Spoiler alert! Its available on Netflix. Unless you dont mind hearing spoilers you probably wouldn’t want to read any further than here. After you’ve seen it come back and see if you agree or disagree!
Luce feels like of those artsy films.
One of those films where they don’t explain/flesh out certain characters (Deshaun), or even complete the story plot (did Luce actually frame his teacher?) – a similar film along these lines might be ”there will be blood’ or ‘monsters ball’.
And if you’re like me who loves closure and resolution.. and you like all the loose ends to be tied up.. you might find it the ending quite annoying.
However, after watching it and allowing a few days to pass, I see why it was important for the writers to do this. They were almost telling the listeners that fleshing out other characters and ‘tying up’ certain loose ends, would distract from the point they want to drive home.
The film repeatedly raises the question, the most pertinent concern of the film and protagonist – at what cost do we chase ‘black excellence’?
The question is more explicity raised by Luce, but it is also understood from the the way in which Luce is positioned in relation to all of the other characters in the film.
The movie is titled Luce which implies that he is in the centre of this movie (which he is) and how his world is impacted by the pressures from those around him to fulfill his destiny of greatness. Let me know what you think of my analysis, if you agree or if you don’t.
So we’re introduced to Luce.
– A highly capable, emotionally and academically intelligent, athletically talented young man who the school is excited about as, from their point of view, he is destined to do great things. The school affirm this, by inviting him to do a number of speeches to ‘inspire’ the student body and ‘represent’ the school to parents, as an image of what the school can produce. He is the poster boy and idol. Luce happens to have previously been (possibly a child soldier?) in Eritrea, but was adopted by two white American parents pre-puberty. He has a caring relationship with them too. It is noteworthy that his school knows about his past and from Luce’s perspective, the school staff feel good about having a student with a troubled past (almost unspeakable in the film) who has overcome this and is now a wonderful contributor to the school body and the school’s image. However Luce is troubled by this narrow lens and he shares this with his parents.
**Being acceptable**
– With a tense facce, but a calm tone, there’s a scene where he articulately explains how his teacher (played by Octavia Spencer) expects excellence and (almost) a righteousness from him – but nothing else. As though being something other than ‘excellent’ would be unacceptable. He articulates that this no different to the prejudices/pressures that come with navigating more negative forms of racism. His parents listen, but, in particular its his adoptive mother who doesn’t comprehend the importance of what he is saying. As the film goes on it becomes clear that she too, can only accept excellence from him.
DIscussion points around key events:
– Luce practices another speech that he would deliver to the school. He mentions how his adoptive parents couldn’t pronounce his birth name and so gave him a shortened name ‘Luce’, which they found easier to say. Luce recounts this in tears over his name change
– Deshaun, (Luce’s shadow) the part of Luce that the school wish to discard, but actually Luce is troubled with this. Not just because he cares about Deshaun, but because Luce sees himself in Deshaun. Deshaun also sees himself in Luce. Both talented athletes, both black boys. Luce sees in Deshaun, not ‘bad influence’, but also the parts of himself that he cannot publicly engage with. The part of himself that his mother and black teacher do not wish to ACCEPT is in Luce, (it’s much easier to place it in the other kids…but why?). And fact go in great lengths to discard from Luce. The black teacher, uses her power to see to it that Deshaun is expelled from school. Throughout the movie Luce’s mother refuses to accept that Deshaun is ‘capable’ of having owned illegal fireworks and doing anything illegal.
– To the extent that a confrontation between her and her husband, ends with her saying that it is Luce [insert quote] , effectively saying that ‘we are on the family’s team’. In context, saying that ‘for Luce to be a success, we cannot acknowledge these other sides to Luce, so we wont & that is what the ‘team’/the ‘family’ needs (who is that ‘team’ though?.. explore later.
The problem with black excellence
– Maybe its America (black and white people’s attempts to move from what James Baldwin point.. ‘white american’s need to ask themselves why they need a nigger?’ ..and move towards somewhere else? That white america could be the one’s to uplift the ‘nigger’ and turn them into america’s ideal? their perfect black man (the Obama trope).. i might be stretching a bit.. but maybe that’s what the movie is critiquing. On the other hand, there’s a critique of black america too; and im my experience in the UK, maybe other other black group where they make up a minority – which is the problem of being too wedded to the idea of ‘black excellence’. WEB Dubois’ idea of ‘the talented 10th’ [explain what this means]
– Maybe Dubois was just being pragmatic about the way black people can progress in the states and what that looks like. If we’re not careful, it can turn into firmly looking for those ‘talented ones’. Almost a dogmatic searching for the ‘one’, like the Matrix’s Neo. Where we prop up those great black talented individuals. The supermen/women of the black community if you will. In the west, this might be the Obamas, the Akala’s, the Oprahs, Beyonce’s, Jay Z.. (not that any of those people were asking for this) etc and we look for those people to represent us. We don’t want a single blemish on our black heroes, because all we hear about is our blemishes. We need that black person to be the chess piece to place in front of negative black stereotypes, racists and say ‘boooom…. checkmate!’ It makes us feel good, because damn it, we’re short on role models [and those are lot of folks who aren’t interested in black development and hold white supremacists/anti-black sentiments] and that don’t make us feel great either. You’re vision of high quality, high standards, wealth, greatness, are typically white faces. [i.e. ‘walking into the bank and asking for the manager’ moments].. so we hold tight on to our heroes, may be black people do especially..
– The problem with that though as that we ask people to be less human. We ask them to be the version of themselves that makes us feel good, not all of their person. Can i sell drugs, smoke weed, be divorced twice, have a porn addiction, earn a 6 figure salary, be an amazing father & still be someone to be proud of? Can i have been expelled from every school I went to, but spent the last 20 years working faithfully at a local takeaway and still be considered someone worth looking up to by black folks and my nation?
– If I cant be excellent and be all of myself – is excellence worth it?
What do you guys think?
**Concluding thoughts:**
Is this us?
In the name of combating the negative stereotyping of black people in the western world, particularly of black men; do we turn gifted black folks into gods? Heralded as spotless and without blemish, or are they heralded as such because we put blindfolds on when confronted with their blemishes?
Can we still praise an imperfect hero?
As a black man writing this, I wonder is there a part of me that doesn’t want to speak on the undesirable truths of gifted black folks, because I don’t want to give prejudiced onlookers another reason to judge me negatively..
In so doing, do I make these gifted people less human? Do I present myself as less human?
To people regardless of race, are we making gifted black people less human? Have we found ourselves presenting black people less human?
Maybe it’s a reach from what the movie is suggested, but i don’t think so.
This a site about artistry, so consider Kendrick Lamar’s refrain from ‘Mortal Man’:
*”When shit hit the fan, is you still a fan?*
*The ghost of Mandela, hope my flows they propel it/Let my word be your earth and moon you consume every message/As I lead this army make room for mistakes and depression/And if you riding with me ni**a…”*
If it turns out that Kendrick is something more than a great rapper and lyricist, that he is also something darker.. something less becoming… would you still ‘ride’?
Maybe our gifted black artists, leaders, thinkers, people.. are asking us.. to remember their humanity. And with my humanity in mind, can I be accepted? would you still ..’ride’?
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