If you consume Panhandle Media at any regular rate, you've noticed that. Noticed how, to get even a small amount of brief attention, Latinos have to take to the street in marches across the nation that number in the millions. But it's always BET week on, for example, Democracy Sometimes! where Amy Goodman can find a 'news' segment in a play closing and Spike Lee deciding to direct a film of it, for example. Latinos, Asian-Americans and other shot and killed by the police or the victims of hate crime are lucky to get a headline, but Sista Amy's always ready to, as Betty puts it, "don the 'fro day after day."
What's going on from this medium that preaches diversity but never manages to show any? What's going on when, in one of the funniest moments in recent history of the radio sitcom CounterSpin, Janine Jackson clams up as a guest mentions the sorry rate of representation for women (of all races) in the media? (Jackson's clamming up because CounterSpin rarely invites on women. Their guest ratio sometimes reaches their host ratio of two men to one woman.)
What's going on is the Closeted Communist. Still living in the fifties with their stereotyped notions of 'authenticity' that glorifies the plight of the African-American male (real and imagined) above all other things domestically.
The Closeted Communist went into serious hiding during McCarthyism (after posing as "Democrats" during FDR's years -- yes, this is the 'movement' of eggheads who supports Barack). Apparently hidden away from the sunlight, they never grew and remain trapped in those times. Which is why they're useless to any discussion on race in America today (even discussions having to do with the very real discrimination facing African-Americans). Their brains -- absent any Vitamin D -- calcified.
In one of our favorite films, Grace of My Heart, Allison Anders (screenwriter and director) captures the New York Radical rather well. Many reviews wrongly described Howard Cazsatt (Eric Stoltz) as a "beatnik." He's a Communist. And his antiquated ideas (even for the sixties) went a long way towards telegraphing why Denise Waverly (Illena Douglas) would find more love with whack-job and stereotypical California airhead/artist Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon) -- seriously disturbed but in love with her -- than she would with Cazsatt.
Cazsatt is every pain in the ass New York Radical -- a walking collection of various Democracy Sometimes! guests -- and from the beginning, audiences are cued to boo and hiss. (Something we recommend when you watch or listen to Goody.) When Cazsatt finally vanishes from the film in the mid-section (after being caught in bed with another woman), he drops right out, with no one missing his presence. When Jay kills himself, the impact is deep and propels the third act.
Grace of My Heart tells the story of (fictional) Denise Waverly -- a Protestant who comes to New York City hoping to become a recording star but instead ends up writing hit songs for others.
Cazsatt, if he has any talent of his own (he admits he's a hack after he stops trying to write songs), hasn't been able to harness it and decides to latch onto Denise's rising star after repeatedly insulting her talent.
The below exchange starts with Cazsatt reading an article praising Denise's songwriting, reading it out loud to her. She accuses him of making it up and he passes it to her for herself.
Howard: I will take a little credit though. The reviewer, John Murry, from Songwriter Magazine, he's a friend of mine. I've been telling him about you for awhile.
Denise: Oh really? What did you say? How I'm this mass-audience exploiting the pain of the working class Negro?
Howard: I told him the truth. That you're the best songwriter in this joke of business.
Denise: Well thank you, Cazsatt.
Howard: You're welcome, Miss Waverly.
Denise: What are you doing around here anyway? Spying on us evil, imperialist pop songwriters?
Howard: I have an office down the hall too.
Denise: Oh, what are you? The janitor or something?
Howard: Oh, ho-ho-ho! That's funny! Listen, I wanted to propose something.
Denise: Mmm-hmm.
Howard: Would you consider writing a song with me? Hear me out, hear me out. We, uh, we set a love song in the underclass ghetto."
Denise: (Laughing) Yes?
Howard: Two machinist fall in love on the graveyard shift at a plumbing parts factory.
Denise: Oh, boy, you are some romantic.
Howard: I think we'd make a good team.
Denise: Oh, is that so?
Howard: Yeah.
Denise: I appreciate what you're saying, I do, but I wouldn't know the first thing about how to save even myself with a song, much less the world.
They do end up collaborating (after he pretends romantic interest in her) and the film documents their differences in the one song they're shown at the piano composing, "Unwanted Number," about a teenage pregnancy.
Howard: A Negro couple under a street lamp.
Denise: Street lamp my ass. They were on a fire escape.
Howard: We're making art. A street lamp signifies the urban condition.
Denise: Were you there?
Howard: No.
Denise: Were you there?
Howard: No.
Denise: I was there and they were on the fire escape.
Howard: Can we compromise here? How about a fire escape under a street lamp? That way you can get your realism and --
Denise: And you get your urban existential.
Her 'realism,' as propagandist Cazsatt dismisses reality. As they continue working he will make remarks that sound a great deal like Amy Goodman's 'philosophy.'
Howard: So the boy in our song is depressed. Why? Because he's 16, he's a Negro, and no one's going to hire him.
Denise: No, no, no. He's depressed because he knocked up his 12-year-old girlfriend. And anyway, it's her story. It's not his story.
But Cazsatt, even though he knows the song is pegged for the girl group The Luminaries (the 12-year-old girl is one of their relatives), will continue to attempt to build up the 'plight' of the man (who Cazsatt knows -- before they start writing the song -- walked away and left the 12-year-old to raise the child by herself). It's so very typical of that mid-century attitude towards women that his kindred displayed (and that -- check out Goody any day -- they still display).
Cazsatt's need to propagandize destroys any hope of songwriting success which is why they'll soon split as a writing team. Typifying the Goody, Cazsatt will repeatedly insult Denise even going so far as to insist he thought he would "end up" with an heiress (when Denise reveals she comes from money) but he thought she'd be pretty -- like Grace Kelly. Mr. So Sensitive To The Plight Of The Black Man, will show no sympathy for any woman and fade away shortly after Denise gives birth to their child (which she raises alone) and catches him in bed with another woman.
"He gave her his love but wouldn't give her his name," is a line Denise will think up when they write "Unwarranted Number." For Denise, the inverse is true. When she gets pregnant, Cazsatt will marry her but he'll never love her.
Like a lot of the Radical New Yorker White set, he loves African-Americans only from afar. He'll watch them perform (onstage or in a recording studio) but that's as close as he'll ever get. When he performs for children, it's for White children. His friend John Murray (a "Red Diaper baby" born to two Socialist lawyers late in life) will be Denise's next NY Loser. Murray's the 'sensitive' Radical. He can't leave his poor, sick wife. He also can't tell Denise he's moving to Chicago (she learns of it from the radio) or even say good-bye to her.
Is it any wonder the woman gets the hell out of NYC? (Something we strongly recommend for all 'reporters' in Panhandle Media -- if only to discover that there's this entire world out of their inbred sub-strata of metropolis.) Is it any wonder she falls for Jay who -- though seriously damaged -- actually believes in her and believes in her future?
Grace of My Heart works on many, many levels. (And we still demand a re-release on DVD that has a bonus disc with the full soundtrack.) If you've never seen the movie, check it out. If you live in NYC and hang with a radical set, it just may save your sanity.
