Repost: Deadline, '{Atlanta writers} Address Criticism That FX Series Isn’t For Black People'
Yes, I’m years late to watch Atlanta. For the uninitiated, Atlanta is a show about Black American culture, with a surreal feel and a focus on the American Dream, existentialism, and current events. More importantly, it’s hilarious, the writing hits, and the soundtrack is great. The show is often described as among the best of the last decade (though seasons 3 and 4 are more controversial among fans).
My favorite Atlanta sode comes in the first season, one sode after portraying Justin Bieber as a bizarre Black man, surrounded by yes men, who is encouraged to do whatever he wants. This sode is called B.A.N., or Black Entertainment Network (not the slur some might expect). It showcases a fake TV network airing a fake—but all too familiar—talk show, Montague, and the commercials between segments. If you need to, imagine Rick and Morty's Interdimensional Cable or many one-off episodes of The Simpsons.
Paper Boi, a protagonist and rapper portrayed as having a thug-ish rugg-ish lifestyle, ends up on a talk show where the sleazy host and a pretentious liberal arts academic overanalyze his rap lyrics. They insist he is transphobic. Paper Boi jokes, “Please, please. Tell me about myself.” That line alone merits Atlanta's endless praise. It should win an Emmy for best one-liner in a TV show.
It is just all too familiar to be told, "This is what you really think." Every day it’s "You voted for X! You hate Y!" I cannot count the number of gentiles who’ve told me they know what Jews believe or what the Torah says—and are visibly angry if asked any questions in response. I cannot count how often I’ve been told I voted for someone, despite my advocacy and words pointing out that I most certainly did not. Sadly, as this sode illustrates, legacy media and academia are the biggest contributors to treating different groups as monoliths, intentionally representing cultures as being of one opinion rather than diverse.
It has become normalized for self-appointed academics—including terminally online keyboard warriors without credentials—to endlessly assess people, to the point they believe they speak on their behalf. While the talk show host and academic have well-crafted, esoteric ideas about misogyny and homophobia, Paper Boi responds “Nope” and other “real” answers that come from the heart, not rehearsed literature. He emphasizes that he's rapping nonsense and it shouldn’t be read into. Of course, even in real life, people refuse to listen, instead analyzing what others say through their lens.
It all builds to a skit about a Black teen who identifies as a 35-year-old white man named Harrison. The internet, of course, lost its mind. Endless comments insisted that “words are violence.” Vulture writer Michael Arceneaux virtue-signals in his recap:
“Race is a social construct. Race is complicated. Nonetheless, gender has historically been far more fluid and varied outside of Western ideals... I do wish the fundamental differences between this T-Pain-looking Black man and those of Dolezal’s ilk were better explained.”
Maybe, Michael, maybe, the writers were just having fun. Maybe not everything needs to be dissected IRL. Maybe, just maybe, the point was to tell you to stop reading into stranger’s lives. Welp, they actually said it, if you were listening. But if I joke “Shut up, nerd” in response to the white knights, or if I laugh at how microaggressions are deemed far more important than explicit words endorsing assault and murder, I’ll get told I’m racist. It’s easier to insist everyone who disagrees is racist than simply leaving people to represent themselves, without projecting layers on top.
The article I’m including is being backdated. It’s about whether the show is “for black people.” People apparently find parody to be a white person thing, as if the Scary Movie franchise didn’t exist. But I was rec’d the show by black friends, so I’d argue it’s for… whoever wants to watch it. It’s my blog, so I get to do that. Here’s the original link if you want to read it on their site: https://deadline.com/2022/08/atlanta-donald-stephen-glover-address-criticism-series-is-not-for-black-people-tca-1235083642/
GI
‘Atlanta’: Donald And Stephen Glover Address Criticism That FX Series Isn’t For Black People—TCA
Rosy Cordero; Aug 2, 2022
Donald and Stephen Glover addressed criticism from the Black community that their hit FX series Atlanta isn’t for them during the show’s TCA panel on Tuesday. The show’s fourth and final season is set to premiere on September 15.
“To be real, if you’re online, everybody’s gonna have an agenda on some level,” Donald Glover said. “It would be silly to say that sometimes what people say doesn’t affect you because—especially being Black —I feel like a lot of the Black criticism bothers me only because it sounds like [it’s from] Black people who don’t really know what we’ve been through. I don’t think they give a lot of credit to what we’ve gone through. So to be like, ‘Oh, these Black people hate Black people or these Black people hate Black women.’— I’m like, It’s such, my it’s such a small view of who we are. I feel like it might even be because of what we’ve been through that you look at us the way you look at us.”
He added, ”I kind of feel like I’m a little through with the culture, personally. I do a lot of this shit for the people. But the culture, I think at this point, I think a lot of us are sitting here being like, ‘Yo, a lot of this shit was learned because of fucked up shit that happened to us. And we actually have to relearn a lot of stuff.’ So if you’re sitting there being like, ‘Oh, this is misogynoir,’ I’m wondering why you think that and why you think I feel that way when I’m nothing without my people. It’s just kind of wack to me. Some of that to me is just Internet people trying to get hot, which is also something we learned in the system we’re in.”
Donald Glover admits he listens to the criticism and he believes “the conversation isn’t as elevated as it should be.” He said, “There are better ways to talk about it rather than like with shit I’ve heard in fourth grade about who we are because I feel this is such a Black show. To say it’s only for white people, it’s like we’re cutting ourselves down which is kind of wack to me… I’ve seen on Tiktok where people say Atlanta‘s transphobic. Man, I’m neighbors with a trans man and he told me Atlanta is his favorite show. I love how you guys talked about the trans thing because a lot of this shit is just takes for the internet, you know?”
His younger brother Stephen Glover admits he’s also affected when he hears the criticism because he believes Atlanta is for Black people.
“For me, one thing that I don’t like is when people say the show isn’t for Black people because I think it very much is for Black people. That kind of thing rubs me the wrong way,” shared Stephen Glover. “But I will also say being in Atlanta and walking around, or even like in LA, I run into Black people all the time who tell me this is their favorite show and how they appreciate everything we do. They also say we’re making them want to do cooler and weirder stuff. You know, like the TikTok generation kids, they’ll hit me up online and say how much they love the episodes. So for me, that’s the real kind of conversations that are happening out there. Internet stuff isn’t always real; it’s not how people really feel. I kind of get my feelings from the streets, to sum that up.”
Comment what you think.
