Films as a Place for Black Joy
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, music writer, and MacArthur Genius award recipient. Last spring, he exercised his curatorial eye with a popular music series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This year he will host a summer film series at the Walker Art Center, Hanif Abdurraqib’s Black VHS Experience. This series is an extension of Abdurraqib’s writing focusing on Black performance, joy, and life. He selected films from the ’90s that showcase the multitudes of Black life in America.
In the lead-up to the launch of Hanif Abdurraqib’s Black VHS Experience, Abdurraqib discussed the impact of these films as well as their connections to music and art.
Valérie Déus
Since you are curating a series of films from the early to mid ’90s that capture a moment in time and representation for Black people in film, I was curious: How would you describe the vibe of this cinematic playlist? I think of it as a playlist.
Hanif Abdurraqib
I think there is a broad sense of nostalgia at play. Because this is happening in summer, I spent a lot of time thinking about my summers as a young person. And summer for me as a kid, we didn’t have cable all the time at my house, but we did have a VHS player. For us, for me and my brother and my siblings, that meant that we could watch a stockpile of films if we wanted to, whether the day was rainy or if it was just a good day to be inside.
My parents would be at work all day during the week. That meant that me and my brother could kind of dabble in the movies that we were probably a little too young to watch. With this film series, I wanted to tap into that feeling a bit, because adulthood doesn’t always afford us an opportunity to give into the feeling of being on spring or summer break or having a moment to tap into just enjoying ourselves with a movie. That’s where my brain was with this series. These movies are all very important to me. These are all movies that I snuck around to watch, or movies that I remember seeing as a kid past my bedtime. I hope they’re important to some other people, too.
VD
I love that you connected to the feeling of being a kid watching a movie on summer break. But it is different today with so much more media and accessibility. Back then, a viewer was held captive and hostage in a way. A feeling of “All right, there is no other option. This is what you’re going to watch.” You found a way to find joy in that. It was pleasurable and fun. You could also lose yourself in it in a way that is harder to do now because it is easier to get distracted if you’re watching something while doing something else.
HA
Massively. Yeah.
VD
You mentioned that these films are important to you. What is it that they tap into?
HA
These are films that run through a thread of music. I’m big on fictional Black music characters that feel real or could be real. When I was a kid, I thought The Five Heartbeats were a real group, and Mo’ Better Blues felt real.
These Black musical titans of the fictional world, it ties into what Black musicians were when I was a kid. I believed them to be almost superheroes in a way. That is also at play here. I wanted to pick movies that meant a lot to me, in part because of how they allowed me to think about an expansive, larger world where Black folks were making music. Those characters were larger than life.
VD
How interesting it would be to have that sort of alternate world where all those musicians and all those places exist. Does Bleek live in the same world as The Five Heartbeats? Do they cross each other? Can they go on tour together? It’d be interesting to see them interacting in the same place.
HA
Yeah.
VD
How did you approach putting together this playlist?
HA
I was trying to curate an arc that makes sense. The idea for this series was the relationship between films about music. There was some influence from what excites me personally, but that has support, putting together a logical arc, that ties everything together into becoming something greater. It is like the writing process where one is pulling a lot of things together, but hopefully all of these separate pieces fold together well. It can’t just be what films are enjoyable for me.
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F. Gary Gray, Set It Off 1996. Image courtesy New Line Cinema/Photofest. -
Emile Ardolino, Sister Act, 1992. Image courtesy Buena Vista/Photofest. -
Spike Lee, Mo’ Better Blues, 1990. Image courtesy Universal. -
F. Gary Gray, Set It Off, 1996. Image courtesy New Line Cinema/Photofest. -
Spike Lee, Mo’ Better Blues, 1990. Photo courtesy 40 Acres & a Mule Filmworks/Universal/Photofest.
VD
What compels you to write about certain work? What compels you to approach something?
HA
If I have an obsession that leads me to more questions. I want to be led to as many questions as possible. I’m not really in pursuit of conclusions. Instead, I am interested in a relentless pursuit of questions and more expansive thoughts around questioning. At this point, I think one major pursuit of mine will always be Black performance, and giving adequate weight to those by examining ones that I remember when I was young that I perhaps don’t have the same grasp on now. Black performance is always something I’m in pursuit of. Oftentimes with Black performance and Black performances, there are threads that you can keep pulling on that allow you to go elsewhere and elsewhere and elsewhere. That is really exciting to me.
VD
Do you have favorite parts of those films? Are there scenes or sections of films that after watching, you find yourself saying, “Okay, this scene right here, we’ve got to rewind and watch this again.”
HA
I love the scene in The Five Heartbeats where JT and Flash do the White Bulls sing off. In the same film, there is the scene where they do the a cappella version of the song “Houses of Heart for Love.” As much as I love The Five Heartbeats, there is a funny thing about the film that my brain can’t wrap itself around. When they perform “Back in the Middle,” which I think is supposed to take place in 1976, that song would not be on the chart yet. The character of JT is also playing a standalone electric keytar, and that is not an instrument that would be on stage in that era. I love that scene and my brain kind of just goes around those flaws. As a viewer I forgive the flaws because the scene and the film are so compelling. It is a compelling fiction.
There are similar aspects in other films, like with Sister Act; that element of the film that stands out the most is that Whoopi is so funny. There’s a level of physical humor. I don’t know if people consider her to be a comedian anymore, and I don’t know what she considers herself. I actually don’t watch the daytime talk show she is now on. In Sister Act there is a mode of just perfectly timed physical humor that she exhibits. This is also true in the sequel.
In Dead Presidents, one of the more touching and heartbreaking scenes is at the very end of the heist when they’re counting the money, and Keith David’s character is describing how the government was going to burn the money. That they were kind of doing the government a favor by taking the money out their hands. Chris Tucker’s character mentions that the government was going to burn this money, and they can’t even get jobs. Keith David says, with a really sly grin on his face, “That’s Uncle Sam for you. Money to burn.” I love that scene. I love the delivery of that line.
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Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes, Dead Presidents, 1995. Image courtesy Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo. -
Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes, Dead Presidents, 1995. Image courtesy Buena Vista/Photofest.
When I was a kid, I had a nightmare about the movie Dead Presidents because, in the trailer, which I saw before I watched the movie, there is a clip from the scene where the person with the painted face is looking up from the sewer. It’s really haunting. That messed me up when I was a kid, but I adore all these films, and I can go through and pinpoint those elements that had a deep impact on me personally. The series connects to these larger topics of Black performance and performances—but is also very personal to me. I think movies have that ability.
VD
What kind of space or environment are you hoping to grow, care, or foster with the movies that you’ve chosen? What kind of conversations are you trying to initiate?
HA
I’d be fine if people are just happy remembering something from their past that brings them a level of warmth or comfort. If it’s kind of a portal to a type of nostalgia that enlivens people’s summers. Summer is a nostalgic season for us as adults. I mostly want people to be able to revel in that. Yesterday, I did a reading, talking about how it is fine for Black folks to just be joyful. Maybe even detach from a message if they want to. Now, I’m not saying that these movies are shallow. I’m simply saying that I hope pleasure is a place people can tap into.▪︎
Take in Hanif Abdurraqib’s Black VHS Experience for yourself July and August at the Walker Art Center.
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