September 17, 2025 • 70 mins
Charles sat down with prolific author, media scholar, and friend of the pod, Alfred L. Martin, Jr.
They discuss Alfred's book "Fandom For Us, By Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences."
They also talk about the components of black fandom, how the desire for representation can inform some of our choices, Charles's rabid obsession with The Golden Girls, and so much more!
LEARN MORE About Alfred L. Martin, Jr.
GET YOUR COPY Of "Fandom For Us, By Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences"
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They discuss Alfred's book "Fandom For Us, By Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences."
They also talk about the components of black fandom, how the desire for representation can inform some of our choices, Charles's rabid obsession with The Golden Girls, and so much more!
LEARN MORE About Alfred L. Martin, Jr.
GET YOUR COPY Of "Fandom For Us, By Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences"
--
Visit our Linktree
-- Please Subscribe and Give Us A Review (5 stars or more, preferably!)
SUPPORT US ON PATREON
Check out Medway Pride Radio
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Barbary Lane. Welcome to another special episode of Full Circle
the podcast. I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr. Martha
has fallen ill with a disease that fabulous people get, apparently,
so she will not be joining us today, unfortunately, but
she sends her love today. I am thrilled to be
(00:38):
sitting with our guest. He is a professor of media
and cinema, and he is a dancer and a choreographer
and an all around fears diva. And he has written
a fabulous book and I'm not saying it's fabulous just
because I'm in it. It is about black fandom and
(00:58):
it is called fandom for Us, by us, the pleasures
and practices of Black audiences. Alfred el Martin is in
the house.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh how are you so much? Thank you? I am well,
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's a pleasure. I've been wanting to have you on here,
Loki for a minute, and you know, no better time
than when you have a book that amends.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Exactly when I got something to show.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So my first question that I wanted to ask you
is what made you want to study, you know, media
and cinema.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So on the one hand, I was a kid who
just consumed so much television, and there are these or
television and media broadly, and there are just these moments
that are etched on my brain from television that are
(02:00):
so important. So this morning, interestingly, I was thinking about
a nineteen eighty five performance that I saw where Patti
LaBelle and Cyndi Lauper saying a duet of time after time,
and how sort of I remembered that, or how I
remember the Bill Cosby Salutes Salutes Alvin Ailey special that
(02:26):
happened in the early nineties, right before Alvin Ali passed away.
And I remember like these obscure television shows like Small Wonder,
as Small Wonder and the Ever Fabulous It's a Living
and so like, and so media was really omnipresent for
me as a child, and as a gen xer. You know,
(02:49):
we know that we gen really like gen Xers like
TV and ourselves raised us words and so and so
that was there was a part where I just had
a kind of love of television. But the other part
of it was that once I got to graduate school
(03:12):
and actually figured out what graduate school was, and that
graduate school was a thing. I wanted to study media
because I wanted to understand, at least initially, I wanted
to really understand how representation worked. Historically, I've moved away
(03:34):
from those kinds of questions because I think that they're
wonky and we can talk about that later. But but
that is sort of how I started.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I love it. Yeah, I I mean same TV raised
me by a large part, and I found myself becoming
more and more fascinated with representation of various communities in
movies and TV. And it wasn't until I we met
(04:11):
through I believe doctor vanby Haggen's right, yes who I
discovered she was one of the talking heads in the
Mom's Maybley documentary. And I saw on her little the
little what's that called at the bottom with your name
on it the cry and it said she was a
(04:36):
professor of like media studies and culture or something like that,
and I was like, you can do that, that's a thing, Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Huh, and listen, this was this was a very similar
response that I had when I went to the industry.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And I messaged her on Facebook and I was like,
I just wanted to say, oh my god, I am
so glad to see that there is someone out there
who's doing the thing that I didn't think you could do,
and you're doing it fabulously. And that's all just want
to say, Hi, I'm not creepy high. And then we
became friends on Facebook, and then that's how I discovered you,
and then we just hit it off.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Joe, Yeah, and then and then it was off to
the races exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you have written a wonderful book. I it's which
I read pretty quickly. And once again, it is called
Fandom before Us by us the Pleasures and Practices of
Black audiences, and it is about black fandom. Let me
not tell you about your book, tell me tell us
(05:34):
about this book and and and why you wrote it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So the why that I wrote it was because so
so I'm gonna I'm gonna start with a story that
has nothing to do with with writing in some ways.
But but you know, I am. I am one of
those folks who I would I was raised in Detroit,
(06:02):
and I was raised by parents who, for good or
for ill, very much believed in assimilation, very much believed
in a politics of respectability. And so I think as
(06:23):
a result, I probably had a somewhat delayed engagement with
my own blackness. And part of what I say is
that about race generally, but specifically about blackness, is that
(06:47):
blackness is both a race and it is also an ideology. Yes,
and there is a way that I felt like I
understood my blackness as race, but I didn't necessarily understand
(07:08):
blackness as an identity. And as I moved into the
field broadly known as media studies, it coincided, I think,
with my own identity development as a black person. And
(07:33):
it also didn't help slash hurt that, you know, I
was doing this work like as the world was beginning
to be on fire and so and so there was
a way that I spent a lot of early time,
in my early time in media studies sort of pointing
(07:58):
out the injustices, if you will, of the scholarly endeavor
and the ways that blackness was always sidelined or was
configured as something that was abnormal and or aside from yeah,
(08:22):
young or lack you know. Yeah, and so, like one
of the stories that I have that I think I
may have taken it out of the introduction is and
I've kind of sort of been wanting to write about
or write this story somewhere, and I just haven't found
the right place to put it. But I had someone
(08:46):
who was on my dissertation committee, and in my dissertation,
which is also my first or which a version of
that is my first book, I have a chapter where
I interview black gay men about the meaning that they
make from a black cast sitcoms and their representations of
(09:09):
black queer characters.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And why did we know it just then, right?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And the suggestion by one of these white folks was
that I should have some sort of control groups so
that we knew what like that what black people were
doing was either different, similar, or whatever. And my response was,
(09:36):
I don't actually care if it's different. I just care
that it is, and I care that it is work
that has not been done, and I choose to engage
in doing that work period. And so that is in
some ways the kind of energy that that came into
(10:01):
this book, where I wanted to, on the one hand,
not bemoan the ways that whiteness ignores white scholarship ignores
Black practices and attempts to center their practices as universal
(10:28):
and as central. And I wanted to engage a project that,
on the one hand, named blackness, but also suggested that
blackness was the center and to ignore whiteness in the
(10:48):
same ways that whiteness ignores us, and to say, or
to ask the rhetorical question, what would it mean if
we actually theorized first about blackness and black audience practices
(11:09):
and then we map y'all white people onto this shit?
M h wait, can I cuss out here?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh? Fuck? Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Okay, okay, yeah, So that was so that was generally
how I came to the project, and then how I
came to the objects that I wanted to study, and
those objects are Misty Copeland, the ballery of Misty Copeland. Yes,
And I came to I wanted to study her fandom
(11:39):
because I wanted to try to understand through other people
my own ambivalence about Copeland, okay, And I wanted to
understand what it was about her that had captured the
sort of black American a magenation. And then I chose
(12:04):
Black Panther because it was the first time that I
was at least paying attention to like black people losing
their minds over like we need to go and see
like a particular movie that's coming out. I was yeah,
And so I was really interested in, like what is
(12:24):
that all about? And then I wanted to use the
Wiz because I just loved that movie and I wanted
to and I believe that it deserves much more scholarly
attention than it gets. And so I wanted to partly
(12:45):
think about the Wiz and think about the ways that
white culture has written that film off as either a
failure or like this camp slash cult classic, and the
ways that in order for it to be a cult
(13:09):
classic for black folks, we actually have to understand it
as a failure, and we don't understand it as a failure, right,
And so I wanted to see what would happen in
talking to black folks about that film. And then the
last object that I look at is the series of
(13:33):
the Golden Girls, and that is the chapter that you
are in, because I wanted to find out what black
folks were doing with media when we were not present,
so when we couldn't talk about or when we necessarily
could not talk about representation, what was left in its place?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Okay? And it was fascinating because those are four subjects that,
like other than the fact that they center around blackness,
don't really or in the case of gold and girls
do not don't really go together at all. And so
(14:18):
let's start with uh with Misty Copeland. So for each
of these sections, in anticipation of today, I did a
little bit of a rewatching or deep dive just to
have things on top of mind. And I was looking
at Misty and you know, I never really like when
she was like basically named the it girl. I wasn't
(14:42):
really paying attention because I mean, for no other reason
than just like me in classical ballet, like I have
an appreciation, but I'm not going to say I'm a
fan that I follow it so much. But it was
fierce that you know, this black woman is like considered
(15:06):
the it girl. I do like that you made the
distinction that you know, being a principle doesn't mean you're
the head of the company. Like that's not how that works,
but that's what everyone. Oh she running ABT No, that's no, no.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's something And part of what I
think is really fascinating about for me, and what's fascinating
for me as a researcher for this chapter was sort
of like there's a way that we want to we
want to partly dismiss in some ways.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
The the people who don't know ballet, the people who
would say that mister Copeland is, you know, is the
head of American Ballet Theater.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And it's like she's not, but what is? But like,
but what does it mean that you think that?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right? And so there's there and so that was kind
of what I was interested in. So it was less about,
you know, highlighting the idea that like, black people don't
as a general rule don't know you know, uh, you know,
a tan due from tinfoil. But but it is more
(16:19):
that they actually are bringing their blackness to this blindingly
white art form and are sort of doing it around
this idea broadly construed of representation and representation mattering and
(16:42):
using their dollars to to say, like, representation matters. And
if we see or if we go to American Ballet
Theater and pay to see Misty Copeland, do you know, Mayna,
then ABT will feel more compelled to hire more black dancers,
(17:06):
and then those black dancers can work their way up
through the ranks. Right. And of course we've not necessarily
seen that happen, and in fact, one of ABT's black
quarter of ballet dancers pieced out and went to another company.
I think it might be I think she might have
gone to Royal Winnipeg, but I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Okay, Yeah, which ain't no you know, no joke.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean I understand that. I mean, and kudos
to her because she got out of this country too.
So if she actually went to Royal Winnipeg.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Right, But yeah, I did find that interesting that and
you mentioned this in the book. How you know, people
felt that this her being a principle in ABT was
like a pinnacle, you know, like no one's falling all
over themselves about you know, the principles and or DT.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Of Yeah, and it or hell, even like the black women,
the black women who are in San Francisco Ballet or
Voton Ballet, nobody like nobody cared about MICHAELA. Du Prince necessarily.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And and why is that?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I just found that interest. And it's like because she
gained I guess, the the top of white acceptance, then
that's you know, currency or something I.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Don't Yeah, and and and there's something specific about the
nomenclature of American ballet theater right because my interview or
many of the interviewees thought or sort of constructed American
(18:57):
Ballet Theater to mean like the ballet Company of America,
and to be sure, Obama actually designated the company as
America's ballet company, so it doesn't so it doesn't emerge
from nowhere. At the same time, they then construct, for example,
(19:23):
Dance Theater of Harlem, even or Boston Ballet or New
York City Ballet. Those companies are understood as in some
ways being local, right yeah, yeah, whereas American Ballet Theater
is like the company for America. Right. And it's like,
(19:43):
even as I would rather see New York City Ballet
than American Ballet Theater because I think it's actually a
better company, has a better rep But the again, it's
about sort of what Misty Copeland, as a black woman,
being the first black woman to be promoted to the
rank of principal dancer at American Ballet Theater means something
(20:08):
different than Missy Copeland the first woman to be promoted
to the rank of principal dancer at Boston Ballet.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right yeah. And I think of Boston Ballet and I'm like, well,
that's favous. It's the distinction, in my mind is very
much like the Rue Girls versus like the quote unquote
local girls exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It's very much it's very much that. And so it's
not even that I mean, but listen. It's also is
also the distinction between like we fundamentally believe that Harvard
and Yale and Princeton and those sort of Ivy League institutions,
we somehow believe that they're doing at some sort of
different kind of education than what's happening at the University
(20:55):
of Miami where I teach. And that's just simply not true. Right,
So it is it's really, you know, it's really about
sort of brands and the ways that brands have particular
kinds of currency in marketplaces, and American Ballet Theater for
Black Misty Copeland fans had a or imbued ABT with
(21:21):
a particular kind of capital, right, And.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know, at the same time as cute, if it
gets more money, if I mean, if it gets more
attention and focus focus on the arts, never mind, I
started to say, maybe then we'll get more funding in
the arts, and I realized the folly of my statement.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I stop myself. So I mean, but listen, listen at
the same listen. At the same time, here's what I
will also say so because Misty Copeland. Misty Copeland chose
the more difficult role, right, and she chose it because
she understood that if she could be successful on this
(22:04):
difficult road, she understood that she could actually really really
cash in in a capitless sense.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And she did.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And Misty Copeland has cashed in in a capitless sense.
She is, I believe. Listen. Actually, I'm gonna just say
this with my whole chess because I can't imagine that
it's untrue. She's the only dancer, ballet dancer, past present
and probably future who's had her house in architectural digest.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Oh okay, you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Know she is like she is. While certainly a number
of dancers like Brishnikoff and the Cynthia Gregory had those
Rolex ads in the in the nineteen eighties, but Copeland
was doing, you know, under armour. She had a deal
with with Buick for a bit, and so it is
(23:04):
just a kind of Listen, we can argue about whether
or not we think that Missy Copeland is a good
or great ballerina. We can argue about that till the
Kyle's come home. I think what we cannot argue about
is that what we watched in Missy Copeland's career was
(23:24):
a black woman fight for her place in a traditionally
white company, and once she made it to the pinnacle
of that company, she cashed in like nobody else in
that company has ever cashed in. It's true, and that
(23:45):
is one of the reasons that while I, while I
don't necessarily love her as a dancer, I have an
extraordinary amount of respect for her.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah. I mean, you know again, like I said, I
didn't really follow her that much other than peripherally, but
in you know, preparation for today, I did go look
at some videos and I'm like, oh, like there were
a couple of moments like she did this like botm
fore series and like the leg hit the top and
(24:17):
then you see the engagement like I'm gonna hold it
for a nanosecond before I let it go, Like little
things like that. I was like, Okay, I'll see you,
I'll see you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, yeah, she is so I actually the moment when
I think she was at her best for me, I
saw American Ballet Theater do Minon so Kenneth McMillan's Manon
and she was gorgeous in it. But she was. Also
I would argue she was gorgeous in it because it
(24:46):
is not a classical ballet in the sense of your
three acts where it ends with a grand padada where
the ballerina has to do a variation and thirty two
fu m hm, and so it was not that ballet,
and I think it required her to do more acting, okay,
(25:08):
and she was. She was like she was really good
at it in it, and it is also I think
why she's doing. One of the things she's doing for
her retirement performance is the Balcony Potada from Romeo and
Juliet but also by Sir Kenneth McMillan, and she will
be gorgeous in it. She will be just like breath
(25:32):
takingly spectacular.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
In it, I'm sure. And then there's little things like
I was watching What's the John where like it's a
potada and the she does the fees and then he
does the the the turns all.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Like yeeah, that's uh one, like like yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah yeah, And I'm watching it and I'm like, she
travel it, you know, and you know, and I'm not
hating because you know, I can't do no damn thirty
two four das anyway, and I've seen a lot of
people do them, you know, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And listen and this is this is I understand why
Misty Copeland fought it out in abt M, but I
think she would have had a better career in an or.
I'm sorry. I won't say a better career. What I
will say is I think she might have actually had
a more artistically fulfilling career in a different.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Company, probably because I find contemporary ballet to be like
where my heart is now anyway, like Ballet X and Philadelphia, Like, yeah,
I love them, love them, love them, but I do
love seeing a dancer yet so much attention. My first
(27:04):
example of that as a kid was a Suzanne Ferrell.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I love Suzanne, Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And she was doing like a YO play commercial or something,
and I was like, oh, like and that was my
introduction to her and that she was a ballet dancer
and it was like, oh, okay, And you know, my
naive self was like, okay, so ballet dancers get to
do commercials and things like that, Like I didn't realize
(27:32):
how special that was. Yeah, so I love that. You know,
we're continuing that trajectory and again, you know, you have Barishnikov,
who like there's a generation of people that don't even
know he was a dancer, that's how famous he was.
They know him as an actor. He was on Sex
and the City and he was you know what I'm saying.
And I love that. I love that for her, and
(27:55):
hopefully that's something that we will continue to see.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
You know. Yeah, I'm gonna be curious to see what,
like what Misty Copeland, like what she is doing in
ten years, because I mean I do love that she's
done like so much advocacy work around black folks in
ballet and you're trying to she you know, she seemingly
(28:22):
from her Instagram feed, she seemed to sort of like
take the black kids from ABT and the black ballet
dancers generally and kind of mother them as the sort
of you know, the elder. The elder states lady.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, Like I saw a clip of her, like she's
in that Masterclass series and like I saw a clip
of her like teaching how to do a proper Ton do,
and I'm like, yeah, okay, And it's like it's one
of those things where like I trust her, I trust
her knowledge and plus you know, she's obviously doing it right, right, right,
(28:58):
So I appreciate that. So the next chapter of the
book we talk about Black Panther, And you mentioned before
about black folks collectively losing our minds with this movie,
and uh huh. I had never seen folks decide what
they wanted to wear to go see a movie before.
(29:20):
And it was like drumming dance circles. And my folks
hated to see us come and chat.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Listen, but they love to see our coin comments.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know that's right, and you know I loved it.
I'm like, wear your shit, come in like the opening
credits to come into America.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Do it? Do what I say exactly. So I didn't
quite say it this way. So I'll say it and
then I'll transition. But you're in the chapter on Missy Copeland.
I really wanted to focus on the way that fans
were making that distinction between between like say, Dance Fit
(30:01):
of Harlem and American ballet theater, and so I organized
that chapter around class and sort of thinking about classes,
both the socioeconomic way of thinking about class, but also
class as a way of thinking about the sort of
different classes of things and the ways that we put
(30:23):
things in a hierarchical order. So in this way d
below American ballet theater. And so when I was talking
to folks about Black Panther, one of the things that
emerged was the concept that I called clout, and that
(30:44):
was really about, on the one hand, the way that
black folks like we showed up and we showed out
for Black Panther, But at the same time, there was
this undercurrent that we were absolutely doing it for the
joy of it, but we were also doing it because
(31:05):
we wanted to show Hollywood that we were a viable
consumer segment. Because again, and this kind of sort of
jumps the gun of sorts, but you know, the discourse
around The Wiz in nineteen seventy eight was essentially that
if we as black people didn't go and see that movie,
(31:30):
it was so expensive for the time that we'd never
see another one. And in the grand, grand, grand, grand
grand scheme of things, even as we showed up for
The Wiz, the fact is is that it did not
recoup its production budget, and we did not see a
(31:53):
film of the size and scope of The wiz Is
for forty exactly or almost exactly forty years. True, So
the Wiz happens in nineteen seventy eight. Black Panther happens
in twenty eighteen, yep, yep. And so there was that
(32:19):
similar kind of discourse that came came to the four
where we needed to show Hollywood, and so that is
in some ways, that is what that chapter is about.
It is about the ways that pleasure intersects with a
kind of consumer activism.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
And I love that. You know, it's a Marvel movie,
so you know, you have a certain segment of fanboys
that are built in. Of course, don't get me started
talking about fanboys, because Chu Child the Lord have mercy, Like,
y'all make me hate the thing that I like, Like
I hate people that like things. That's what this has come.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yes, but at the risk of getting canceled, Like I
hate Beyonce's fans, Like I think Beyonce is perfectly fine
and I like a lot of her music, but her fans,
like I want to see a Beyonce concerts so badly,
I just don't want to be in the stadium with
(33:20):
her fans.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yet at yeh at maybe not over the background, I
agree so hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that's a
book onto itself. I think beyonces Versus.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Decided to go into the bee Hive for this book,
but I was.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Like, you might not get back out.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was like, I don't think I have the mental
acuity to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Hill, But yeah, like Black Panther, I was so excited. Well,
I was excited to see it anyway, because I love
the character of Black Panther, like in every iteration that
I had seen up to that point, Like b Et
had a very short lived Black Panther animated series that
(34:07):
I loved, and my favorite clip was like, oh damn,
I forget. It was like some some like regal rich
white person came to to Wakanda and brought uh to
child or something and he was like, I don't need
a gift from you. What makes you think you have
anything I want? In fact, who even said that you
(34:28):
could talk to me? I'm like, you better read this
is what.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I like exactly. And actually I don't know if you
know this, but a an online creator named Ace Vang
actually has some videos where he does a sort of
re a voiceover that's the sort of ratchet voiceover of
those cartoons. They're fantastic.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I love it, I love it, I love it, and
you know. So I was excited to see Black Panther
get the MCU treatment. You know, I'm salivating, Like his
first appearance in Civil War. I was like, there he is,
he's doing things. Look at her. And I saw that
Ryan Coogler was directing, and so I immediately was like, Okay,
(35:14):
the film is gonna be in good hands. It's gonna
be black as hell. I love that they were giving him,
like Marvel money to do anything. And Martha and I
went and saw it in the theater and I, you know,
picked our seats. I'm like, we're gonna be over on
the side because I don't want to be in the
midst of nobody. I want to just be us in
(35:35):
this film. That didn't work out the way I want it,
But that's another story. But I remember just thinking, like
at one point I was just in tears, like the
first challenge scene when all the different tribes are like
on that tower and like you see all the different
representations of all the different garb and I was just crying.
(35:56):
It's like it's so perfect, it's so beautiful they're doing look,
oh they have the Oh. I was just I was
all over myself. So I love that film. And thank
god it was good.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was that was one of
the size of relief of many of us. Yes, we like,
they spent all this money, now can it please be good?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Thank you? Because you know, folks will not be able
to wait to say something good, especially if it's black.
M h. I get so, I'm definitely part of that fandom.
It's one of the few Marvel movies that I've seen
more than twice.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Okay, okay, you know, I mean, I mean it's it's
technically I think it is the only Marvel movie I've
seen period.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Really.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah, but I'm not a comic book gay. I'm like, yeah,
I'm I'm more of a like a sitcom, like a
sitcom with Diva's gay Fair Fair.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah. I'm definitely a comic book head on my marvelhead
always have been, so like, I will go to see
not all of them, there's something like yeah that that
can miss me, but but Black Panther I was definitely
there for So yeah, I'm definitely in that fandom. You
could have contacted me for that chapter. Now getting into
(37:25):
the whiz, here's where my views might be a little
controversial with you and many black folk. I love The Whiz.
I'm gonna start with that. I love The Whiz. I
think it is a beautiful film, but I don't think
(37:46):
that it is a good like as a movie like
to sit and watch from beginning to end. I do
not think that it is good mh. But I love it,
And like I think I feel the same way about
The Whiz that I do about West Side Story, the
original West Side Story. It was made for the age
(38:07):
of DVD and Blu Ray just skipped it apart to you, like,
so you don't have to watch all that bullshit in between,
because like, you know, Nipsey Russell, what would I do
if I could feel like, Oh, first of all, it
is and I watched the clip this morning and like
the nuce of like his face being expressionless but yet
(38:30):
emotiving at the same time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And that he can do all of that like and
I say this with all of the respect in the
world for Nipsey Russell. He has one note in his
vocal register, correct and he can do all of that
(38:54):
with one note.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
He really did. And you know my experience with The Whiz,
I've never seen the show, well, not counting The Wiz
live which I suspect you had feelings about because you,
like you never said what those feelings were, but I
could tell what those feelings were in the book.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I didn't even know I mentioned it in there that
mention briefly. Okay, you're like, as an aside, like and
this also exists. I want to say it does exist,
as does this This survival also.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Exists, Yeah, which I've heard very mixed things about. Again
I don't I don't know the show, but in the
Whiz Live that was the only time I ever heard
that song sung as opposed to like the way Nipsey
Russell did it. I like Nipsey's version better, like you
feel things more. It's like, okay, yeah he didn't sing down,
(39:51):
but you know he he put the emotion of the
song in that. Plus I love like the the backup
singers that are part of the decoration and like they
come to life and do what. I love that.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, I made say it is. It's the In some ways,
it's the difference between if we think about seeing Jennifer
Hudson at sing and I am telling you from dream
Girls it's really good, and then you see Jennifer Holiday
(40:26):
sing it and you're like this is really good and
I felt this in my soul, and so I think
there that that's in some ways, that's the difference. That's
the difference here. So they're both like you know, so
yeah it was Neo, right, Yeah, Neo was good. I
(40:48):
think it was Neo as the tin Man. Yes, you know,
the the guy who and I don't remember his name
who was in the Broadway iteration of this current revival
of The Wiz. He was, he was good. Just nobody
(41:08):
like nobody can like nobody yet has captured that affective
feel right that that song, that that song has, Right,
they're just also in a different space in the movie
than it is in the in the show. So it
actually doesn't It happens in act two when they're already
(41:28):
in in the Emerald City and he's in the play
slash Broadway version. He's sort of imagining, like if the
Wiz gives me this heart, what would I do? Okay, okay, yeah,
versus like a sort of expository kind of story right
as it is on Coney.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Island, which, yeah, I love it. And like I said,
like I said, I don't like sitting and watching the movie,
but again, I love the movie. Because there's so many
wonderful things and that I realize that the film is
kind of like etched into my DNA, Like don't let
Martha make anything with Tahini, because what am I going
(42:13):
to hear every single time?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah? Yeah, and yeah. And I think that you know
what you're hitting on too, though, is one of the
things and one of the reasons that I wanted to
write about The Wiz, and the reason that I write
about it as a part of Black cannon or Black canonicity,
(42:41):
is because I'm not sure that most folks, most Black
folks who see The Wiz are like, oh my god,
you know what, Like the Wiz is the best made
Black film ever. But The Wiz is not about its aesthetics.
(43:05):
It's actually about a kind of It is about the
way that it has tapped into and I think continues
to tap into what I call in the book black feeling,
the idea that it just makes us feel something. And
(43:28):
part of it, I think, and while I while I
have while I think that The Wiz being rated G
when it was initially released, while I think that that
was a terrible decision that Universal probably should have tried
to appeal as a PG, but I think that it's
(43:52):
genus also simultaneously made. And I did not write about
this in the book, and now I need to write
about but it made. I would argue the film automatically
feel like an intergenerational film, so in other words, like
kids were going to see it with parents and grandparents,
(44:16):
and so there's a way that I think part of
what is etched into the DNA of that film is
that we are also simultaneously like mapping the or remapping
those relationships back into the movie. So part of why
(44:38):
we love the Wiz is because it's like, oh, yeah,
I used to watch the Whiz with my grandma, or
my grandma took me to see it, or as I
talk about in the book, my friend Corey talked about
how he always watched that movie with his uncle Raymond.
And so there's a way that I think the Wiz
(45:03):
the certainly the afterlife of the Wiz, gets so interconnected
with all of these other memories. So in some ways,
our love of the Wiz may not even be about
the Wiz. It may just be about the ways that
we attach someone we love to the Whiz.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Okay, okay, I mean not for me, but okay, because
like everyone, Like everyone that I you know, know that
has seen the movie, we all have the same thing,
like we have those those cultural moments that we love
and those set pieces that we love. But as a
film man, and then as I've grown, I realize I
(45:46):
think that blame lies with Sidney Limett because I ain't
like not Nelsie did either. Okay, so I'm like, that's
a director thing, because it's it's not like I said,
it's a fabulous looking movie, you know, like the subway scene. However,
still to this day, you know, like I just watched
it this morning, I was like, damn, this is creepy.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I mean, also particularly for a g rated movie right.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Right right, which I don't even think I knew that
it was g rated, or at least at the time
when g ratings were a thing that were in my world,
I didn't think anything of it. And also, which what
I thought was interesting. I was thinking about this when
I was reading the book, Like initially growing up, like
I'm a product of an interracial home, so my understanding
(46:37):
of race as a kid is a lot different than
a lot of people, Like I didn't even really have
that much of a concept of it, Like I didn't
know the words black and white for the very a
very long time in that way. In fact ooh sidebar So,
my first introduction to the kind of someone being black
(47:02):
came from an episode of I Do Believe Barney Miller. Okay,
I'm I must have been like five. I couldn't been
I couldn't have been six. So it was either four
or five, and I'm watching this rerun and apparently a
black woman was who I don't think we ever saw
was supposed to be coming and working in the station,
(47:22):
and everyone is losing their shit because a black woman
is coming. And so in my child mind, I'm picturing
like this, like black as in color black, like monstrous figure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
And it's scaring me thinking about this because everyone's scared
of this black woman and I have and they never
showed her. So I didn't know, oh chocolate, which is my.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
At that point. So yeah, so that was that was
my introduction to to what black is. Ha. Yeah, anyway, Sidebarnon,
I never really I never really thought of it as
a black film per se. For a while, I was
(48:07):
looking at it as as that fierce movie that Michael
Jackson and Diana Ross and Ted Ross and and Lena
Horn and Nipsey Russell and who else was in that,
But like, you know, just these are people that I
enjoy and they're all on the same film. Oh my goodness. Yeah,
you know, like the same thing with You're not a
(48:28):
Marvel person, so this ain't gonna really hit you.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, it very well made, because there's also a way
that I don't know Marvel, but I do know, like
I can sometimes know things like because they enter it
into the discourse.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Okay, so in uh endgame where it's like it's the
big battle scene at the end of Endgame and all
of the women characters are fighting at the same time
and they get introduced. It was like the middle of
the scene before I realized that it was the women,
(49:06):
I was just like, oh work, it's hard and hard,
and I'm like I'm seeing them as the individual characters
and how fierce they are. And then right when they
started running together, was like, oh shit, it's all the women.
Oh shit, this is fierce. And so that was my
reaction as opposed to the reaction at large, which was
woke pandering.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, which yeah. Actually one of my graduate students writes
about that in his dissertation.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
It's like, God, forbid. We see these characters as like
they never interacted before, you know, like that was the
point throughout the rest of the movie. So why is
this moment considered lesser than yeah child? But yeah, So
I guess overall, what I'm trying to say is, even
(49:54):
though I am not a fan of the watching the
movie The Whiz, I am a fan of the movie
The Whiz.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Now here we are, We're at the chapter that is
near and dear to my heart, the Golden Girls. Anyone
that knows me knows that I have a near unhealthy
obsession with The Golden Girls.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Like you are the person who gave me one of
my favorite quotes, which is when you told me that
you are a Dorothy with a Sophia rising. Yeah, yes's accurate.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah, I love that show. I have seen that. I've
seen every episode. I'm not even gonna try and say
how many times I've seen the episode because we can't
we have to count the times. We're like, I'll be
editing this podcast and it's just I want in the background,
like when I'm at work, I'll just throw it on
Hulu and just like pick a section to start with
(51:06):
and just let it go just to have it on
in the background. So, like, I know that damn show
more than many people. So when you said we're looking
for fans of the Golden Gos with me me, pick.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Me right, pick me?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yeah, I got you. So talk to me about your
interaction with black fans of that show, which I figured
there had to be more, but I love how many
there were in the book alone.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah. So I am old enough to have watched The
Golden Girls when it was initially on television, and and
I am fairly certain that I may not have even
come to the series until about the third season. And
(52:03):
the reason that I say that is because in my brain,
my Saturday night went two two seven, Amen, Golden Girls.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
And so there.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Is a way that, at least in its initial airing,
that it made sense that I would be watching it
because it was in a time period when you know,
remote controls were not yet like the every day right.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
We still had to get out across the room to
still had.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
To get up. And you know this this concept of
in television studies, this concept called flow, which is about
thinking about the ways different units of television. So and
when I say units of television, I mean like thirty
minute program or hour long programs, how those units actually
(53:04):
fit together, and how they fit together within this logic
that we just talked about, which is that, like, we've
got to figure out how to encourage you to just
sit on your couch all night with the television on
NBC and not get up and cross the room exactly,
(53:27):
and so and so this concept to flow, and it
also of course extends to the ads that happen in
between segments of each of the individual units. And so
so The Golden Girls was just always this weird show
in the sense that it didn't necessarily make sense to
(53:47):
be on with a bunch of black cast sitcoms. But
yet I was watching it because it was right. And
so as a kid watching it in YO eighty seven ish,
I just I just thought of it as like, oh,
(54:09):
like this is the TV show, and like it's a
great way for me to spend half an hour when
I got to when I stopped dancing and actually had
time to watch TV. And then so around nineteen ninety
five is when I started watching The Golden Girls in
reruns on Lifetime. And it was simultaneously around the time
(54:35):
when I was coming to understand my queer identity, and
because so many gay men talk about their love for
the series, I immediately just went, oh, like Golden Girls called me,
(54:56):
because while I wasn't well, I wasn't queer, like it
could still like call to me as a queer subject.
And so I spent so much time understanding the series
as one that would appeal or that for me it
(55:16):
was appealing to my gayness and not necessarily my blackness,
as if one can separate their identity, but like, let's
roll with.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It, right, And so.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
It was. I feel like I saw something on Facebook
from a black person talking about how much they loved
the show. And this was also during the pan or
I shouldn't even say during the pandemic, because the pandemic
is still going. We've just decided that capitalism is more important,
(55:48):
thank you. But in sort of thinking about black people
liking it, I was I was just so I initially
started from a place of curiosity, and I was like,
do black people really like this show?
Speaker 1 (56:05):
Like there are a lot of us who like the show.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
And I found out that there were a lot of
black folks who watched the show, and so I went
into it and in some ways asking the question why
in the world would black people still ride for a
(56:30):
show that hasn't been on the air for forty years
that had that was about four o white ladies that
lived in a house together in Miami and in a
sort of unsophisticated way. That was the question that I
(56:52):
led with as I was engaging the Golden Girls and
it's black fandom.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Right, Yeah, I agree. I didn't even think about that
part that it did close out the Black sitcom block
on Saturdays, and you know, and we were watching that
block just because we all did, you know, like, and
(57:20):
I don't think anyone made a point of of it.
It's just that's what we did on Saturday nights. So
I think for you know, there's that element of nostalgia,
there is that element of for queer folks. I know,
the idea of chosen family plays a huge part in it,
(57:42):
I'm sure, and then also the shadiness of it. Yeah,
you know, like, yeah, one of the best moments of
my personal life this is when I'm still barred Eddy
and someone asked me can I ask stupid question? And
I just, without missing it beat better than anyone, and
(58:03):
I know, yeah, I was like, I can't. I'm good now, yeah,
that's that's the thing that that kept me. It's the
cleverness of the writing and the it's just funny.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Mm hmmm. I think one of the really interesting things
about the show and black folks' engagement with it is
that they're obviously like, as black folks, we know we're
watching a bunch of white folks. But there was also
there's also this and I hate to say it as
(58:43):
work because it sounds like it's work, but it's not
necessarily but like, but it's the work of us sort
of trying to fit the Golden Girls into a pre
existing pattern that already exists in our bread. So it
is about the way. So one of the things that
(59:04):
emerged was this kind of verbal sparring to sort of
you know, say to someone, can I or to ask
someone can I ask a stupid question? And the response
being better than anyone. I know that for many black
folks felt like they were kind of sort of playing
(59:25):
a version of the Dozens. And so what was really
fascinating for me was the ways that this very white
show and in some ways, like we don't really even
love the episodes where negroes show up because it's like,
just leave us out of this like and we like
(59:45):
because we can just enjoy the white lady. But so
like this show with these white ladies on it, like
we can figure out how to read it blackly. So
it's like it's like, don't worry about like you just
do what you do. You will take care of like
making it make sense for us. And so that's one
of the things that is really it was really fascinating
(01:00:08):
to me as I was doing these interviews, is figuring
out the ways black folks were making the show there
like mean something for them.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Right, Yeah, that's true about when black folks would show
up on the show's and you know, there is the
course of product of the time that the show came out.
But it's like whenever someone black is on the show,
we have to let them know that they're black. You know,
the fact that it's the television is a visual medium
(01:00:38):
and that we can see them not enough, we have
to say, you know, you're black?
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there was also one black
writer on this show. I think for the first I
should know this better, but I think she was on
for the first three seasons, the great Winnifred Hervey.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yes, who I didn't know anything about until she was
a guest on Rue Paul's podcast back in the day.
He had her and I was like, really, which just
added another element to the show that I loved. And
(01:01:17):
you know, another aspect of the show that that is
now part of history is when we were trying to
battle racism during the pandemic and George Floyd and and
police brutality and and all we wanted was for the
cops to stop killing black people. So what did we do.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
We took off the episode with Rosslyn that Mixed Blessing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
It's like, who the fuck asked for that?
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
And the one of my one of my greatest achievements
as an academic is that I am quoted in a
story about the removal of Mixed Blessings from Hulu and
I basically say, who asked for this? Right, because it's
(01:02:08):
like we were actually asking for social justice. We were
not like and it's like none of us sat around
going why do Rose and blanch have on black face?
We were all just like they got on masks, like
my mask.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Right, Yeah. At the same so, it like they took
the episode off of Hulu, they took Aunt Jemima off
the Pancake box and they painted Black Lives Matter down
the street.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
It's like.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Talk about painting around that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It's like, who but listen, but listen, but this is
but I mean listen, like to sort of get on
a soapbox for a half a second. It's part of
the problem of what I would suggest is black folks's
dogged investment in representation because us the response to like,
(01:03:03):
we wanted a systemic change to or a systemic response
to Black lives matter, but so often what we want
is to be seen, and so because we are so
often wanting to be seen, the response was the visibility response.
(01:03:30):
It was about, we are going to remove this episode
that is harmful. We are going to paint things so
that you can see that we're saying black lives matter.
It is why white people on MOSS wanted to write
statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, when
(01:03:51):
the black folks were like, you know what y'all could
do instead of writing this statement, you could actually just
stop fucking killing us. That would actually be like, that's
actually the preferable solution.
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
And it's easier to do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Yeah, you't gotta click nothing, yeah, yeah, and so and.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
So it's so easy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I'm doing it right now, right, exactly exactly, And so
that's kind of in some ways, you my, and this
dovetails into what I said earlier about why I wanted
to do a chapter in this book on black fan
practices about the Golden Girls. It's because I wanted to see, like,
(01:04:33):
what do we have to say when what we can't
say is anything about representation, right, or at least black representation, right?
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Yeah, and I do I think that, you know, it's
crazy that we were able to see ourselves because like, okay,
going back to the Mixed Blessings episode, it was like
when when the sisters came in and every one of
them was a fierce black TV diva, which I appreciate it,
but like it was like each of them had their counterpart, yeah,
(01:05:05):
with the girls. So it's like that whole thing of like,
you know, everyone's got a Rose in their family. Obviously
not to that degree, but you know everyone's got everyone's
got a little bit of the women in them. And
you could point to your your friend group and say
you're the and I'm the Yeah. Nobody wants to be
(01:05:27):
rose though, although I've been I've been told that I
am the Rose and I'm like, hey, but listen.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Here's listen. The thing about Rose is that she was
just naive. She was not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
Correct, Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
And I always used to love when they would every
now and then do an episode where her sort of
like fearce competitive streak would come out.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Right, and You're like, I don't want to turn my
back on this woman.
Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Yeah exactly, Well.
Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah that's thing, and like and Betty White played her
as just being so pure and honest and open that
she just believed everything. You know, she wasn't stupid. H
I love that. I love that. So for everyone within
the sound of our voice, I do believe you need
(01:06:21):
to get yourself a copy of Fandom for Us by
Us the Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences. It is
a wonderful book. It is a great read. Like I
blew through each chapter in each sitting basically, and I do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
It's lovely to hear.
Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Yeah, And I appreciate the fact that although it is
an academic text, it is not a dry academic text.
I did appreciate that because y'all know how y'all can do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
So we do and listen, I I deliberately have stopped
trying to do that because it's because it is. It
is absolutely an affect. And listen, one of the things
I do in this book is I use black musicians
(01:07:15):
a lot, to particularly Solange Knowles, to to help me
theorize when I'm talking about I even use the real
husbands of Hollywood to talk about Missy Copeland to theorize
white famous and black famous. But yeah, I am like,
(01:07:35):
I also subscribe to what Erica Badu says, which is
what good do your words do if they can't understand you?
And and so part of what I want to do
as an academic is I want to I certainly want
to write for people who are intelligent folk, but I
(01:08:00):
want to write in a way that you don't have
to have a PhD understand, right, And you.
Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Know, and I do appreciate every now and then having
to look up a certain word because I am curious
that way, and I'm always trying to expand my vocabulary anyway.
But yeah, it's not an inaccessible book, which I definitely appreciate.
And for anyone that is a fan of any of
the four subjects or all of the four subjects, it
(01:08:30):
is an interesting read that I think, you know, I
think is definitely worth reading, and it is going to
now leave my bag and go up on our shelf.
So yeah, and Alfred Martin Junior, thank you so much
(01:08:50):
for spending some time with me here at the Full
Circle table.
Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Thank you so much for having me. It was a
great chat.
Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Yeah. If we wanted to get a copy of the book,
where should we go?
Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
So you can either go to nyupress dot org and
purchase it there or wherever you buy fine books.
Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Or not fine books. I'm sure they're sold the same place.
This is true too. And if we wanted to learn
more about you, where would we go?
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
My website is Alfredmartin dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Okay, and we will be putting all of that information
in the notes of this episode. Alfred, thank you so much.
And I have a feeling this is not the last
time you and I are going.
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
To sit in chat exactly, And thank you for being
a friend. Thank you bye everyone. Full Circle is a
Never Scured Productions podcast hosted by Charles Tyson Jr. And
Martha Madrigal, Produced and edited by executive Produced by Charles
Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal. Our theme in music is
(01:10:05):
by the jingle Berries. All names pictures, music, audio, and
video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of their
respective copyright holders.
Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Barbary Lane. Welcome to another special episode of Full Circle
the podcast. I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr. Martha
has fallen ill with a disease that fabulous people get, apparently,
so she will not be joining us today, unfortunately, but
she sends her love today. I am thrilled to be
(00:38):
sitting with our guest. He is a professor of media
and cinema, and he is a dancer and a choreographer
and an all around fears diva. And he has written
a fabulous book and I'm not saying it's fabulous just
because I'm in it. It is about black fandom and
(00:58):
it is called fandom for Us, by us, the pleasures
and practices of Black audiences. Alfred el Martin is in
the house.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh how are you so much? Thank you? I am well,
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's a pleasure. I've been wanting to have you on here,
Loki for a minute, and you know, no better time
than when you have a book that amends.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Exactly when I got something to show.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So my first question that I wanted to ask you
is what made you want to study, you know, media
and cinema.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So on the one hand, I was a kid who
just consumed so much television, and there are these or
television and media broadly, and there are just these moments
that are etched on my brain from television that are
(02:00):
so important. So this morning, interestingly, I was thinking about
a nineteen eighty five performance that I saw where Patti
LaBelle and Cyndi Lauper saying a duet of time after time,
and how sort of I remembered that, or how I
remember the Bill Cosby Salutes Salutes Alvin Ailey special that
(02:26):
happened in the early nineties, right before Alvin Ali passed away.
And I remember like these obscure television shows like Small Wonder,
as Small Wonder and the Ever Fabulous It's a Living
and so like, and so media was really omnipresent for
me as a child, and as a gen xer. You know,
(02:49):
we know that we gen really like gen Xers like
TV and ourselves raised us words and so and so
that was there was a part where I just had
a kind of love of television. But the other part
of it was that once I got to graduate school
(03:12):
and actually figured out what graduate school was, and that
graduate school was a thing. I wanted to study media
because I wanted to understand, at least initially, I wanted
to really understand how representation worked. Historically, I've moved away
(03:34):
from those kinds of questions because I think that they're
wonky and we can talk about that later. But but
that is sort of how I started.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I love it. Yeah, I I mean same TV raised
me by a large part, and I found myself becoming
more and more fascinated with representation of various communities in
movies and TV. And it wasn't until I we met
(04:11):
through I believe doctor vanby Haggen's right, yes who I
discovered she was one of the talking heads in the
Mom's Maybley documentary. And I saw on her little the
little what's that called at the bottom with your name
on it the cry and it said she was a
(04:36):
professor of like media studies and culture or something like that,
and I was like, you can do that, that's a thing, Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Huh, and listen, this was this was a very similar
response that I had when I went to the industry.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And I messaged her on Facebook and I was like,
I just wanted to say, oh my god, I am
so glad to see that there is someone out there
who's doing the thing that I didn't think you could do,
and you're doing it fabulously. And that's all just want
to say, Hi, I'm not creepy high. And then we
became friends on Facebook, and then that's how I discovered you,
and then we just hit it off.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Joe, Yeah, and then and then it was off to
the races exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you have written a wonderful book. I it's which
I read pretty quickly. And once again, it is called
Fandom before Us by us the Pleasures and Practices of
Black audiences, and it is about black fandom. Let me
not tell you about your book, tell me tell us
(05:34):
about this book and and and why you wrote it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So the why that I wrote it was because so
so I'm gonna I'm gonna start with a story that
has nothing to do with with writing in some ways.
But but you know, I am. I am one of
those folks who I would I was raised in Detroit,
(06:02):
and I was raised by parents who, for good or
for ill, very much believed in assimilation, very much believed
in a politics of respectability. And so I think as
(06:23):
a result, I probably had a somewhat delayed engagement with
my own blackness. And part of what I say is
that about race generally, but specifically about blackness, is that
(06:47):
blackness is both a race and it is also an ideology. Yes,
and there is a way that I felt like I
understood my blackness as race, but I didn't necessarily understand
(07:08):
blackness as an identity. And as I moved into the
field broadly known as media studies, it coincided, I think,
with my own identity development as a black person. And
(07:33):
it also didn't help slash hurt that, you know, I
was doing this work like as the world was beginning
to be on fire and so and so there was
a way that I spent a lot of early time,
in my early time in media studies sort of pointing
(07:58):
out the injustices, if you will, of the scholarly endeavor
and the ways that blackness was always sidelined or was
configured as something that was abnormal and or aside from yeah,
(08:22):
young or lack you know. Yeah, and so, like one
of the stories that I have that I think I
may have taken it out of the introduction is and
I've kind of sort of been wanting to write about
or write this story somewhere, and I just haven't found
the right place to put it. But I had someone
(08:46):
who was on my dissertation committee, and in my dissertation,
which is also my first or which a version of
that is my first book, I have a chapter where
I interview black gay men about the meaning that they
make from a black cast sitcoms and their representations of
(09:09):
black queer characters.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And why did we know it just then, right?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And the suggestion by one of these white folks was
that I should have some sort of control groups so
that we knew what like that what black people were
doing was either different, similar, or whatever. And my response was,
(09:36):
I don't actually care if it's different. I just care
that it is, and I care that it is work
that has not been done, and I choose to engage
in doing that work period. And so that is in
some ways the kind of energy that that came into
(10:01):
this book, where I wanted to, on the one hand,
not bemoan the ways that whiteness ignores white scholarship ignores
Black practices and attempts to center their practices as universal
(10:28):
and as central. And I wanted to engage a project that,
on the one hand, named blackness, but also suggested that
blackness was the center and to ignore whiteness in the
(10:48):
same ways that whiteness ignores us, and to say, or
to ask the rhetorical question, what would it mean if
we actually theorized first about blackness and black audience practices
(11:09):
and then we map y'all white people onto this shit?
M h wait, can I cuss out here?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh? Fuck? Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Okay, okay, yeah, So that was so that was generally
how I came to the project, and then how I
came to the objects that I wanted to study, and
those objects are Misty Copeland, the ballery of Misty Copeland. Yes,
And I came to I wanted to study her fandom
(11:39):
because I wanted to try to understand through other people
my own ambivalence about Copeland, okay, And I wanted to
understand what it was about her that had captured the
sort of black American a magenation. And then I chose
(12:04):
Black Panther because it was the first time that I
was at least paying attention to like black people losing
their minds over like we need to go and see
like a particular movie that's coming out. I was yeah,
And so I was really interested in, like what is
(12:24):
that all about? And then I wanted to use the
Wiz because I just loved that movie and I wanted
to and I believe that it deserves much more scholarly
attention than it gets. And so I wanted to partly
(12:45):
think about the Wiz and think about the ways that
white culture has written that film off as either a
failure or like this camp slash cult classic, and the
ways that in order for it to be a cult
(13:09):
classic for black folks, we actually have to understand it
as a failure, and we don't understand it as a failure, right,
And so I wanted to see what would happen in
talking to black folks about that film. And then the
last object that I look at is the series of
(13:33):
the Golden Girls, and that is the chapter that you
are in, because I wanted to find out what black
folks were doing with media when we were not present,
so when we couldn't talk about or when we necessarily
could not talk about representation, what was left in its place?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Okay? And it was fascinating because those are four subjects that,
like other than the fact that they center around blackness,
don't really or in the case of gold and girls
do not don't really go together at all. And so
(14:18):
let's start with uh with Misty Copeland. So for each
of these sections, in anticipation of today, I did a
little bit of a rewatching or deep dive just to
have things on top of mind. And I was looking
at Misty and you know, I never really like when
she was like basically named the it girl. I wasn't
(14:42):
really paying attention because I mean, for no other reason
than just like me in classical ballet, like I have
an appreciation, but I'm not going to say I'm a
fan that I follow it so much. But it was
fierce that you know, this black woman is like considered
(15:06):
the it girl. I do like that you made the
distinction that you know, being a principle doesn't mean you're
the head of the company. Like that's not how that works,
but that's what everyone. Oh she running ABT No, that's no, no.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's something And part of what I
think is really fascinating about for me, and what's fascinating
for me as a researcher for this chapter was sort
of like there's a way that we want to we
want to partly dismiss in some ways.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
The the people who don't know ballet, the people who
would say that mister Copeland is, you know, is the
head of American Ballet Theater.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And it's like she's not, but what is? But like,
but what does it mean that you think that?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right? And so there's there and so that was kind
of what I was interested in. So it was less about,
you know, highlighting the idea that like, black people don't
as a general rule don't know you know, uh, you know,
a tan due from tinfoil. But but it is more
(16:19):
that they actually are bringing their blackness to this blindingly
white art form and are sort of doing it around
this idea broadly construed of representation and representation mattering and
(16:42):
using their dollars to to say, like, representation matters. And
if we see or if we go to American Ballet
Theater and pay to see Misty Copeland, do you know, Mayna,
then ABT will feel more compelled to hire more black dancers,
(17:06):
and then those black dancers can work their way up
through the ranks. Right. And of course we've not necessarily
seen that happen, and in fact, one of ABT's black
quarter of ballet dancers pieced out and went to another company.
I think it might be I think she might have
gone to Royal Winnipeg, but I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Okay, Yeah, which ain't no you know, no joke.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean I understand that. I mean, and kudos
to her because she got out of this country too.
So if she actually went to Royal Winnipeg.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Right, But yeah, I did find that interesting that and
you mentioned this in the book. How you know, people
felt that this her being a principle in ABT was
like a pinnacle, you know, like no one's falling all
over themselves about you know, the principles and or DT.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Of Yeah, and it or hell, even like the black women,
the black women who are in San Francisco Ballet or
Voton Ballet, nobody like nobody cared about MICHAELA. Du Prince necessarily.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And and why is that?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I just found that interest. And it's like because she
gained I guess, the the top of white acceptance, then
that's you know, currency or something I.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Don't Yeah, and and and there's something specific about the
nomenclature of American ballet theater right because my interview or
many of the interviewees thought or sort of constructed American
(18:57):
Ballet Theater to mean like the ballet Company of America,
and to be sure, Obama actually designated the company as
America's ballet company, so it doesn't so it doesn't emerge
from nowhere. At the same time, they then construct, for example,
(19:23):
Dance Theater of Harlem, even or Boston Ballet or New
York City Ballet. Those companies are understood as in some
ways being local, right yeah, yeah, whereas American Ballet Theater
is like the company for America. Right. And it's like,
(19:43):
even as I would rather see New York City Ballet
than American Ballet Theater because I think it's actually a
better company, has a better rep But the again, it's
about sort of what Misty Copeland, as a black woman,
being the first black woman to be promoted to the
rank of principal dancer at American Ballet Theater means something
(20:08):
different than Missy Copeland the first woman to be promoted
to the rank of principal dancer at Boston Ballet.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right yeah. And I think of Boston Ballet and I'm like, well,
that's favous. It's the distinction, in my mind is very
much like the Rue Girls versus like the quote unquote
local girls exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It's very much it's very much that. And so it's
not even that I mean, but listen. It's also is
also the distinction between like we fundamentally believe that Harvard
and Yale and Princeton and those sort of Ivy League institutions,
we somehow believe that they're doing at some sort of
different kind of education than what's happening at the University
(20:55):
of Miami where I teach. And that's just simply not true. Right,
So it is it's really, you know, it's really about
sort of brands and the ways that brands have particular
kinds of currency in marketplaces, and American Ballet Theater for
Black Misty Copeland fans had a or imbued ABT with
(21:21):
a particular kind of capital, right, And.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know, at the same time as cute, if it
gets more money, if I mean, if it gets more
attention and focus focus on the arts, never mind, I
started to say, maybe then we'll get more funding in
the arts, and I realized the folly of my statement.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I stop myself. So I mean, but listen, listen at
the same listen. At the same time, here's what I
will also say so because Misty Copeland. Misty Copeland chose
the more difficult role, right, and she chose it because
she understood that if she could be successful on this
(22:04):
difficult road, she understood that she could actually really really
cash in in a capitless sense.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And she did.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And Misty Copeland has cashed in in a capitless sense.
She is, I believe. Listen. Actually, I'm gonna just say
this with my whole chess because I can't imagine that
it's untrue. She's the only dancer, ballet dancer, past present
and probably future who's had her house in architectural digest.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Oh okay, you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Know she is like she is. While certainly a number
of dancers like Brishnikoff and the Cynthia Gregory had those
Rolex ads in the in the nineteen eighties, but Copeland
was doing, you know, under armour. She had a deal
with with Buick for a bit, and so it is
(23:04):
just a kind of Listen, we can argue about whether
or not we think that Missy Copeland is a good
or great ballerina. We can argue about that till the
Kyle's come home. I think what we cannot argue about
is that what we watched in Missy Copeland's career was
(23:24):
a black woman fight for her place in a traditionally
white company, and once she made it to the pinnacle
of that company, she cashed in like nobody else in
that company has ever cashed in. It's true, and that
(23:45):
is one of the reasons that while I, while I
don't necessarily love her as a dancer, I have an
extraordinary amount of respect for her.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah. I mean, you know again, like I said, I
didn't really follow her that much other than peripherally, but
in you know, preparation for today, I did go look
at some videos and I'm like, oh, like there were
a couple of moments like she did this like botm
fore series and like the leg hit the top and
(24:17):
then you see the engagement like I'm gonna hold it
for a nanosecond before I let it go, Like little
things like that. I was like, Okay, I'll see you,
I'll see you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, yeah, she is so I actually the moment when
I think she was at her best for me, I
saw American Ballet Theater do Minon so Kenneth McMillan's Manon
and she was gorgeous in it. But she was. Also
I would argue she was gorgeous in it because it
(24:46):
is not a classical ballet in the sense of your
three acts where it ends with a grand padada where
the ballerina has to do a variation and thirty two
fu m hm, and so it was not that ballet,
and I think it required her to do more acting, okay,
(25:08):
and she was. She was like she was really good
at it in it, and it is also I think
why she's doing. One of the things she's doing for
her retirement performance is the Balcony Potada from Romeo and
Juliet but also by Sir Kenneth McMillan, and she will
be gorgeous in it. She will be just like breath
(25:32):
takingly spectacular.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
In it, I'm sure. And then there's little things like
I was watching What's the John where like it's a
potada and the she does the fees and then he
does the the the turns all.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Like yeeah, that's uh one, like like yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah yeah, And I'm watching it and I'm like, she
travel it, you know, and you know, and I'm not
hating because you know, I can't do no damn thirty
two four das anyway, and I've seen a lot of
people do them, you know, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And listen and this is this is I understand why
Misty Copeland fought it out in abt M, but I
think she would have had a better career in an or.
I'm sorry. I won't say a better career. What I
will say is I think she might have actually had
a more artistically fulfilling career in a different.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Company, probably because I find contemporary ballet to be like
where my heart is now anyway, like Ballet X and Philadelphia, Like, yeah,
I love them, love them, love them, but I do
love seeing a dancer yet so much attention. My first
(27:04):
example of that as a kid was a Suzanne Ferrell.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I love Suzanne, Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
And she was doing like a YO play commercial or something,
and I was like, oh, like and that was my
introduction to her and that she was a ballet dancer
and it was like, oh, okay, And you know, my
naive self was like, okay, so ballet dancers get to
do commercials and things like that, Like I didn't realize
(27:32):
how special that was. Yeah, so I love that. You know,
we're continuing that trajectory and again, you know, you have Barishnikov,
who like there's a generation of people that don't even
know he was a dancer, that's how famous he was.
They know him as an actor. He was on Sex
and the City and he was you know what I'm saying.
And I love that. I love that for her, and
(27:55):
hopefully that's something that we will continue to see.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
You know. Yeah, I'm gonna be curious to see what,
like what Misty Copeland, like what she is doing in
ten years, because I mean I do love that she's
done like so much advocacy work around black folks in
ballet and you're trying to she you know, she seemingly
(28:22):
from her Instagram feed, she seemed to sort of like
take the black kids from ABT and the black ballet
dancers generally and kind of mother them as the sort
of you know, the elder. The elder states lady.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, Like I saw a clip of her, like she's
in that Masterclass series and like I saw a clip
of her like teaching how to do a proper Ton do,
and I'm like, yeah, okay, And it's like it's one
of those things where like I trust her, I trust
her knowledge and plus you know, she's obviously doing it right, right, right,
(28:58):
So I appreciate that. So the next chapter of the
book we talk about Black Panther, And you mentioned before
about black folks collectively losing our minds with this movie,
and uh huh. I had never seen folks decide what
they wanted to wear to go see a movie before.
(29:20):
And it was like drumming dance circles. And my folks
hated to see us come and chat.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Listen, but they love to see our coin comments.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I know that's right, and you know I loved it.
I'm like, wear your shit, come in like the opening
credits to come into America.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Do it? Do what I say exactly. So I didn't
quite say it this way. So I'll say it and
then I'll transition. But you're in the chapter on Missy Copeland.
I really wanted to focus on the way that fans
were making that distinction between between like say, Dance Fit
(30:01):
of Harlem and American ballet theater, and so I organized
that chapter around class and sort of thinking about classes,
both the socioeconomic way of thinking about class, but also
class as a way of thinking about the sort of
different classes of things and the ways that we put
(30:23):
things in a hierarchical order. So in this way d
below American ballet theater. And so when I was talking
to folks about Black Panther, one of the things that
emerged was the concept that I called clout, and that
(30:44):
was really about, on the one hand, the way that
black folks like we showed up and we showed out
for Black Panther, But at the same time, there was
this undercurrent that we were absolutely doing it for the
joy of it, but we were also doing it because
(31:05):
we wanted to show Hollywood that we were a viable
consumer segment. Because again, and this kind of sort of
jumps the gun of sorts, but you know, the discourse
around The Wiz in nineteen seventy eight was essentially that
if we as black people didn't go and see that movie,
(31:30):
it was so expensive for the time that we'd never
see another one. And in the grand, grand, grand, grand
grand scheme of things, even as we showed up for
The Wiz, the fact is is that it did not
recoup its production budget, and we did not see a
(31:53):
film of the size and scope of The wiz Is
for forty exactly or almost exactly forty years. True, So
the Wiz happens in nineteen seventy eight. Black Panther happens
in twenty eighteen, yep, yep. And so there was that
(32:19):
similar kind of discourse that came came to the four
where we needed to show Hollywood, and so that is
in some ways, that is what that chapter is about.
It is about the ways that pleasure intersects with a
kind of consumer activism.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
And I love that. You know, it's a Marvel movie,
so you know, you have a certain segment of fanboys
that are built in. Of course, don't get me started
talking about fanboys, because Chu Child the Lord have mercy, Like,
y'all make me hate the thing that I like, Like
I hate people that like things. That's what this has come.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yes, but at the risk of getting canceled, Like I
hate Beyonce's fans, Like I think Beyonce is perfectly fine
and I like a lot of her music, but her fans,
like I want to see a Beyonce concerts so badly,
I just don't want to be in the stadium with
(33:20):
her fans.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yet at yeh at maybe not over the background, I
agree so hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that's a
book onto itself. I think beyonces Versus.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Decided to go into the bee Hive for this book,
but I was.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Like, you might not get back out.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was like, I don't think I have the mental
acuity to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Hill, But yeah, like Black Panther, I was so excited. Well,
I was excited to see it anyway, because I love
the character of Black Panther, like in every iteration that
I had seen up to that point, Like b Et
had a very short lived Black Panther animated series that
(34:07):
I loved, and my favorite clip was like, oh damn,
I forget. It was like some some like regal rich
white person came to to Wakanda and brought uh to
child or something and he was like, I don't need
a gift from you. What makes you think you have
anything I want? In fact, who even said that you
(34:28):
could talk to me? I'm like, you better read this
is what.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I like exactly. And actually I don't know if you
know this, but a an online creator named Ace Vang
actually has some videos where he does a sort of
re a voiceover that's the sort of ratchet voiceover of
those cartoons. They're fantastic.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I love it, I love it, I love it, and
you know. So I was excited to see Black Panther
get the MCU treatment. You know, I'm salivating, Like his
first appearance in Civil War. I was like, there he is,
he's doing things. Look at her. And I saw that
Ryan Coogler was directing, and so I immediately was like, Okay,
(35:14):
the film is gonna be in good hands. It's gonna
be black as hell. I love that they were giving him,
like Marvel money to do anything. And Martha and I
went and saw it in the theater and I, you know,
picked our seats. I'm like, we're gonna be over on
the side because I don't want to be in the
midst of nobody. I want to just be us in
(35:35):
this film. That didn't work out the way I want it,
But that's another story. But I remember just thinking, like
at one point I was just in tears, like the
first challenge scene when all the different tribes are like
on that tower and like you see all the different
representations of all the different garb and I was just crying.
(35:56):
It's like it's so perfect, it's so beautiful they're doing look,
oh they have the Oh. I was just I was
all over myself. So I love that film. And thank
god it was good.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was that was one of
the size of relief of many of us. Yes, we like,
they spent all this money, now can it please be good?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Thank you? Because you know, folks will not be able
to wait to say something good, especially if it's black.
M h. I get so, I'm definitely part of that fandom.
It's one of the few Marvel movies that I've seen
more than twice.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Okay, okay, you know, I mean, I mean it's it's
technically I think it is the only Marvel movie I've
seen period.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Really.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah, but I'm not a comic book gay. I'm like, yeah,
I'm I'm more of a like a sitcom, like a
sitcom with Diva's gay Fair Fair.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah. I'm definitely a comic book head on my marvelhead
always have been, so like, I will go to see
not all of them, there's something like yeah that that
can miss me, but but Black Panther I was definitely
there for So yeah, I'm definitely in that fandom. You
could have contacted me for that chapter. Now getting into
(37:25):
the whiz, here's where my views might be a little
controversial with you and many black folk. I love The Whiz.
I'm gonna start with that. I love The Whiz. I
think it is a beautiful film, but I don't think
(37:46):
that it is a good like as a movie like
to sit and watch from beginning to end. I do
not think that it is good mh. But I love it,
And like I think I feel the same way about
The Whiz that I do about West Side Story, the
original West Side Story. It was made for the age
(38:07):
of DVD and Blu Ray just skipped it apart to you, like,
so you don't have to watch all that bullshit in between,
because like, you know, Nipsey Russell, what would I do
if I could feel like, Oh, first of all, it
is and I watched the clip this morning and like
the nuce of like his face being expressionless but yet
(38:30):
emotiving at the same time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And that he can do all of that like and
I say this with all of the respect in the
world for Nipsey Russell. He has one note in his
vocal register, correct and he can do all of that
(38:54):
with one note.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
He really did. And you know my experience with The Whiz,
I've never seen the show, well, not counting The Wiz
live which I suspect you had feelings about because you,
like you never said what those feelings were, but I
could tell what those feelings were in the book.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I didn't even know I mentioned it in there that
mention briefly. Okay, you're like, as an aside, like and
this also exists. I want to say it does exist,
as does this This survival also.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Exists, Yeah, which I've heard very mixed things about. Again
I don't I don't know the show, but in the
Whiz Live that was the only time I ever heard
that song sung as opposed to like the way Nipsey
Russell did it. I like Nipsey's version better, like you
feel things more. It's like, okay, yeah he didn't sing down,
(39:51):
but you know he he put the emotion of the
song in that. Plus I love like the the backup
singers that are part of the decoration and like they
come to life and do what. I love that.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, I made say it is. It's the In some ways,
it's the difference between if we think about seeing Jennifer
Hudson at sing and I am telling you from dream
Girls it's really good, and then you see Jennifer Holiday
(40:26):
sing it and you're like this is really good and
I felt this in my soul, and so I think
there that that's in some ways, that's the difference. That's
the difference here. So they're both like you know, so
yeah it was Neo, right, Yeah, Neo was good. I
(40:48):
think it was Neo as the tin Man. Yes, you know,
the the guy who and I don't remember his name
who was in the Broadway iteration of this current revival
of The Wiz. He was, he was good. Just nobody
(41:08):
like nobody can like nobody yet has captured that affective
feel right that that song, that that song has, Right,
they're just also in a different space in the movie
than it is in the in the show. So it
actually doesn't It happens in act two when they're already
(41:28):
in in the Emerald City and he's in the play
slash Broadway version. He's sort of imagining, like if the
Wiz gives me this heart, what would I do? Okay, okay, yeah,
versus like a sort of expository kind of story right
as it is on Coney.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Island, which, yeah, I love it. And like I said,
like I said, I don't like sitting and watching the movie,
but again, I love the movie. Because there's so many
wonderful things and that I realize that the film is
kind of like etched into my DNA, Like don't let
Martha make anything with Tahini, because what am I going
(42:13):
to hear every single time?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah? Yeah, and yeah. And I think that you know
what you're hitting on too, though, is one of the
things and one of the reasons that I wanted to
write about The Wiz, and the reason that I write
about it as a part of Black cannon or Black canonicity,
(42:41):
is because I'm not sure that most folks, most Black
folks who see The Wiz are like, oh my god,
you know what, Like the Wiz is the best made
Black film ever. But The Wiz is not about its aesthetics.
(43:05):
It's actually about a kind of It is about the
way that it has tapped into and I think continues
to tap into what I call in the book black feeling,
the idea that it just makes us feel something. And
(43:28):
part of it, I think, and while I while I
have while I think that The Wiz being rated G
when it was initially released, while I think that that
was a terrible decision that Universal probably should have tried
to appeal as a PG, but I think that it's
(43:52):
genus also simultaneously made. And I did not write about
this in the book, and now I need to write
about but it made. I would argue the film automatically
feel like an intergenerational film, so in other words, like
kids were going to see it with parents and grandparents,
(44:16):
and so there's a way that I think part of
what is etched into the DNA of that film is
that we are also simultaneously like mapping the or remapping
those relationships back into the movie. So part of why
(44:38):
we love the Wiz is because it's like, oh, yeah,
I used to watch the Whiz with my grandma, or
my grandma took me to see it, or as I
talk about in the book, my friend Corey talked about
how he always watched that movie with his uncle Raymond.
And so there's a way that I think the Wiz
(45:03):
the certainly the afterlife of the Wiz, gets so interconnected
with all of these other memories. So in some ways,
our love of the Wiz may not even be about
the Wiz. It may just be about the ways that
we attach someone we love to the Whiz.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Okay, okay, I mean not for me, but okay, because
like everyone, Like everyone that I you know, know that
has seen the movie, we all have the same thing,
like we have those those cultural moments that we love
and those set pieces that we love. But as a
film man, and then as I've grown, I realize I
(45:46):
think that blame lies with Sidney Limett because I ain't
like not Nelsie did either. Okay, so I'm like, that's
a director thing, because it's it's not like I said,
it's a fabulous looking movie, you know, like the subway scene. However,
still to this day, you know, like I just watched
it this morning, I was like, damn, this is creepy.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I mean, also particularly for a g rated movie right.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Right right, which I don't even think I knew that
it was g rated, or at least at the time
when g ratings were a thing that were in my world,
I didn't think anything of it. And also, which what
I thought was interesting. I was thinking about this when
I was reading the book, Like initially growing up, like
I'm a product of an interracial home, so my understanding
(46:37):
of race as a kid is a lot different than
a lot of people, Like I didn't even really have
that much of a concept of it, Like I didn't
know the words black and white for the very a
very long time in that way. In fact ooh sidebar So,
my first introduction to the kind of someone being black
(47:02):
came from an episode of I Do Believe Barney Miller. Okay,
I'm I must have been like five. I couldn't been
I couldn't have been six. So it was either four
or five, and I'm watching this rerun and apparently a
black woman was who I don't think we ever saw
was supposed to be coming and working in the station,
(47:22):
and everyone is losing their shit because a black woman
is coming. And so in my child mind, I'm picturing
like this, like black as in color black, like monstrous figure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
And it's scaring me thinking about this because everyone's scared
of this black woman and I have and they never
showed her. So I didn't know, oh chocolate, which is my.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
At that point. So yeah, so that was that was
my introduction to to what black is. Ha. Yeah, anyway, Sidebarnon,
I never really I never really thought of it as
a black film per se. For a while, I was
(48:07):
looking at it as as that fierce movie that Michael
Jackson and Diana Ross and Ted Ross and and Lena
Horn and Nipsey Russell and who else was in that,
But like, you know, just these are people that I
enjoy and they're all on the same film. Oh my goodness. Yeah,
you know, like the same thing with You're not a
(48:28):
Marvel person, so this ain't gonna really hit you.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, it very well made, because there's also a way
that I don't know Marvel, but I do know, like
I can sometimes know things like because they enter it
into the discourse.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Okay, so in uh endgame where it's like it's the
big battle scene at the end of Endgame and all
of the women characters are fighting at the same time
and they get introduced. It was like the middle of
the scene before I realized that it was the women,
(49:06):
I was just like, oh work, it's hard and hard,
and I'm like I'm seeing them as the individual characters
and how fierce they are. And then right when they
started running together, was like, oh shit, it's all the women.
Oh shit, this is fierce. And so that was my
reaction as opposed to the reaction at large, which was
woke pandering.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, which yeah. Actually one of my graduate students writes
about that in his dissertation.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
It's like, God, forbid. We see these characters as like
they never interacted before, you know, like that was the
point throughout the rest of the movie. So why is
this moment considered lesser than yeah child? But yeah, So
I guess overall, what I'm trying to say is, even
(49:54):
though I am not a fan of the watching the
movie The Whiz, I am a fan of the movie
The Whiz.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Now here we are, We're at the chapter that is
near and dear to my heart, the Golden Girls. Anyone
that knows me knows that I have a near unhealthy
obsession with The Golden Girls.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Like you are the person who gave me one of
my favorite quotes, which is when you told me that
you are a Dorothy with a Sophia rising. Yeah, yes's accurate.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah, I love that show. I have seen that. I've
seen every episode. I'm not even gonna try and say
how many times I've seen the episode because we can't
we have to count the times. We're like, I'll be
editing this podcast and it's just I want in the background,
like when I'm at work, I'll just throw it on
Hulu and just like pick a section to start with
(51:06):
and just let it go just to have it on
in the background. So, like, I know that damn show
more than many people. So when you said we're looking
for fans of the Golden Gos with me me, pick.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Me right, pick me?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yeah, I got you. So talk to me about your
interaction with black fans of that show, which I figured
there had to be more, but I love how many
there were in the book alone.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah. So I am old enough to have watched The
Golden Girls when it was initially on television, and and
I am fairly certain that I may not have even
come to the series until about the third season. And
(52:03):
the reason that I say that is because in my brain,
my Saturday night went two two seven, Amen, Golden Girls.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
And so there.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Is a way that, at least in its initial airing,
that it made sense that I would be watching it
because it was in a time period when you know,
remote controls were not yet like the every day right.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
We still had to get out across the room to
still had.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
To get up. And you know this this concept of
in television studies, this concept called flow, which is about
thinking about the ways different units of television. So and
when I say units of television, I mean like thirty
minute program or hour long programs, how those units actually
(53:04):
fit together, and how they fit together within this logic
that we just talked about, which is that, like, we've
got to figure out how to encourage you to just
sit on your couch all night with the television on
NBC and not get up and cross the room exactly,
(53:27):
and so and so this concept to flow, and it
also of course extends to the ads that happen in
between segments of each of the individual units. And so
so The Golden Girls was just always this weird show
in the sense that it didn't necessarily make sense to
(53:47):
be on with a bunch of black cast sitcoms. But
yet I was watching it because it was right. And
so as a kid watching it in YO eighty seven ish,
I just I just thought of it as like, oh,
(54:09):
like this is the TV show, and like it's a
great way for me to spend half an hour when
I got to when I stopped dancing and actually had
time to watch TV. And then so around nineteen ninety
five is when I started watching The Golden Girls in
reruns on Lifetime. And it was simultaneously around the time
(54:35):
when I was coming to understand my queer identity, and
because so many gay men talk about their love for
the series, I immediately just went, oh, like Golden Girls called me,
(54:56):
because while I wasn't well, I wasn't queer, like it
could still like call to me as a queer subject.
And so I spent so much time understanding the series
as one that would appeal or that for me it
(55:16):
was appealing to my gayness and not necessarily my blackness,
as if one can separate their identity, but like, let's
roll with.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It, right, And so.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
It was. I feel like I saw something on Facebook
from a black person talking about how much they loved
the show. And this was also during the pan or
I shouldn't even say during the pandemic, because the pandemic
is still going. We've just decided that capitalism is more important,
(55:48):
thank you. But in sort of thinking about black people
liking it, I was I was just so I initially
started from a place of curiosity, and I was like,
do black people really like this show?
Speaker 1 (56:05):
Like there are a lot of us who like the show.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
And I found out that there were a lot of
black folks who watched the show, and so I went
into it and in some ways asking the question why
in the world would black people still ride for a
(56:30):
show that hasn't been on the air for forty years
that had that was about four o white ladies that
lived in a house together in Miami and in a
sort of unsophisticated way. That was the question that I
(56:52):
led with as I was engaging the Golden Girls and
it's black fandom.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
Right, Yeah, I agree. I didn't even think about that
part that it did close out the Black sitcom block
on Saturdays, and you know, and we were watching that
block just because we all did, you know, like, and
(57:20):
I don't think anyone made a point of of it.
It's just that's what we did on Saturday nights. So
I think for you know, there's that element of nostalgia,
there is that element of for queer folks. I know,
the idea of chosen family plays a huge part in it,
(57:42):
I'm sure, and then also the shadiness of it. Yeah,
you know, like, yeah, one of the best moments of
my personal life this is when I'm still barred Eddy
and someone asked me can I ask stupid question? And
I just, without missing it beat better than anyone, and
(58:03):
I know, yeah, I was like, I can't. I'm good now, yeah,
that's that's the thing that that kept me. It's the
cleverness of the writing and the it's just funny.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Mm hmmm. I think one of the really interesting things
about the show and black folks' engagement with it is
that they're obviously like, as black folks, we know we're
watching a bunch of white folks. But there was also
there's also this and I hate to say it as
(58:43):
work because it sounds like it's work, but it's not
necessarily but like, but it's the work of us sort
of trying to fit the Golden Girls into a pre
existing pattern that already exists in our bread. So it
is about the way. So one of the things that
(59:04):
emerged was this kind of verbal sparring to sort of
you know, say to someone, can I or to ask
someone can I ask a stupid question? And the response
being better than anyone. I know that for many black
folks felt like they were kind of sort of playing
(59:25):
a version of the Dozens. And so what was really
fascinating for me was the ways that this very white
show and in some ways, like we don't really even
love the episodes where negroes show up because it's like,
just leave us out of this like and we like
(59:45):
because we can just enjoy the white lady. But so
like this show with these white ladies on it, like
we can figure out how to read it blackly. So
it's like it's like, don't worry about like you just
do what you do. You will take care of like
making it make sense for us. And so that's one
of the things that is really it was really fascinating
(01:00:08):
to me as I was doing these interviews, is figuring
out the ways black folks were making the show there
like mean something for them.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Right, Yeah, that's true about when black folks would show
up on the show's and you know, there is the
course of product of the time that the show came out.
But it's like whenever someone black is on the show,
we have to let them know that they're black. You know,
the fact that it's the television is a visual medium
(01:00:38):
and that we can see them not enough, we have
to say, you know, you're black?
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there was also one black
writer on this show. I think for the first I
should know this better, but I think she was on
for the first three seasons, the great Winnifred Hervey.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yes, who I didn't know anything about until she was
a guest on Rue Paul's podcast back in the day.
He had her and I was like, really, which just
added another element to the show that I loved. And
(01:01:17):
you know, another aspect of the show that that is
now part of history is when we were trying to
battle racism during the pandemic and George Floyd and and
police brutality and and all we wanted was for the
cops to stop killing black people. So what did we do.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
We took off the episode with Rosslyn that Mixed Blessing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
It's like, who the fuck asked for that?
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
And the one of my one of my greatest achievements
as an academic is that I am quoted in a
story about the removal of Mixed Blessings from Hulu and
I basically say, who asked for this? Right, because it's
(01:02:08):
like we were actually asking for social justice. We were
not like and it's like none of us sat around
going why do Rose and blanch have on black face?
We were all just like they got on masks, like
my mask.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Right, Yeah. At the same so, it like they took
the episode off of Hulu, they took Aunt Jemima off
the Pancake box and they painted Black Lives Matter down
the street.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
It's like.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Talk about painting around that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
It's like, who but listen, but listen, but this is
but I mean listen, like to sort of get on
a soapbox for a half a second. It's part of
the problem of what I would suggest is black folks's
dogged investment in representation because us the response to like,
(01:03:03):
we wanted a systemic change to or a systemic response
to Black lives matter, but so often what we want
is to be seen, and so because we are so
often wanting to be seen, the response was the visibility response.
(01:03:30):
It was about, we are going to remove this episode
that is harmful. We are going to paint things so
that you can see that we're saying black lives matter.
It is why white people on MOSS wanted to write
statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, when
(01:03:51):
the black folks were like, you know what y'all could
do instead of writing this statement, you could actually just
stop fucking killing us. That would actually be like, that's
actually the preferable solution.
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
And it's easier to do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Yeah, you't gotta click nothing, yeah, yeah, and so and.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
So it's so easy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I'm doing it right now, right, exactly exactly, And so
that's kind of in some ways, you my, and this
dovetails into what I said earlier about why I wanted
to do a chapter in this book on black fan
practices about the Golden Girls. It's because I wanted to see, like,
(01:04:33):
what do we have to say when what we can't
say is anything about representation, right, or at least black representation, right?
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Yeah, and I do I think that, you know, it's
crazy that we were able to see ourselves because like, okay,
going back to the Mixed Blessings episode, it was like
when when the sisters came in and every one of
them was a fierce black TV diva, which I appreciate it,
but like it was like each of them had their counterpart, yeah,
(01:05:05):
with the girls. So it's like that whole thing of like,
you know, everyone's got a Rose in their family. Obviously
not to that degree, but you know everyone's got everyone's
got a little bit of the women in them. And
you could point to your your friend group and say
you're the and I'm the Yeah. Nobody wants to be
(01:05:27):
rose though, although I've been I've been told that I
am the Rose and I'm like, hey, but listen.
Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Here's listen. The thing about Rose is that she was
just naive. She was not stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
Correct, Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
And I always used to love when they would every
now and then do an episode where her sort of
like fearce competitive streak would come out.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Right, and You're like, I don't want to turn my
back on this woman.
Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Yeah exactly, Well.
Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah that's thing, and like and Betty White played her
as just being so pure and honest and open that
she just believed everything. You know, she wasn't stupid. H
I love that. I love that. So for everyone within
the sound of our voice, I do believe you need
(01:06:21):
to get yourself a copy of Fandom for Us by
Us the Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences. It is
a wonderful book. It is a great read. Like I
blew through each chapter in each sitting basically, and I do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
It's lovely to hear.
Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Yeah, And I appreciate the fact that although it is
an academic text, it is not a dry academic text.
I did appreciate that because y'all know how y'all can do.
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
So we do and listen, I I deliberately have stopped
trying to do that because it's because it is. It
is absolutely an affect. And listen, one of the things
I do in this book is I use black musicians
(01:07:15):
a lot, to particularly Solange Knowles, to to help me
theorize when I'm talking about I even use the real
husbands of Hollywood to talk about Missy Copeland to theorize
white famous and black famous. But yeah, I am like,
(01:07:35):
I also subscribe to what Erica Badu says, which is
what good do your words do if they can't understand you?
And and so part of what I want to do
as an academic is I want to I certainly want
to write for people who are intelligent folk, but I
(01:08:00):
want to write in a way that you don't have
to have a PhD understand, right, And you.
Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Know, and I do appreciate every now and then having
to look up a certain word because I am curious
that way, and I'm always trying to expand my vocabulary anyway.
But yeah, it's not an inaccessible book, which I definitely appreciate.
And for anyone that is a fan of any of
the four subjects or all of the four subjects, it
(01:08:30):
is an interesting read that I think, you know, I
think is definitely worth reading, and it is going to
now leave my bag and go up on our shelf.
So yeah, and Alfred Martin Junior, thank you so much
(01:08:50):
for spending some time with me here at the Full
Circle table.
Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Thank you so much for having me. It was a
great chat.
Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Yeah. If we wanted to get a copy of the book,
where should we go?
Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
So you can either go to nyupress dot org and
purchase it there or wherever you buy fine books.
Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Or not fine books. I'm sure they're sold the same place.
This is true too. And if we wanted to learn
more about you, where would we go?
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
My website is Alfredmartin dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Okay, and we will be putting all of that information
in the notes of this episode. Alfred, thank you so much.
And I have a feeling this is not the last
time you and I are going.
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
To sit in chat exactly, And thank you for being
a friend. Thank you bye everyone. Full Circle is a
Never Scured Productions podcast hosted by Charles Tyson Jr. And
Martha Madrigal, Produced and edited by executive Produced by Charles
Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal. Our theme in music is
(01:10:05):
by the jingle Berries. All names pictures, music, audio, and
video clips are registered trademarks and or copyrights of their
respective copyright holders.
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