The Dichotomy of American Cinematic Egotism

The following was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a weekly Namibian newspaper.

The dichotomy of American cinematic egotism

The United States of America sure loves itself doesn’t it? Hopefully this doesn’t piss of any American aid funding agencies in the country, but let’s be honest, the country is the international superpower equivalent of Narcissus, the Greek mythological hunter who fell in love with his own reflection.

You mostly see this in movies. It’s as if the cinema is America’s giant lotion bottle for the proverbial obvious. Red Dawn is a movie about North Korea hostilely occupying American soil; with no clear purpose apparently; simply because they can. The result? A large, trained North Korean army division gets their buttocks handed to them by a bunch of American teenagers. Seriously. They had zero training, just a chorus of American patriotic chanting, because that’s usually how winning a war works.

When you look much closer at this you realise just how frequent this occurs. Two of the new blockbusters are practically the same movie. White House Down is about terrorists attacking the White House and subsequently getting their rear ends kicked. Olympus has Fallen is about terrorists attacking the White House and subsequently getting their rear ends kicked. You would think they copied off each other for the script.

Almost all the big hit movies revolve around America. If it’s an alien invasion, whatever the extraterrestrial visitors are looking for is hidden in America. If the world is coming to an end, the most interesting moments will be occurring in the Land of Opportunity.

Now a lot Afro-centric voices are displeased with this and this is very understandable. They hate that America is so focused on itself in its artistic expressions but I think we have to realise a major contributing factor for this is that the movies are being made in America by Americans. I’m sure if Namibians had the budget (and talent?) to pull off an alien invasion blockbuster, Martian kwaitos would be pitching up in Independence Avenue.

The reproaching finger has to be wagged for the right reasons. In the new Die Hard movie, our American hero, played by Bruce Willis, erects an arrogant middle finger at his about-to-die Russian villain as he jumps to safety. In the high grossing film Armageddon, starring the same Bruce Willis, meteorites fell to the earth and caused much destruction. Paris, the French city gets totally destroyed by an asteroid fragment. But that wasn’t a big deal, everyone cheered when America was saved.

I think this is where the real issue lies. Despite tensions in North Korea reaching boiling point, American film makers still received epiphanies to make movies that depict Koreans as bulling, incompetent jerks with an air of sexual deprivation. With great parts of the world already hostile towards America due to this perceived attitude, which they totally have, you would think their PR work would be more PR and less mud smearing.

So I think there should be fairness in our disparagement. There’s nothing wrong with feeling patriotic about one’s own country and depicting it in film. If we made a good movie showing how awesome Namibia was, we’d want others to watch it and I’m sure America feels the same. It’s only when that patriotism becomes jingoism and pokes at other countries that it becomes a problem. What’s the solution? Does anybody have Michael Bay’s number?

Should all words be pliable?

The following was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a weekly Namibian newspaper.

Should all words be pliable?

Andrew SevenSeven

So I’m sure you’ve seen the new Trevor Noah show, That’s Racist, right? Maybe you bought the DVD or copied it from a friend, whatever, the show was pretty funny. Besides the humour, he really got the crowd buying into the philosophy that words were quite pliable if you invest enough time to changing it. The focus word here was kaffir and he really believes that if we use it often enough, particularly in mundane contexts, the word would lose the power it so tightly holds over the southern African region. It’s not a word that gets used often-although get used it does, let’s not kid ourselves (and in very racist contexts as well), and most of the continent does seem to be slowly forgetting the bitter word, nevertheless when it does show its head it has a way of turning even the kindest heart into a pungent jumble of bile. But such was Trevor’s charismatic sway that he even got a few impressionable white girls to call themselves kaffirs.

If you look to history, it’s a given fact that words can change meanings over time. After all gay used to mean cheerful or merry. The American counterpart of the word kaffir has been embraced by the black community there, so much so that it is employed as many times as the word ‘the’ in the average rap video.

But has that actually made things better? Why does it feel like much of the community that has embraced this word amongst them also endorses some of the foulest lifestyles on the face of the earth? Not to mention that the actual meaning of the word hasn’t been changed, has it? Nigger is still used to refer to black people, even in the black communities, and it still carries some of the negativity previously associated with it.

Words very rarely fully disengage themselves from the association attached to them, even over time. Gay may now mean homosexual, but that that is still due to most of that community’s over eccentric gesticulations. But perhaps what’s worrying is that a lot of women are starting to use this kind of thinking with regards to the B word. For most, it’s no longer an insult now. It doesn’t matter that the word means a female dog. It can be changed to mean something else. But how many of these people would be fine with their young daughters calling themselves that?

Besides that, isn’t word association one of the many things that set us apart from animals? We’re people after all. Should we just disregard the fact that our parents and grandparents died so we’d be freed from the old systems? Isn’t pain a part of being human? A lot of us have a greater respect for history and our ancestors now because we still appreciate the weight behind the words they were lashed with.

When the comedy shows are over, what will we tell our children about our past, and what will their reaction be if their association with the word is nothing different to what they have with a cellphone charger or a glass of water?

The Night to Get Drafted

Drafted to Babylon

27.07.2013.

What a night. I’m not sure how else to put it. It was like one of those times when Man United were playing so big a match that minutes before it starts I no longer feel the nerves. Everything just seemed normal, even mundane. I had a bit of a unique experience compared to my other 3 compatriots because I had experienced the nearest example just two months earlier during the Big Band Theory show, but from the audience. I still wasn’t ready to step on to a stage then but seeing the band, singers and rappers made me want to. That leads into another way this was different to me. It had been over two years since I stepped on to a stage to rap. I did something briefly at Word of Mouth, and a poet session a few months back, but that was a different experience. I didn’t feel like I had been away for that long. I just tried to rap like I used to in a random classroom at Unam, doing Saved by Grace.

Anyways, that’s that. It was a night when Christians feel rallied and listen to some Christ-centered music, with the focus of uplifting his name, but that’s not end all be all. It would be failure on our part if that’s where it ended. To just make Christians feel good and then return home. Drafted to Babylon was a show meant to bridge the gap between the Christian and the non-Christian. Create a level playing field so non-Christians don’t feel the need to put up their guards when talking to us. We can just hang, have a great time and talk about whatever. But even during the planning we wary that only Christians were gonna pitch. We feared it would be another gospel show, just at the warehouse. But 30 minutes into the show that fear was dispelled. Yeah, there were Christians but the balance was encouraging. It was great to see people who were standing having a beer or cigarette bumping their head to our music. Black, white...it didn’t matter. It was great to see a few fellow rappers come out to give their support, Wambusien and Mark Mushiva who I’ve been looking up to since I was in grade 10.

The turnout was fantastic, which just made the evening even better. Picture Juice throwing freestyle punch lines to a packed audience. We started with a cipher; rapper after rapper coming onto the stage to bits and pieces of well known songs. Then came the Bboys and girls break dancing and finally OddDigital with his beat set. The dude is pure genius. Picture a ragtag white guy in a backpack and Silver Surfer t-shirt making beats live on the spot on an MPC to an impressed audience.

There was a short break and me and Dewi feared people would leave, but lo and behold they stuck around for the main event. The band. Dear me, the band. When they all did their solos during one of our tracks, I was blown away just as much as the crowd was because it was the first time I was seeing it. There’s not a lot I could say that wouldn’t take something away from the actual thing. It was everything we expected it to be and more. Much more. For me, it was a particularly good night cause I got to see someone I hadn’t seen in a few years. Anyways, get drafted or remain drafted, until the next one, onwards and upwards.

Oh by the way....to the folk that couldn't make it. Here's something for you. *NOTE* Take what you see in this video and times it by 100 and you get what being actually there was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZT5hJGh98

The Trayvon Martin case aftermath

This article was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a Namibian newspaper under Omalaeti media.

The Trayvon Martin case aftermath

By Andrew SevenSeven

I’ve been following the Trayvon Martin case with one eye for more than a year now, ever since that tragic evening in February last year. To be completely honest, I’m not much of a law geek. In fact, I avoid series and movies that involve anything to do with a courtroom or crime investigation like it was the plague. But this case wasn’t just about the crime, not just about incident. It was a case that had a good number of the world population fully locked in from the moment the incident hit the media because of the ever-giving good old subject matter of race. 

There have been two groups divided on the issue, although one has been conspicuously more vocal. That is the pro-Trayvon Martin side and it has become even louder since George Zimmermann (Martin’s killer) was found not guilty of any crime. From celebrities to famous public figures and even journalists and pastors, people have been crying out for justice. The claims are that the judicial system is blatantly racist and corrupt. It’s an issue that runs fiercely through the veins of anyone with melanin because wherever there have been black people in numbers, some kind of marginalisation or abused could almost always be found there as well. It doesn’t matter if voices emerge from parts of Katutura or the suburbs of London, it’s an issue that concerns all of us. Basically, if Trayvon Martin had been white, and Zimmermann black, this would have been a non-issue solved in a matter of days probably.

Perhaps that is true, but perhaps that isn’t necessarily where the issue lies. Zimmermann was charged with second degree murder which meant the burden of proof fell to the state and his prosecutors. This means they had to prove beyond doubt that the man was guilty. Of course this was complicated by the Stand your Ground laws of the state the incident happened in and he eventually walked free. The outrage that ensued is understandable. But Zimmermann supporters question why the same fervour wasn’t shown when O.J Simpson was acquitted. And to be fair they kind of have a point. When O.J walked, every black comedian’s pencil was breaking as scripts overflowed with jokes. I think it’s time we began looking past race.

A boy who hadn’t even turned 18 yet was killed because he was followed (presumably because of his race)-but what allowed it all and indeed the Zimmermann to walk free was the law in place. It is difficult to prove that a shooter had premeditated a shooting and done it out of ill-will and convict him/her of second-degree murder, but under Stand Your Ground laws, the degree of threat one has to feel to resort to use of deadly force is quite murky. As long as the person feels the necessity, it’s fine. Studies show that justifiable homicide tripled in Florida annually after the law was put into effect.

It’s true, young black males are marginalised in the USA but if more attention was paid to resolving these laws then tangible change would come. The same can be said back home. We can cry about gender based violence forever, but until people start to tackle the law side of things (stricter punishment for one), it’ll just remain a social issue when it should be a legal one.

Does the church perpetuate ignorance?

This article was first published in the Villager newspaper.

The Villager is a Namibian newspaper under Omalaeti media.

By Andrew SevenSeven

Does the church perpetuate ignorance?

For most, understandably, it is clear that the answer to this question is a resounding yes. But for those less eclectic in terms of their observance of the world, then perhaps this may have struck like a blow to the gut when they watched an NBC news segment a few months ago. The report was about a small object in the north that appeared to have fallen from the sky. When local folk were interviewed, a layman gave an eloquent analysis of the object, citing the crater it created and so forth; other laymen who were not familiar with the subject said so and left it at that. However when the man of the cloth came on to be interviewed, all he could say was something about a sign from God? What exactly was his message, one would wonder? That sometimes random pieces of meteorite fall to the earth?

As embarrassing it this was, perhaps for most, it was merely a moment to relegate with a soft chuckle and maybe shake your head at your friend and say “blunders…” One laughs and moves on. But when you take a step back and absorb the complete panorama of this ignorance, you understand that something much sinister is at hand here. And dangerous to parties on both sides of the church wall. It’s fine when that ignorance is about a little black rock in the north but it’s not fine when that ignorance has a detrimental effect on somebody else’s life.

For example, some aspects of the catholic system are against both abortion and contraceptives. But logically, even for married folk, that just doesn’t make any sense. Other church sects discourage people from taking medication because they claim they can heal them, something that is both irresponsible and extremely dangerous and reckless. There are countless other cases of the church being judged and hurt by the church.

It is common knowledge that the church’s history is marred by dark periods like the Inquisitions and the Salem witch trials, most of which many still hold over the church’s head. But it is also known that, if done right, the church can be a good thing. People have been rehabilitated from all kinds of cesspools, and many people involved with the church have helped battle things like child trafficking and hunger. There is also notable work from men like Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian, who is physician-geneticist and is well renowned for his leadership in the Human Genome Project which has helped in the understanding and treating of diseases and overall the understanding of our own DNA. However, with a skeptical, ever advancing world always ready to pounce on any opportunity to shed the weight of all things ‘churchy’, perhaps the church should be thinking very carefully how it allows itself to be perceived.