AlainLocke
Banned
I didn't write this btw...and never tried to pass it off as my own...check out this professor's blog...good brother.
“A Brief Observation on Denzel Washington’s Vision of August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ & Black Male Infidelity” by Dr. T. Hasan Johnson
I’m watching Kurt Russell in Tombstone (1993) after having watched Denzel’s Fences. Russell plays a newly retired lawman Wyatt Earp moving to Tombstone to strike it rich. He’s married and moves to town with his wife and brothers. He and his wife are subtly unhappy but not obviously so. His wife is suffering from some medical ailment and is addicted to drugs. She’s portrayed as not seeing his vision and isn’t really connected to him…and she’s a bit self-absorbed. She also doesn’t know how to support him after his brother is killed. Earp finds new perspective with a new woman and through the course of the film, the story justifies his choice by highlighting his wife’s disconnection from him. By the end you feel sorry for Earp and feel he’s justified in moving on to a new relationship.
In Fences, Troy starts to feel disconnected from his wife and isolated…his sacrifices for the family feeling all-consuming. He, too, seeks solace elsewhere. In the past, men’s social obligation was to provide at all costs, regardless of how one felt. There was (and often still isn’t) even a language for how a man felt about the weight of being socially-expected to provide for family, and it’s not surprising that such labor often guaranteed a shorter lifespan (I still marvel at how many families’ “Big Mamas” I meet who lost their husbands decades ago).
What I notice is that in this way both movies are actually quite similar. Both men essentially feel the same, but in popular media narratives men’s pain has to be immediately erased in observation of women’s pain and sacrifice. Despite the differences between both characters’ race, time period, class status, wealth opportunities, historical existence, and profession they are nonetheless linked as blue-collar men negotiating society’s expectations in regard to manhood. (Although Earp existed, he’s “represented” in this film and is thus an imaginative fixture, whereas “Troy” did not exist–but there are many everyday “Troys” in Black America). Whether in the Old West or in 1950s Pittsburg, PA–despite being separated by race–neither group of lower middle-class men controlled patriarchal standards in society. Nevertheless, in both contexts these men (and many of us viewers) learned to defer to women when in conflict. For example, notice in the Fences trailer how Denzel’s “Troy” mentions he’s been standing in the same place for 18 years and Viola’s “Rose” immediately follows with, “I’ve been standing with you!!” Such a shaming tactic disallows men to actually articulate their own feelings about social obligation and sacrifice–right or wrong. The resulting, acceptable form of male emoting? Silence. He’s supposed to stand in awe of her sacrifice while ignoring his own.
“A Brief Observation on Denzel Washington’s Vision of August Wilson’s ‘Fences’ & Black Male Infidelity” by Dr. T. Hasan Johnson
I’m watching Kurt Russell in Tombstone (1993) after having watched Denzel’s Fences. Russell plays a newly retired lawman Wyatt Earp moving to Tombstone to strike it rich. He’s married and moves to town with his wife and brothers. He and his wife are subtly unhappy but not obviously so. His wife is suffering from some medical ailment and is addicted to drugs. She’s portrayed as not seeing his vision and isn’t really connected to him…and she’s a bit self-absorbed. She also doesn’t know how to support him after his brother is killed. Earp finds new perspective with a new woman and through the course of the film, the story justifies his choice by highlighting his wife’s disconnection from him. By the end you feel sorry for Earp and feel he’s justified in moving on to a new relationship.
In Fences, Troy starts to feel disconnected from his wife and isolated…his sacrifices for the family feeling all-consuming. He, too, seeks solace elsewhere. In the past, men’s social obligation was to provide at all costs, regardless of how one felt. There was (and often still isn’t) even a language for how a man felt about the weight of being socially-expected to provide for family, and it’s not surprising that such labor often guaranteed a shorter lifespan (I still marvel at how many families’ “Big Mamas” I meet who lost their husbands decades ago).
What I notice is that in this way both movies are actually quite similar. Both men essentially feel the same, but in popular media narratives men’s pain has to be immediately erased in observation of women’s pain and sacrifice. Despite the differences between both characters’ race, time period, class status, wealth opportunities, historical existence, and profession they are nonetheless linked as blue-collar men negotiating society’s expectations in regard to manhood. (Although Earp existed, he’s “represented” in this film and is thus an imaginative fixture, whereas “Troy” did not exist–but there are many everyday “Troys” in Black America). Whether in the Old West or in 1950s Pittsburg, PA–despite being separated by race–neither group of lower middle-class men controlled patriarchal standards in society. Nevertheless, in both contexts these men (and many of us viewers) learned to defer to women when in conflict. For example, notice in the Fences trailer how Denzel’s “Troy” mentions he’s been standing in the same place for 18 years and Viola’s “Rose” immediately follows with, “I’ve been standing with you!!” Such a shaming tactic disallows men to actually articulate their own feelings about social obligation and sacrifice–right or wrong. The resulting, acceptable form of male emoting? Silence. He’s supposed to stand in awe of her sacrifice while ignoring his own.
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@ this level of writing in TLR ... carry on ... I'm just here reading ... 
