You Know Who Else is a Black Star?

In the post immediately below this one, I really let Mos Def have it for his irritating performance in 16 Blocks. As I say in that column, Mos' turn as Eddie Bunker clashes with the rest of the movie. He feels ridiculous, over-the-top and out of place.

After tonight, I may be ready completely reverse my opinion. Now, what you're about to read is a theory, only a theory. But if I'm correct, 16 Blocks might just represent the greatest subversive counter-cultural attack by a mainstream artist in at least a decade. If not more.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back in time a little bit to the year 1935. Much like in the Hollywood of today, studios banked on popular film franchises to draw audiences to theaters. One such series featured Swedish actor Warner Oland as Chinese detective Charlie Chan, operating out of Honolulu, Hawaii.

Though based entirely around oversized "exotic Chinaman" tropes, wearing silly slant-eye make-up and dispensing faux-Oriental proverbs constantly, Oland's Chan isn't as offensive as you might expect. Chan is always seen as intelligent and capable, and operates on the same level as the aristocratic white characters. This doesn't forgive the lapses into racism, of course, but it does keep the film a bit more palattable and less pernicious than some other examples of 1930's cinematic stereotyping.

Far more unsettling is the performance of Stepin Fetchit as "Snowshoes," an African-American servant who has migrated to Egypt. Yikes. The character fulfills just about every venemous, hateful prejudice held by whites against blacks throughout American history. He's lazy. He's extremely stupid. He's cowardly. He's horny and out of control around women. He's amotivational and inclined to drink and use drugs to excess. And he speaks in a long, slow drawl slurring together all his words, which he explains away as a Mississippi accent but which sounds more like the early stages of a stroke.



There are two ways, I suppose, to see Fetchit's performance in this film, which is almost exactly like his supporting turns in all his 20's and 30's projects. One would be to view the performance directly, calling it as it appears. Fetchit made a lot of money and won his fame by portraying the worst lies about his people, depicting himself as a child-like stooge, helpless without his white masters. (White characters speak to Snowshoes as one would a dog. "Go give this to Miss Arnold! Get out of here, you!")

But there have been other arguments made about Fetchit's turns in these films. Rather than playing a bug-eyed simpleton like other black caricatures in films at the time (as in Raoul Wash's dreadful High Sierra), Fetchit's characters exist in a world of their own. Is this really just slothful idiocy, or is there an intelligence working behind the scenes, using the appearance of idiocy to foil white oppressors? Some have suggested that Fetchit's antics were designed to make him less servile, not more. Whereas a typical submissive black character, an "Uncle Tom," would just do what he's told all the time, a somewhat more wily black character, a "Coon," might feign ignorance bordering on retardation as a way of avoiding the worst kinds of humiliation.

Of course, this is not my theory. It's even included with the guy's IMDB biography, and Kevin Smith played with the notion with his character of Hooper X in Chasing Amy (who, you'll recall, has written a comic book called White Hating Coon.) Plenty hae argued that Stepin Fetchit (real name: Theodore Perry) was quietly subversive and ahead of his time.

But I think I'm the first one to say the same about Mos Def in 16 Blocks. It took watching Charlie Chan in Egypt for me to realize how much of his performance Mos based around Stepin Fetchit. There's the slurred, difficult to understand manner of speech coupled with an inane chattiness. The wide-eyed naivete coupled with cowardice (at least, in comparison to all the macho white men in the movie). The big goofy grin, the child-like sense of hopefulness, the gangly physical comedy. It's all there.

And then I thought about the actual role Eddie Bunker plays within the larger film. He's a prop, a pawn in the midst of an important battle between white men. David Morse leads a team of crooked cops from which Bruce Willis is a defector, and these two fight it out with the actual criminal in question, Mos Def, just kind of awkwardly hanging around. Several scenes feature Willis actually lugging Mos Def along through the movie as one would a duffel bag.

And though he's not a racist caricature in the 1930's style, he does fit the stereotypical contemporary profile of the "American black guy." Eddie's an ex-con, a product of the foster care system with a sister whom he's never met.

Is Mos Def commenting on this role he's been given or just falling into an unfortuante pattern? Is he really so sly, to play the part as a commentary on the shitty, stereotypical supporting roles forced on black actors? Something to consider...We're talking about an intelligent, historically conscious, literate guy here. A guy who's almost assuredly aware of Stepin Fetchict films and has probably watched a few.

Consider, also, this coincidence. Both 16 Blocks and the Charlie Chan Box Set come out on DVD this Tuesday. AND THAT'S NOT ALL Mos Def also appears in the fascinating and exceptionally entertaining documentary, Dave Chappelle's Block Party which also comes to DVD this week! Dante, are you trying to tell us something?

Aside from the scheduling, what makes Block Party particularly interesting are its insights into race and fame, the responsibilities and considerations and decisions forced on black men when they become rich celebrities.

In following around Dave Chappelle in the summer of 2005 (a few months before he wigged out, cancelled his massively popular Comedy Central show and fled the country), Michel Gondry captured not only a fun musical event, but a portrait of a man navigating the awkward and unfamiliar terrain of sudden fame and outsized expectations. He seems to sense that he'll be judged by how he reacts to new found significance and wants to be remembered as something besides the guy who said "I'm Rick James, bitch."

What exactly he wants to be remembered for is uncertain, as the only thing Block Party seems to set out to do is entertain, maybe expose some new people to some great music. At one point, Mos Def brings out Fred Hampton Jr. to discuss the legacy of the Black Panthers that feels odd and out of place in such a feel-good atmosphere.

(As well, I'm not certain as to the effectiveness of shouting the names of random political prisoners you'd like to see released. How about making an impassioned plea on behalf of one prisoner in particular? In the few minutes Hampton Jr. and Mos Def spend chanting, they could be speaking about a prisoner who's been wrongfully jailed. If the movie's a big hit, then potentially millions of people will hear your case!)

Taking what turned out to be an indefinite break from the pressures of creating hilarious television, Dave Chappelle organized a free surprise concert in Brooklyn featuring an all-star line-up of popular, thinking man's hip-hop. In addition to chart-topper Kanye West and a reunion of 90's mainstays The Fugees, the show features Common, Dead Prez, a Black Star reunion with Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Big Daddy Kane and The Roots.

(The Roots are always welcome at these sorts of shows, as far as I'm concerned, because live rap songs just sound better with a band.)

In one scene, Dave invites an older white woman from his neighborhood in Ohio to the concert, even offering to pay her way to New York. She says she doesn't like rap music. "But I like you!" she enthuses. Another lady who works behind the cash register at Dave's local convenience store confesses that she's always wanted to talk with him but has been too shy. Despite his best efforts, only a smattering of white people wind up at the concert, as Dave notes in a comedy bit before adding that there are even fewer Mexicans.

There's a lot of comedy, which is hit-and-miss. A long sequence finds Dave and Mos Def practicing a vaudevillian-style routine with Dave telling extremely old jokes. Some are funny, most aren't, but the whole thing just kind of goes on and on. I was expecting a concert film, but this is really more of a documentary. I would have liked a lot more footage of some of the sets, particularly Common, who is hardly even seen in the film, and Dead Prez, who seemed very interesting and whom I know nothing about. Even with the extended music option on the DVD, you only get to see a few complete songs out of the entire show.

I bring up Block Party at the end of this thing about Mos Def both because he's in the film and because race is constantly on Dave Chappelle's mind throughout the film. It's not neccessarily that he resents his fame or his new fans, but it does seem like he's tired of being shoehorned into one specific joke or show or idea. There's an undercurrent of fear, possibly that he'll be silenced or softened by Hollywood, that he'll lose himself to his Comic Persona. In one sequence, he gets really riled up talking about Dead Prez, and how their lyrics are too controversial and blunt to get on the radio.

"People don't want to hear that the White House is the crack house," he rants to the camera.

So, to offset the encroachment of big business into his comedy, he runs in the opposite direction. Not in terms of the size of the event, perhaps, as this project is not nearly small-time. There are some heavy hitters in attendance, and of course the whole thing is being filmed for a big-screen documentary film by the (white, French) guy who made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carrey. But it's certainly a personal project, something more about Dave Chappelle and his specific interests and opinions than a half-hour of sketch comedy.

By now, we know that this sort of side project wasn't enough to keep Chappelle satisfied, and he eventually left his post as America's Favorite Funnyman to go to South Africa and convert to some weird religion or something. As of right now, he's back and still doing stand-up comedy, as I understand, so hopefully he's found a way to keep the balance.

And now, we bring it back to 16 Blocks. What if Eddie Bunker is Mos Def's version of the Block Party? (Yes, I know he was at the actual block party, but bear with me here...) What if he's blowing off steam, satisfying himself with taking this nothing stupid role for a paycheck by letting anyone who's paying attention know that it's a ridiculous joke. He's stranded in this brain-dead cop thriller playing the Stepin Fetchit role, the defiant "coon" who refuses to play by the idiot rules of the white guy's genre.

I have no idea, I'd like to repeat, if that's really what he's doing. I'd certainly invite anyone else's thoughts on the subject.