alfredmartin.bsky.social
Detroit native. Associate Professor and Chair of Cinematic Arts at U of Miami. Author of The Generic Closet, Fandom for Us, by Us, and editor of Rolling.
176 posts
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233 following
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It is. Especially in TheseTimes(TM)
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Please get the fuck out of my head! 🤣🤣
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So, boycott if you must. Write your statements if you must. But the one thing you aren't doing is trying to actually destroy a machine that is so rotten to its core to be incapable of rehabilitation. You just want to effect change through spending, and that's not going to work. -fin-
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Sure, our dollars matter TO US, but all these companies need to do is tell you they like you and you will part with your dollars for the privilege of being liked and wanted (until you're not -- because these things are cyclical). 14/15
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The machine is doing what machines do. And instead of throwing a wrench in the gears of the machine, we are attempting to show a system adept at marketing and consumer segmentation that our dollars matter. And they don't. 13/15
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Y'all invested so deeply in mediated representation that a Black super hero or a Black mermaid was going to lead y'all's babies to the promised land. And y'all are still thinking we can buy our way to emancipation. 12/15
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My rage is at y'all. Because y'all bought into consumer citizenship. Y'all thought DEI was an ethos and not a branding strategy to hail y'all into being good consumer citizens who showed your pleasure and displeasure not by taking to the streets, but by purchasing. 11/15
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Because the Black and brown folks, the women, the queers and trans folks, the low socioeconomic status folks, and all the intersections in between in our lives, need us to do it. 10/15
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So, if it makes you feel good to do a one day boycott of the economy. Knock yourself out. But call me when we are ready to walk off our jobs and actually put our asses and our livelihoods on the line. 9/15
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(But fascinatingly, no one is saying we should boycott, say, Whole Foods, which is partly owned by Amazon or cancel their subscription to Prime Video because "I can't live without [insert Prime Video show here]"). You know what's not easy: putting your ass on the line for what you believe in. 8/15
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We don't actually want to do the work of a revolution because it might fuck up all the cozy luxuries with which we have become accustomed. It's easy to not buy shit from Amazon for a week. 7/15
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And if only y'all could have gotten off your asses to vote for the Black lady but something just felt off and besides... there was so much energy behind her that there was allegedly no way she could lose (except she did, which is what I told y'all was going to happen, but we can table that). 6/15
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If only Netflix could have made Project 2025 into a documentary so our lazy asses could consume it without having to read. And here we are, watching the Project 2025 playbook be implemented. If only y'all had read... 5/15
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Why aren't we organizing a national strike? Turns out, I have a hypothesis why: because we are lazy. Reading and engaging with Project 2025 was untenable because it was "too long" and not as "engaging" as the Harry Potter books (which, turns out were written by an anti-trans piece of shit). 4/15
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And ultimately, this is lazy. What does the economy care if you can make it a day or a week without buying something? You boycott Amazon for a week and then go back to buying their shit on March 15? What have you REALLY done? 3/15
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The difference between the Black civil rights movement in the 1950s and now is the highly globalized and conglomerated business environment in which we live (and have been party to its rise and reign). 2/15
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Also, a proper country with a politically engaged citizenry would have already started a revolution, but... here we are... American Racist/Sexist Business as Usual(TM).
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Whiteness trapped you into voting against your interests. So, I'm wholly disinterested in the pearl-clutching now that he's doing precisely what we told you he was going to do.
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Also: member when vvhite people were sending Adele Nazeem hate mail cuz Fiyero was being played by a Black man (her then-husband Taye Diggs)? Talmbout they hope a house falls on her? Bless.
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(and of course, they didn’t bring back that Black woman — or hire another Black woman — to be Galinda because that would scare off the audience they really want).
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And I’m not sure which came first: y’all believing representation is important or media industries telling y’all representation is important. I’ll be watching the box office sales for WICKED (already a monster hit on Broadway) to see if the sales trends shift once a Black woman is Elphaba.
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I’m going to see the restored print at TCM Fest in LA! It should be amazing!
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I would take the criticism if the student said I talk about negroes too much (but that would be racist?). But most importantly, we cannot shift the frames within which students read us/our courses. That is, my leftist, Black queer body was already “too left” and “too queer” for this student.
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Second, it’s a good thing this student didn’t learn a lot about film since I was teaching a course on television. Third, there is one unit on the gay 90s and we watch “Judging Books By Covers” (alongside Good Times).
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He’s good. Perhaps even great, but there’s just something about the way Nipsey Russell sings “What Would I Do (If I Could Feel)?” that is so effectively affective. But also, there’s not really a clunker performance in the whole film.
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A heartfelt thanks for writing it!
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Ok. Fair. Maybe it’s no online shopping for personalized items, then?
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I'm only allowing rocking your baby to sleep (Although I would make room for online shopping...)
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It includes 3 short symposium essays on Black fandom & the oppositional gaze, labor, & love. All the work is open-access & available at the link. Thanks to TWC editors @melstanfill.bsky.social & Poe Johnson for inviting Matt & me to edit this issue. journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw...
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It also features a roundtable conversation about the ongoing impact and importance of @rawreader.bsky.social’s seminal essay on Black fandom journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw... with me, Faithe Day, @mediadataequity.bsky.social, @andrecarrington.bsky.social, and Sascha Buchanan.
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I cannot wait to start working on this book!
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Besides Pryor and Russell, I really like Ross. Is it an “un-Ross” performance? Of course. But she burrows into the uncertainty that this Dorothy feels as a lost 24 year-old (while her costume is ugly, her skirt has pockets!). It’s a shame this performance killed her acting career.
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I’ll concede that “He’s The Wiz,” “The Emerald City Sequence,” and “Brand New Day” are too long and that the book is thin (as it is in the 1939 film adaptation and the Broadway iteration). The continuity editing is often a whole mess. But the performances and the special effects are really great.
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Richard Pryor and Nipsey Russell are the real stars of the film. Nipsey is so damn good! And Pryor’s nervous energy is so effective.