http://www.afronerd.com/2022/08/batgirl-movie-canceled-flash-movie-as.html
Afronerd Radio can now be heard LIVE courtesy of Apple Music/Itunes
Time to rock and droll, people! it’s time for Afronerd Radio’s Mid Week in Review show, airing every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, courtesy of BTalk 100. com. Listen to your genetically-modified AFROnerdist hosts discuss the following issues: the uniquely cast, Batgirl movie from Warner Media starring Afro-Latina, Leslie Grace, has been canceled due to budgetary concerns; and the even more expensive Warner IP, The Flash, along with its lead actor (Ezra Miller) foibles, might be next; is Ben Affleck “the Batman” or not? Especially while this alleged corporate turnover is occurring at Warner-media.; another dimension; our thoughts about yet another Disney+ Star Wars prequel series, Andor, in the wake of a full trailer release:
So now amoral and unscrupulous business people are promoting “Slave Cabin” Airbnbs now? Let’s discuss; something we failed to cover-legendary action star/director, Slyvester Stallone is actually starring in a superhero project via Amazon entitled Samaritan:
The CW Flash TV series will purportedly end with a shortened set of episodes for its 9th season; the iconic, problematic, and hotly debated Death of Superman comic and storyline turns 30; who will become the new Black Panther and conversely, who will become the King of Wakanda for the upcoming sequel?; And lastly, is it true that recent test screenings for the MCU’s Marvels film went poorly? Again, let’s deliberate/
One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF
Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!!
Also, Afronerd Radio’s podcast format can be heard via BTalk 100 Pandora, Spotify, and, IHeartRadio….more formats to follow!
Afronerd Radio can now be heard LIVE courtesy of Apple Music/Itunes
Time to rock and droll, people! it's time for Afronerd Radio's Mid Week in Review show, airing every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, courtesy of BTalk 100. com. Listen to your genetically-modified AFROnerdist hosts discuss the following issues: the uniquely cast, Batgirl movie from Warner Media starring Afro-Latina, Leslie Grace, has been canceled due to budgetary concerns; and the even more expensive Warner IP, The Flash, along with its lead actor (Ezra Miller) foibles, might be next; is Ben Affleck "the Batman" or not? Especially while this alleged corporate turnover is occurring at Warner-media.; another dimension; our thoughts about yet another Disney+ Star Wars prequel series, Andor, in the wake of a full trailer release:
So now amoral and unscrupulous business people are promoting "Slave Cabin" Airbnbs now? Let's discuss; something we failed to cover-legendary action star/director, Slyvester Stallone is actually starring in a superhero project via Amazon entitled Samaritan:
The CW Flash TV series will purportedly end with a shortened set of episodes for its 9th season; the iconic, problematic, and hotly debated Death of Superman comic and storyline turns 30; who will become the new Black Panther and conversely, who will become the King of Wakanda for the upcoming sequel?; And lastly, is it true that recent test screenings for the MCU's Marvels film went poorly? Again, let's deliberate/
One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF
Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!!
Also, Afronerd Radio's podcast format can be heard via BTalk 100 Pandora, Spotify, and, IHeartRadio....more formats to follow!
In Black Panther’s now famous museum scene, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) responds to the museum curator’s statement, “These items aren’t for sale,” with the ever resonant: “How do you think your ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it like they took everything else?”
In three concise sentences, Killmonger summarizes all that is wrong with the modern museum and the colonizer mentality that displaces sacred items far from the peoples to whom they belong, with no recourse for return or even acknowledgement of the cultural and social theft that has occurred in the process.
Over the course of four films and a fifth on the way in 2023, archaeologist-adventurer Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is positioned as an American hero as he travels the world in search of objects and information that he claims will contribute to the collective and global knowledge bases represented by the Western university system.
“It belongs in a museum,” Dr. Jones constantly says, firmly situating himself in the exact same camp as those whose cultural appropriations he is constantly fighting against. According to Dr. Jones, these artifacts don’t belong in just any museum, they specifically belong in his university museum, where he can conveniently get credit for securing them. Also, Indiana Jones seems to have forgotten that the museums of his own era aren’t exactly accessible to general audiences, let alone the peoples from whom the objects have been taken.
From the perspectives of those who have been violently colonized and experienced the horrors of forced assimilation and even genocide, the modern museum is not the bastion of knowledge that Indiana Jones and his allies pretend it to be. Rather, it’s a glorified display of wanton grave-robbing from around the world, the results of the looting of sacred sites and culturally valuable items justified through a lens of white supremacy.
There is very little in a museum that actually belongs there. But through the Indiana Jones franchise, the exact opposite is promoted as Dr. Jones and his colleagues continue an ongoing pillaging project that takes them through Central and South America as well as the Middle East, Africa, and Asia as they meddle in the trafficking of items that categorically don’t belong to them, often across continents. This vicious dynamic is framed within a white savior narrative that is inherently racist even before we get to the actual events on screen in Indiana Jones movies.
Raiders of the Lost Ark opens with Indiana Jones in Peru breaking into a tomb, stealing a sacred idol, and replacing it with a bag of sand as booby traps set off all around him. Thanks to Jones, this one act sets off a series of events that lead a group of Nazis to the Ark of the Covenant as they seek immortality for their designs of global domination.
“I hate Nazis,” becomes another Indiana Jones catchphrase, and he ably defeats some of them in Raiders. Ironically, though, Nazis were actually inspired by the United States’ very own Jim Crow laws, centuries of slavery, and institutionalized racism that Nazis actively used and integrated into their campaigns to eliminate Jews, Romani, disabled, and LGBTQ communities altogether.
Raiders might have taken place in 1936, but Jones’ narrative distancing from the reality of his own era actually reflects a 1981 perspective that had already begun whitewashing the slavery and segregation eras of American history through this adventure tale. There are multiple levels of colonization going on in Spielberg’s opus, extending far past what’s on screen.
Things only get worse as the franchise rolls on through the years. As a Sri Lankan American who has lived in India, I have found myself haunted by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom‘s open racism against Asian countries and cultures as monoliths. From its Chinese villains to Indian ones, Temple of Doom literally demonizes Asian people on screen, presenting Indians in particular as snake and monkey-brain eating savages who kidnap and subjugate children while worshiping a demonic fictionalized version of Hindu goddess Kali who demands human sacrifice.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me what monkey brains taste like I could put a down payment on a house, even in this economy. Worse, Temple of Doom wasn’t even filmed in India. It was actually filmed in Sri Lanka; you can even hear the villagers speaking Sinhala in the fore and background, not Hindi.
Here we see Indiana Jones’ colonizer, white savior mentality infest the screen as Spielberg collapses two distinct cultures into one Brown lump for white audiences, correctly assuming nobody would know the difference between India and Sri Lanka, and forever setting a cultural wallpaper that includes levels of depravity and savagery decades later that real-life South Asians still can’t escape when in the Western gaze.
In the next Jones adventure, The Last Crusade, the man in a panama hat (Paul Maxwell) who uncovers the Cross of Coronado in Utah that a young Indy (River Phoenix) fights as a teenager is framed as a villain. Yet, Indy goes on to base his field “look” as an adult on this supposed villain. Indy believes himself to be better because his motivation isn’t money but rather intellectual colonization — as if that’s somehow more noble. It isn’t.
All the while, this third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise conveniently leaves out how the Knights of the Crusades were themselves colonizing forces across the Middle East and Europe, converting people by force and mass murdering those who refused. It also once again frames Nazis in opposition to good Americans, leaving out crucial pieces of the USA’s history that inspired the Nazi’s genocide and global domination projects.
By the end of Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, we find out that Indiana Jones actually does understand that some things categorically do not belong in a museum. In Temple of Doom he returns the Shivalingum stones of the Mayapore people to them, restoring their thriving village and overthrowing the evil maharaja (who was backed by colonial British forces). By the end of Last Crusade he realizes that some objects are too powerful for public awareness, let alone consumption as he allows the Holy Grail to disappear into the deep mountain cavern of Alexandretta.
This indicates that Indy has always known that museums aren’t the end all, be all repositories for artifacts. He only applies that knowledge selectively. When Indiana Jones returns 20 years later in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, for the first time he is dragged into a deadly artifact hunt against his will. But his racist and culturally insensitive quips have not changed, nor does he yet have the self-awareness to recognize he is exactly the same as the colonizers out there seeking to enrich themselves or unnaturally increase their power.
Ultimately it’s not just Indiana Jones who’s a colonizer, it’s also the entire creative team of Spielberg and company who have and continue to promote a racist, colonial gaze decades past its expiration date. Reviving a franchise as problematic as this one in the current context of encroaching fascism in the United States and whitewashing American history in schools so as not to make the colonizers’ descendants feel badly about their past sends the opposite message to what we need.
Even if Indiana Jones 5 situates itself in the civil rights era of the 1960s, will it address and take responsibility for all of its own colonizer legacy over the years? Or will it bury its head in unacknowledged past missteps, continuing to promote a historically inaccurate version of an American good guy with a gun? If it’s not self-reflective and retroactively professing attrition for the many harms the figurehead and stories have caused, we categorically don’t need it.
What we do need is for museums to return all the items they’ve looted from around the world, and most especially the sacred and religious ones.
Exhausted by the self-help craze twenty-two years ago, the Secret Society of Happy People decided to step back and recognize that even as life challenges us, happiness happens. The group decided pursuing happiness can be an intentional practice.
Now August is celebrated as Happiness Happens month. Expressing happiness as a personal practice can be daunting, so here are five activities to help encourage authentic happiness to happen in our lives this August and beyond.
Quality Time in Solitude
Alone time provides the space to recharge our batteries and reflect on our lives. Practicing intentional solitude can encourage empathy, creativity, and productivity.
When was the last time you were able to spend some time alone with your thoughts, a book, listening to music or people-watching? Observing people can be a source of endless entertainment accessible to all of us at any time. Sitting down with ourselves and reading a book for pleasure for an afternoon can change your mood and lighten perspective. Gardening or allowing yourself time to binge-watch a show you love is equally nourishing activities that can make you connect to your special happy place.
Alone is not lonely; learning to embrace the difference is a key element to building a lifetime practice of unconditional self-love.
Conscious Dance
Image-RhythmTherapy Creative Arts Salon
Episode 3 of Lizzo’s reality show Watch Out for the Big Grrrls is titled “Curves and Confidence.” Lizzo’s dancers encounter their first conscious dance class led by sensual body movement expert Rashida KhanBey Miller. The class was a sensual embodiment experience that allowed the Big Grrrls to connect to moving their bodies without judgment outside the constrictions of choreography or the gaze of an audience.
With joy-filled tears in my eyes, I witnessed the ladies’ relationship to movement in their bodies transform after the experience. I’ve been a conscious dance facilitator leading my RhythmTherapy Creative Arts Salons for over 14 years. I’m grateful to Lizzo for sharing conscious dance with the world on her Emmy-nominated series to normalize this movement style to Black women.
As a Black woman, to dance outside the limitations of someone else’s choreography is an expression of freedom that I don’t get to experience in this body in most situations. Leading conscious dance classes, particularly the past two years during the pandemic, I’ve witnessed thousands of people experiencing full body autonomy for the first time.
But you don’t have to go to anybody’s class to experience consciously loving your body unconditionally and expressing yourself without judgment. Connecting to joy through dance is as easy as popping in your favorite song and dancing like nobody’s watching. Guess what, nine times out of ten, nobody cares if you dance in your happy place; in fact, your ability to connect to your happy place just might be contagious.
Home Cooking
Good food is glorious, especially when made with loved ones. When non-essential workers were working from home, lots of folks felt the need to hone their culinary talents by preparing meals made from scratch. From complicated processes like baking the perfect loaf of sourdough bread from homemade starters to putting together prepared meal kits, home cooking became cool again.
As soon as pandemic restrictions lifted, the majority of us hung up our aprons and ran back to restaurants without looking back. But there’s something special about food made at home with love.
One of the most valuable gifts we can share with young people is the ability to cook. Chefs like the author of Black Panther: The Official Wakanda Cookbook, Nyanyika Banda, are using their culinary talents to craft cookbooks based on films and TV shows. Kids of all ages enjoy cooking together and sitting down as a family to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
Cooking is universal, and if you’re single and fabulous, you’re not left behind. There’s nothing like taking the time to cook something you love for yourself and then enjoying a meal cooked with your own hands. Bring a smile to your face by cooking something yummy to make your tummy smile.
Spending Time in Nature
I recently interviewed writer Baratunde Thurston about his PBS series America Outdoors. One of the most valuable gifts his mother passed on to him was a love of nature. Even though Thurston grew up in Washington DC, his mother would round up Baratunde and his friends from the neighborhood, pack their station wagon, and take the boys out to a national park to camp, hike, and spend time exploring creation. Thurston recounted how other parents in the neighborhood were grateful to his mom for making the outdoors an adventure for his friends in the neighborhood.
We also talked about the stigma the outdoors holds for so many Black Americans. Thurston noted, ”I’ve gotten more sensitive to the complex Black history associated with the outdoors. Because of my mom, I didn’t grow up with a fear of the outdoors. I didn’t grow up with a traumatized relative, who was like, ‘We were forced to work in the outdoors, forget the outdoors. I’m staying up in this air conditioning.’”
It’s easy to feel FOMO about going out in nature if you’re not used to being an outdoors person. Doing the work to find ways to embrace easing into nature in ways that feel right to you is worth it. GirlTrek is a Black women’s health movement that makes the outdoors accessible, affordable, and less intimidating. You don’t need any special equipment, and if you don’t have the resources to get yourselves out on the trail, you can strap on your sneakers, go outside, and take a walk for thirty minutes near your house while listening to one of GirlTrek’s Black empowerment themed podcasts. Or, you can find a crew you vibe with and walk together in community or on the trail.
Whether you’re happy going in the wilderness for a hike or your vibe feels alive taking walks in your neighborhood after dinner with friends or family, spending time in nature is sure to raise your happiness vibration.
Celebrating Victories
If you read the Black Girl Nerds article “Set Goals Not Resolutions for 2022,” and you achieved or are on your way to achieving your goals, take time to celebrate. Whether your goal was personal, professional, or financial, recognizing the work it takes to complete a task successfully is vital to your personal practice of happiness. Knowing you “did good” is particularly sweet when a challenge is difficult to achieve. Celebrating victories is one of the sweetest parts of life. How can you not be happy after completing a task challenging you to grow?
I love this quote by Father Alfred D. Souza, “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” When we think of happiness as a practice rather than a goal, we allow ourselves to witness life in real time. Difficult times are sure to arise, but recognizing August as Happiness Happens month is a reminder to take time to recognize, nurture, create, and appreciate when happiness happens all year long.