (in 2006) when confronted by a black heckler at a comedy club.  Richards’ famous role may have been a contributing factor.  Although originally based on a white man (Larry David’s former neighbor, Kenny Kramer), and sometimes characterized as a slacker (nut, "pod," hipster-doofus), TV’s Kramer has much in common with the “coon” stereotype of minstrel-show tradition, as described by sociologist David Pilgrim:
 

“The coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon. … The coon differed from the Sambo in subtle but important ways.  Sambo was depicted as a perpetual child … the coon acted childish, but he was an adult; albeit a good-for-little adult.”

(from the site of The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia)

Like the coon, Kramer has distorted beliefs and comical fears, and penchants for wild schemes and fresh fruit.  Like the “Urban Coon” subtype, he’s a sharp dresser despite lack of conventional employment.  Admittedly, Kramer is smarter than typical.  Richards:

“The real key came about eight or nine shows in.  I had been playing Kramer as if he were slow-witted … Then I learned to play him as if he were blocks ahead of what everyone’s saying, and I had him.”    

There are various ways this argument may be misunderstood; for one, I am not defending abusive speech.  Granted, I will omit various Kramer traits and storylines, but even among other influences, the parallel seems clear.  I'm assuming any use of the stereotype was unconscious on the part of the white boomers producing the series (it would hardly have remained unremarked, otherwise).    

Like various plotlines, the casting of Richards plays into a race-bending subtext, in that he’s a large man with kinky hair.  In “The Fusilli Jerry,” Kramer errantly receives “ASSMAN” vanity plates, but soon adjusts to the persona.  In “The Wig Master,” circumstances leave him an evident pimp.  In “The Burning,” he’s an actor for a medical school, and is typecast as gonorrhea patient.  Kramer is an effortless seducer, a recovering gambling addict, and afraid of clowns (they wear whiteface).  He favors Cuban cigars; also Hennigan’s scotch, because it leaves no smell. 

Several misadventures involve skin and/or color: in “The Wife,” Kramer falls asleep in a tanning bed, after which he appears to be in blackface.  In “The Abstinence,” his home smoking-lounge damages his skin.  In “The Butter Shave,” the mistake is butter as tanning lotion.  In “The Chicken Roaster,” Kramer can’t sleep due to the brilliant (red) sign of a new Kenny Rogers Roasters.  After switching apartments, Jerry starts behaving like Kramer, but it’s Kramer who’s addicted to the chicken. 

According to Donald Bogle’s standard reference Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, the foremost screen-actor of coon roles was Stepin Fetchit, who was known for physical mastery —a Richards specialty — and being unfazed by criticism (when in character), also like Kramer.  Bogle notes two 1934 films: in The World Moves On, the character finds himself in the French Army — compare Kramer’s bumbling into jobs in “The Bizarro Jerry” and “The Summer of George.”  In David Harum, the character does dishes while soaking his feet — Kramer prepares salad in the shower in “The Apology.”  

Seinfeld was slow to address Kramer’s lineage, but what’s there connects.  In “The Nose Job,” he needs a jacket from the apartment of his mother’s imprisoned friend.  Elaine pretends to be the man’s daughter, “Wanda Pepper,” while Kramer poses as her fiancé.  The cover is blown when the building’s manager disparages Babs (Kramer’s mother) as “nasty,” a “drunken stumblebum” who’d typically get loud as she “drank Colt 45 from a can.”  (In the U.S., Colt 45 malt liquor is associated with African-Americans, as in ad campaigns with Billy Dee Williams and Snoop Dogg.) 

In “The Switch,” we meet Babs (Sheree North), a bathroom attendant who tells Kramer she has “two years clean.”  The episode ends with Babs discovered in bed with Newman, the unappealing postman.  Per traditional stereotypes, Babs is the sort who’d have sex with non-whites.  Considering all of the above, the buried implication is that Kramer is (part) black.  And regardless of origin, the surname cooperates, by suggesting “creamer,” thus a lightening in color.  (Coffee is a theme for Kramer, e.g., he’s hooked on café lattes.)  Finally, in Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s arc about a Seinfeld reunion (2009), Michael Richards fears he has (fictional) “Groat’s disease”; to raise his spirits, the Kramer-like Leon (African-American actor J.B. Smoove) claims to have Groat’s.  (Of course, the plan goes awry, giving Richards the chance to express anger respectfully.) 

The 1990s was a comeback decade for the coon, inspiring Spike Lee’s despairing Bamboozled (2000).  I’m suggesting neither moral equivalency, nor that Richards was victimized in any way.  Nevertheless, the sampling of a powerful stereotype could cause identity issues for the actor playing Kramer for a decade.  Turning the screw, the character became an icon to a young generation known for hypersensitivity to prejudice.  The actor would have to be the perfect cosmopolitan.  (Kramer’s first name is Cosmo.)  

Novelist Milan Kundera suggested vertigo is the fear of falling meeting the desire to fall.  In 2006, Michael Richards lived a white-American nightmare, but he received compensation: in addition to affirming his own whiteness, he no longer had to fear ruining his career with a racist outburst.  This payoff becomes more tempting if the career is essentially over. 

Given an imperfect memory, I recall one critic citing a coded black character: in Planet of the Apes as American Myth, Eric Greene discusses the title character in Edward Scissorhands.  (I was unable to find references to Kramer in this context.)  Apparently, for our talk of racism, we make the essentialist assumption that a white actor always plays an (entirely) white character.  We diminish the reefs; American race-consciousness is fathomless. 

afterword (2018)

  

I’ll attempt an updated conclusion, while planning to address these matters at greater length.  Also, please note that for various reasons, comments are disabled on this blog. I apologize to any who might otherwise have left (civil) comments. 

In his classic Wayward Puritans, Kai T. Erikson explained that a society gets the deviant behavior it expects.  Sometimes, we overreact: troubled by Quakers (1650s), the Puritan fathers banished these dissenters “on pain of death.”  The policy was “an invitation to disaster, for nothing could so satisfy the Quakers’ call to persecution as a chance to suffer on the gallows for the sake of conscience.”

This dynamic, definition-of-deviance vs. behavior, evolved because it strengthens the community, assuming a consensus majority.  The Puritan authorities prevailed, of course, until later centuries.  Today, we are precisely divided, as between those who consider Roseanne’s tweet deviant, and those more troubled by (what they consider) the overreaction. 

Like Michael Richards, Roseanne became wealthy and famous playing a working-class individual with poor boundaries.  As with Richards, we can assume some degree of identity whiplash.   Roseanne’s career wasn’t over, of course, she’d made a comeback.  In any case, she’s a 65-year-old, on medication, has profusely apologized, and she deserves a second chance.  (EDIT: No, she probably doesn't, in the absence of real contrition.) 

Our excess condemnation stems from the overarching myth addressed by Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate: “the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves” (page 2).  And in his preface: our “refusal to acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians’ embarrassment about sex.”  This becomes “the mentality of a cult,” with one inevitable result being “a ‘politically incorrect’ culture of shock jocks … emboldened by the knowledge that the intellectual establishment has forfeited claims to credibility in the eyes of the public.”

The mistake made by scientific writers, including Pinker, is to presume logic can ever hold sway, society-wide.  History suggests societies run on myths, not facts or logic (perhaps for the same reason no driver expects a terrible accident: reality is too much).  Even when we remold the community to be fairer than in the past, we must compensate with new myths ... or a stealthy return to old ones. 

Like good utopians, Americans are constantly declaring the end of old myths and customs, but with a fatal inability to agree on new (or newly strengthened) ones.  Our usual self-evaluations — tolerance, freedom, free markets, voting — don’t work here because essentially negative (don’t infringe on my rights), and too nearly-global to serve as national/cultural identity.  The syndrome helps explain the runaway wealth gap: even as traditional values fade, we value money. 

As Pinker implies, we are neo-Victorians, with speech taking the place of sex, and those with poor (verbal) impulse-control the “perverts."  This exchange leaves American racism as our primary existential threat.  Cracking down on speech is understandable: unlike systemic racism, we can (often) identify the guilty.  But it doesn’t seem to help, indeed, it may not be coincidence that mass incarceration paced political correctness.  As Van Jones comments in 13^th (1:22:30), criminal justice reform will trigger substitute abuses.  

There is nothing audacious about false hope.  We’re in bad trouble, and no one is coming to bail us out.      

   

everything has a reason: Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal, 1995-99

In his introduction to When Presidents Lie (2004), author Eric Alterman explains his inattention to Bill Clinton, whose lies should've been

"no one's business but that of the liar and his intimates. ... Clinton lied publicly ... only because he was being pursued by a fanatical group of politicians and ideologues who sought -- with the unlimited resources of the Independent Counsel's office -- to make his private life public, something that had happened to no previous president ... Clinton lied about his adulterous behavior to spare himself and his family further public humiliation."  

If the above is true, there's still something missing: after many years doing a pretty-good-job covering his adulterous affairs (little or no incriminating evidence such as photos, letters, etc.) why did Bill Clinton get stupid?  Why did he cheat not only in the White House but the Oval Office, making revelation radioactive?  Why with a woman too unworldly to be trusted with secrets?  There's no avoiding, it wasn't Monica Lewinsky's great beauty.  We can assume people, even presidents, have discreet sex in the White House (the following from the White House Historical Organization):

• The White House has 132 rooms, including 16 family-guest rooms, 1 main kitchen, 1 diet kitchen, 1 family kitchen, and 35 bathrooms.
• Floor area (total of 6 floors) approximately 55,000 square feet.

The site chastely omits bedrooms, but per this Quora thread, there are at least 11, depending on utilization.  A Business Insider list adds such features as the Workout Room, Family Theater (42-seat), Solarium and Private Study.  FYI: in 1997 the Clinton Administration set a record with 36 Christmas trees in the White House.

Less-touted: the Kennedy Administration employed "Fiddle and Faddle," two secretaries who serviced the president.  Granted, scrutiny has increased greatly since the early 1960s, but Bill Clinton knows to find the quiet corner of a sprawling mansion.  Like any president, he has a Secret Service detail sworn to protect him and his secrets.

So: do lust and hubris sufficiently explain Clinton fooling around, in the Oval Office.  With a starstruck 22 year-old.  Who'd attended Beverly Hills High School. Whose mother had written a "gossip biography" (per Wikipedia) on The Private Lives of the Three Tenors, dropping hints she'd had an affair with Placido Domingo.

Alterman is right: Ken Starr was out to get Bill Clinton on any pretext.  As I noted in a piece for Pop Matters, Clinton was an existential threat to the Republican Party, because he re-branded Reaganism as Democratic and hip.  None of which explains delivery of a sex scandal with a big-red-bow.

As in my last post, on the selection of Sarah Palin in 2008, I'll propose a "motivation theory."  First, a few disclaimers:  

• Whether attributing the unconscious to Freudian denial or computer-like efficiency, the mental health profession acknowledges its role in decision-making.¹
• Psychologists and psychiatrists have little incentive to address matters of national interest, leaving these open to any with the requisite interest and insight.  
• The supposed dichotomy "conscious vs. unconscious" is at best a convenient reduction.  Intent is a slippery scale, notoriously hard to prove, and mysterious even to the actor.²   
• To reject motivation theories mainly on grounds of absence of proof is a fallacy: the appeal to ignorance.  
• A motivation theory is an unusual angle on familiar events; it may have been broached before.   

Our chronic resistance to the twilight of consciousness is reflected in our vocabulary and rhetoric.  The suggestion "New Orleans effectively cleansed itself of poor people by its lack of preparation for Katrina," will likely be challenged: "Are you saying it was conscious?"  Well, waiting on that knowledge delays the charge indefinitely.  Casual talk is more likely to concede reality, as in "accidentally-on-purpose."  

Another instance: O.J. Simpson and the Low-Speed Chase.  In 1991, when TV Guide asked for memorable TV-viewing moments, Simpson recalled true-crime, celebrity and altered perceptions: 

"The live coverage of the (1974) SLA/Watts shootout.  There had been much speculation about (Patty Hearst's) innocence and the political implications ... (but) the viewing audience came to the realization of the criminal acts of the SLA."  

In 1994, the media-savvy ex-running back inverted the SLA shootout, thus painting himself a victim of fate and the LAPD.  In the wake of Daryl Gates and Rodney King, Simpson effectually staged a long, sympathy-generating perp-walk.  (Edit, 8 July 2018: After her career as a bank-robbing terrorist, heiress Patty Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison; the sentence was commuted after 22 months.)    

What if Bill Clinton had committed a crime(s) worse than a failed real estate deal or running around on his wife?  In any case, his administration was mired in scandal by 1995, investigated not only by the Independent Counsel but both houses of Congress.  In October, the Senate Whitewater committee issued 49 subpoenas.  In November, Clinton began his affair with Monica Lewinsky.  In January 1996, Hillary Clinton was the first wife of a sitting president to be subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.  

President Clinton had no reasonable way of stopping Ken Starr, or he would've done so.  Consciously acknowledged or not, the Lewinsky scandal might have been least-of-evils: a distraction so spectacular as to stop Starr's investigation, for the same reason a gorged python stops eating.  The affair revealed, Bill Clinton was subjected to scorn and condemnation -- but also sympathy and forgiveness.  And as difficult as impeachment was, it had relatively little to do with shady loans, or with Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey.  

Bill Clinton, like O.J. Simpson, was acquitted.  He then completed his second term.  
  

1. In psychology known as Dual Process Theory.    
2. In February 2015, in his speech on race and law enforcement at Georgetown University, then-FBI Director James Comey noted "much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias," but also, "racial bias isn't epidemic in law enforcement any more than ... in academia or the arts."  

everything has a reason: McCain picks Palin, 2008

** This post reviews Game Change, the 2012 made-for-HBO film **

Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin

Game Change is the fascinating, Emmy-darling account of Sarah Palin's role in the 2008 election.  Although not a flattering portrait of the then-governor of Alaska (played by Julianne Moore), it makes clear she was (also) victim to a careless campaign.  And she was 2-3 gaffes short of respectability.

Though based-on-fact (Nicolle Wallace called the film "true enough to make me squirm"), Game Change is also prophetic: even as Palin becomes a laughingstock her popularity soars among the base, leading to defensive egomania and the "going rogue" (reclaimed) pejorative.

As depicted here, John McCain grew to fear Palin, even as he inched away from the loose-screws showing up at GOP campaign events.  It could've been worse: with Palin hapless at debate prep, her desperate team noted her acting skills and wrote lines for her to memorize (it worked).

Game Change offers psychological nuggets.  Near the end of the first hour, campaign latecomer Wallace (Sarah Paulson) has this epiphany about the hurried vetting process: "You guys didn't grill her because you wanted it to work."  Of this failure, adviser Mark Salter (Jamey Sheridan) later says, "It haunts me."
Finally, the beaten candidate (Ed Harris) confides to strategist Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson as the film's protagonist) that his (McCain's) father and grandfather lost will-to-live after their respective service to country, thus "I can't quit."
                                                         
So: Why Palin?  The usual explanations -- youth, gender, conservative credentials, her sons (one bound for Iraq, another with special needs), a lagging campaign needed disruption -- explain her being considered, not the inattention both to her insecurities and ignorance of world affairs.  If the campaign was out of time, well, why did a major-party campaign wait until out-of-time?

When behavior seems incomprehensible, we often resort to insults, but Senator John McCain and staff were neither stupid nor crazy.  Comprehending irrational behavior requires acknowledging the role of emotions -- the psyche -- with "conscious vs. unconscious" being largely a dichotomy of convenience.  Conversely, to reject unconscious motivations primarily for lack of proof is a fallacy, the appeal to ignorance.

There are enough dots in Game Change for an arrow pointing to McCain's choice, especially in light of subsequent history.  All concerned are amazed by the adulation greeting Barack Obama (Palin gropes for a metaphor: "I didn't know we were running against a Greek god").  At the end, when Schmidt seeks to block Palin's intended "concession speech" -- unprecedented for a V.P. candidate -- he forbids disrespect to the election of the first African-American president.

Inevitably, the Obama moment aggravated conservative-party anxieties in a browning America.  This anxiety naturally manifests in vice presidents (nominees), at once a ceremonial position and source of future presidents.  In 1968, Richard Nixon chose Spiro Agnew -- whose Greek Orthodox father made him diverse for the era -- overlooking corruption that forced Agnew to resign in disgrace a year before Nixon.  The need for young blood led to Dan Quayle's nomination in 1988, nearly as misguided as Palin's.  The 2000 GOP opted for denial, with mainstay Dick Cheney appointing himself George W. Bush's running mate.

As much as John McCain wanted to be president, he looked across barricades at an historic phenomenon.  We know Obama's election didn't fix America, but in 2008 it seemed possible.  On the contrary, a McCain victory would've been anticlimactic -- and widely attributed to racism.  (Note: McCain insisted on a clean campaign, to the point of barring use of Reverend Jeremiah Wright in campaign ads.)
The above considered, the McCain camp wanted to win, but with a condition (however unconscious): they wanted victory by act of God.  Thus, they let the spirit move them, ignoring protocol, to the obscure but deeply religious (and female) Sarah Palin.

Trooper Hook (1957) and Jungle Fever (1991)

** spoilers below, especially for Trooper Hook **

Some time ago I was in a store and flipped through 1939: The Lost World of the Fair, by David Gelernter.  His distinction between now and then (pre-1960?) stays with me: then, Americans respected authority, not just the power to punish but the words of those in authority.  And we looked forward with hope, rather than backward with regret.

Snipes and Sciorra defying friends, Hollywood, the IRS

Trooper Hook (1957) is a minor-key cavalry Western, from a story by Jack Schaefer (author of the novels Shane and Monte Walsh), and directed by Charles Marquis Warren, the Western specialist who drove Gunsmoke, Rawhide and The Virginian.  Joel McCrea plays a good man at a dirty job, defending the frontier against the Apache, who respectfully call him "Face of Stone."  McCrea's character has been hardened, too, by the Civil War.  The character's name (Clovis Hook) playfully evokes the devil.

In this journey-Western, Hook escorts Cora Sutliff (Barbara Stanwyck) to her husband, after her captivity as squaw of Apache chief Nanchez.  Hook defends Cora against bigotry, intensified by the presence of her mixed son.  The film is politically correct for the day; likable Earl Holliman plays a cowboy in love with a half-Latina.  Of course, the film assumes Cora wants to return to her husband (John Dehner).

Fred Sutliff is built into a villain for rejecting the would-be stepson, leading to deus ex machina, with both he and Nanchez falling to gunplay, leaving Hook to marry Cora.  Fred's feelings are actually understandable, given he's only just learned of the boy's existence.  By pretending otherwise, the movie winks at audiences: the parable of tolerance is half-sincere.  Despite such flaws, the film glows with the optimism and faith of postwar Americans.

We have reason to exaggerate our differences from those of mid-century.  Consider supporting character Charlie Travers (Edward Andrews): eager to protect newfound wealth, he goes to pieces as Nanchez and braves bear down on the party.  After failing to bribe Cora into trading the son for peace, Travers tries to defect, hurting his chances by promising Nanchez "all the whiskey you can drink" (the Indian shoots him).  Travers is comparable to many white people today, so eager to make their way accusing each other of racism.

Until recently, films of interracial romance tended to be like Trooper Hook, comfortably displaced into the past (The Searchers, Far From Heaven) or the future (Supernova, The Time Machine).  A noted exception: Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991).  Though tougher-minded than Trooper Hook, it's become vaguely innocent.

The film is set in a hyper-ethnic New York City: Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra play, respectively, characters from Harlem and Bensonhurst.  Compare 2018, where blended couples are relatively common -- not only in cosmopolitan cities -- even as we criminalize the phrase "jungle fever."  Humans need tribal identities and the contingent territory, but in an integrating society, words, fashion and other customs serve as territory, therefore disputed.

The simple morality of Trooper Hook is long replaced by turf battles and relativism.  Spike Lee plays a teacher, an implicit capitulation.  Lee's films defy the American assumption of a better future: in Do the Right Thing he wears the jersey of a team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, that ceased to exist the year Trooper Hook was released.

The 1950s weren't as sanitized as sometimes assumed, and Trooper Hook includes a modest version of Quint's shark monologue in Jaws.  Hook tells Cora about surviving for weeks in Andersonville prison, pretending to be a dog so a canine-loving (and mad) prisoner would share food.  The analogue in Jungle Fever isn't a recounting, it's the apocalyptic set piece at the so-called Taj Mahal.  Stevie Wonder is ironic soundtrack as we tour a rambling crack den, where the Snipes character looks for his addict brother (Samuel L. Jackson).

Thus, the films illustrate Gelernter's distinction.  In Jungle Fever, the community is half-in-ruins, and hell a lifestyle with plummeting returns.  In Trooper Hook, hell is endured in service to a good cause, on the way to eventual reward.

The Trigger Effect (1996) 2 of 4

** this post contains increasingly severe spoilers **

What if an extended blackout hit North America?  Would friendships survive?  Use of force?  What would you do?

The Trigger Effect is surprisingly glossy for its low profile (perhaps given a nip/tuck for Netflix play).  The surprise evaporates, knowing it was the directing debut of writer David Koepp, better known for (co-) writing the ginormous likes of Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible.

our lives need some excitement ...

Kyle MacLachlan and Elisabeth Shue are married with youngsters, as they juggle upper-middle annoyances: home renovations, a kid with an earache, a loud conversation behind them at the movies.  The latter, the dynamic opener, illustrates the boxed-in male: when the wife shushes, the stranger curses.  If hubby gets into it he risks the enjoyment/safety of bystanders; if he retreats (as here), he's a pussy.  Later he tries the wild side, stealing the kid's med (fleeing the world's most intimidating pharmacist), emboldening himself for armed standoffs.

Koepp's working relationship with Steven Spielberg makes sense: each is a master of craft without having much to say.  Flirting with both multi-strand and apocalypse, The Trigger Effect is like a formative, risk-averse Crash (2004) or The Walking Dead.  There's a vagueness to pre-9/11 political thrillers, but from the blunt-force 21st century, this movie seems coy and unfinished.
The script occasionally fails the plausibility test, all-important in high-concept.  Example: homeowner (MacLachlan) watches a prowler from cover, then turns his back.  Dialogue (unnecessarily) references the Indian Point power plant (outside NYC), underlining the sunny California locations, less than ideal for the indie-dramatic variant of Koepp's War of the Worlds.
Still, it's a mostly smart film, with characters recognizable amid anomaly.  Male friends buy a shotgun, but between ambivalence and a few drinks, it ends up at the bottom of the in-ground pool.  Shue's character increasingly flirts with Dermot Mulroney as the friend/carpenter; they kiss, only to mutually pull back.  Too bad the entire movie pulls back. 

The film is a '90s elaboration on the 1960 Twilight Zone "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."  Thus there are black characters, namely the theater talkers, one of whom (Richard T. Jones) is fated for a more serious altercation with MacLachlan.  (Note: I cover this aspect while horrified by the ID politics of 2018, created partly by media criticism.)
The race factor remains unspoken.  It's a valid choice -- until aforesaid prowler is shot dead.  Like the neighborhood, the intruder is white; he's also slight, and known to be armed only with a knife.  The (white) neighbor shooting from a distance seems unlikely: now it's the movie avoiding race.    
Finally, I wished for resonant dialogue predicting future grid-interruptions.  Maybe Koepp leaves this implied, too, but the film ends up anticlimactic: there was a blackout, they survived with hurt feelings, sadder-but-wiser.  

spike heels trump feet of clay

Watching 1970s TV for my series on Pop Matters, it felt vaguely like walking the site of a war crime.  As a film buff I'd heard the stories, perhaps most memorable was Christine Lahti's, of a proposition rebuffed when she was young and struggling.  The showbiz sleaze told her, "You'd better do something, you're not that pretty."

The misogyny of Hollywood leaves traces, if needing translation (the examples remembered offhand): Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were each subject of an accusatory book by an adult daughter.  Veronica Lake was America's object of desire in the mid-1940s; in the early '60s she worked as a cocktail waitress.  Rita Hayworth and Grace Kelly fled to marry Arab princes.  With Three's Company on top, Suzanne Somers wanted a raise: she was fired and blackballed.

In 1966, Grace Lee Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand on Star Trek even as she spiraled into alcoholism and prostitution.  She later found religion, becoming a substance abuse counselor (Trekkies always treated her as regular cast, though she appeared in only a few episodes).  In her candid autobiography (The Longest Trek, 1998), Whitney elaborated on her early exit from the Enterprise, alleging a sexual assault by an executive.  She took that man's name to her grave, presumably to protect a franchise loved by millions.

The recent revelation that disappoints me is Quentin Tarantino, though his sins are (apparently) of omission.  I couldn't help thinking of Kill Bill, his least assured film: hypocrisy takes a toll.

Some say we're in a witch hunt -- they're right.  Without due process, there's a vigilante aspect, and there will be unintended consequences, and regret.  (We can only wonder what would've happened, had Hillary Clinton been elected president: hell has no fury like millions of women scorned.)

Some say The Sopranos (for example) trades in the noble outlaw, but we buy the myth because nobility is lacking in other quarters.  In the U.S., we punish the guilty with the acuity of a darts game before last call.  As the law quails before money and power, the capitalist badlands (sometimes) have room for frontier justice.  Hang 'em high.





  

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) 3 of 4

** only minor spoilers **

The publication on Bright Lights Film Journal of my essay brought to mind this Jim Jarmusch indie.  In 1999, The Sopranos was briefly in the shadow of Analyze This, about a mobster (Robert DeNiro) in therapy.  Less noted was the overlap with Ghost Dog, which could almost be The Sopranos as seen by an African-American, if a self-taught samurai.  Here's more evidence of television's resistance to change: as HBO launched David Chase's novel-for-TV, the American New Wave was well into a second generation of (postmodern) gangster films: see also Miller's Crossing, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, The Boondock Saints, Summer of Sam.

Forest Whitaker is ideally cast as a reflective loner living off-the-grid in a modern U.S. city: no amnesiac, he's a spiritually awake hit man.  He steals a car but prioritizes the sound system, pumping eclectic hip-hop.  He'll break his meditative isolation for other noncomformists: a man building a boat on a rooftop; an elderly man who's a poor choice for a mugger.  Perhaps most resonant: an encounter with white hunters who've killed a bear.  When the bearish Ghost Dog objects, the elder hunter says, "This isn't an ancient culture."  Ghost Dog: "Sometimes it is."

Even as conflict rises, Ghost Dog stresses its title character's mutual respect with the local mafiosi, for they too have a code.  Arguably, these Italians are too comic: they watch cartoons, are fatter and older than The Sopranos, even more clearly on-their-way-out.  But maybe that's why Ghost Dog is reading (the basis for) Rashomon: it's how he sees the Mafia.  Consistent with the slowed pulse of his oeuvre, Jarmusch counters the chop of culture-change with Ghost Dog's Zen calm.

Like any Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog has cinematic cool and a great soundtrack (by RZA), while being not-for-all-tastes.  If Analyze This was cute but disposable, Jarmusch tends to improve on second viewing, as we adjust to the intriguing protagonist aloof from Western society.  As a substitute, Ghost Dog liberally quotes his dog-eared copy of "The Book of the Samurai": he's relation to the seekers in The Tao of Steve, Amelie, and The Matrix.  And like Marlo on The Wire, he keeps pigeons, a chance to practice patience, even as he gently urges the birds home to roost.