Wesley Morris

I think that it is trying to start something and acknowledge that something is happening without necessarily caring about getting anything right, if that makes sense.

I think it really wants to capture an energy.

And if some characters wind up less developed than others...

It's a side effect of the attempt to capture this energy.

But I don't think this movie is disrespectful.

I mean, we can talk about...

like what like how people feel about the depiction of black women in it but like i don't think it's being i don't think it's being done in bad faith but i also think it's like it is fun and useful and illuminating to think about this movie as a both a work of racial politics and racial movie politics

Wow.

Well, then I can give you four phone numbers of people who would love to hear from you.

Join the conversation.

We should be clearer about Sean Penn raging military racist.

Whatever.

I think that you're identifying like some of the major criticisms of this movie, which is, you know, you have this, you're going to give us this badass black revolutionary who then proceeds to complete a checklist of all the things that,

all the problems that the movies have given black women, all of the sort of conservative, um, disrespects, um, stereotypes that have been built, you know, to judge, deny, um, erase black women and black womanhood from, from American life.

What's the letter doing for you?

To me, I think this, this is a really interesting question about creative tension.

Because I, what I wonder is,

It's almost philosophical here, which is at what point does a character stop being a representation of something and begin being an individual human who makes shitty decisions?

And if you allow this character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, that I do not think that's the name on her birth certificate, by the way.

because you meet her you meet her mother and an aunt and I just don't believe that what's the difference between what's the difference between a shitty decision and a reprehensible decision