Jane Campion and the Dangers of Backhanded Compliments


Something about director Jane Campion going too far to identify with Venus and Serena Williams at an awards show on Sunday and then insult them, brought me to mind a crappy fantasy night. A few Fridays ago, I went to see some art: an afternoon retrospective of Faith Ringgold with friends at the New Museum; Norm Lewis sings at Carnegie Hall in the evenings. (It was a one-man trip.) I wore suits for both.

The Ringgold show requires three floors and includes his 1967 masterpiece “American People Series #20: Die”; a blind, bloody racist-offensive frieze that would have been a pure physical comedy about the racial catastrophes of the age, if not for the helpless terror on the faces. (Black men, women, and children; white men, women, and children). The scale of the canvas helps. Very big. Ringgold has always painted Black women in a range of moods, emotions, circumstances and beauty. It gives them both personal serenity and alarm-blaming faces.

I planted myself in a narrow corridor of three works on the alarming end of things – the “Slave Rape” trio from 1972. A warm, large canvas of a nude and agape woman with a signature and a signature, each framed by a patchwork quilt. Ringgold’s. I was spending time with a movie called “Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away” – the woman is in the middle of the flight, loosely draped with leaves, a large gold ring on each ear – when two strangers (female, white) park themselves between me and the piece and in an adjacent gallery They continued a conversation that I heard they heard. They did not notice me, nor the distress described, nor my conversation with him. I waited more than a minute before waving my hand, which seemed to bother them.

“Did something happen?” a stranger asked. she asked.

“You’re on my way,” I told him.

“Please accept it deepest I’m sorry,” said his friend. If there was a middle ground between candor and sarcasm, these two had planted a flag. But they moved, though not immediately, so that I might enjoy some sort of displacement victory, and eavesdropped on their conversation about real estate and art ownership.

Went to Carnegie Hall after a drink with friends. A taxi made sense. Someone pulled up and the driver (male, brunette) looked at me, then noticed a white woman hauling a taxi ahead and drove on instead. When I just ran to ask him what happened – Is there any problem? – No acknowledgment was given to me in a way that only a guilty taxi driver could achieve. I chased the car about half a block to photograph a license plate number where you had to be Weegee to find the truth. I’m not Weegee.


I’ve never been to Carnegie Hall. And I like the idea that Norm Lewis will let me in. He played Olivia Pope’s former senator in “Scandal” and one of the vets in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” There’s a sweet, resilient baritone I’ve only come across at concerts recorded on PBS. That night, Stephen Sondheim, backed by the New York Pops, treated Andrew Lloyd Webber and Marvin Gaye as polished jewels, and pumped “Ya Got Trouble” with enough breathtaking delight to leave you wondering, with all due respect to Hugh Jackman. The current “Music Man” resurrection is not in the lead role.

As a solo artist, this was Lewis’ first performance at Carnegie Hall. People were dying to see him and their beloved father. In a queue in the lobby before the show, one such person (female, white) was pushing me around when I turned to ask if she was okay.

“We’ll call,” she said of herself and the gentleman she was with.

“Miss, I guess we all are,” I said.

“We are members. You?” she asked.

I lied in hopes that yes would prevent her aggression.

your pops

He had me.

“I like Norm Lewis,” I told him.

“We love popes.”

A week later, I was thinking about my night out when one of the world’s greatest filmmakers greeted two of the world’s best athletes in an acceptance speech at the Critics’ Choice Awards. Jane Campion was awarded the directing award for a sneaky farm drama called “The Power of the Dog.” From the stage, Campion (female, white) greeted Venus and Serena Williams and announced that she had started tennis but her body was telling her to stop. With his nervous excitement, Campion was enchanting. She later pointed out the plight she was in as a woman in the film industry, informing the Williams that there was nothing about her. “You’re amazing,” she said with a grin. “However, you’re not going to play against men like I should.”

The Williams sisters were in the room that evening because, alongside Campion’s film, “King Richard,” a smart, poignant film about their family, was among the nominations. “King Richard” isn’t about 2001 when a California crowd booed and booed Venus, Serena, and their father, Richard, at the top tennis tournament. It’s not about the many mischaracterizations of their bodies, skills, and intentions in the press and by their peers. It’s not about one sister sneaking up on endless confusion for another, it’s something that just a few weeks ago, appeared on a page of this newspaper. It’s not even about their struggle, especially Venus, to bring women’s prize money closer to men’s. “King Richard” is about how the sisters’ parents molded, loved and coached them for the kind of people who could handle harsh backlash and harsh compliments with the same strength and poise.

Although Campion’s faulty backstroke flew wide, the hall lurched to applause. Some of the applause came from Serena Williams, who has seen many shots for a long time. I had to stop thinking any further about the meaning of Campion. It was very confusing. Was it a desire to install sexist scarecrows for directors at award ceremonies or to eliminate such distinctions in sport? Are there no men to contend with in tennis? The line separating argument from blame and blame from self-exaggeration was blurred. Instead I thought about the cost of darkness.

On a Sunday afternoon, Williamses dressed up to celebrate some art. And someone stood before them and challenged the validity of their membership here in Campion’s vision of brotherhood. The next day, Campion gushed. apology. These frictions, understatements, and insolence have a way of lingering. The truth behind them makes them unrepentant. I had the intention of keeping my date with Faith and Norm to myself. But Venus. As Campion speaks, his face is doing something. A coward who knows. He and his sister dressed up that night to absorb more of the praise given to art about their lives. The invitees suddenly became intruders, one minute they presented, the next they burst through a trap door. Faith Ringgold would recognize the discomfort. She painted over and over again. Run, you can escape. But you probably won’t.





Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *