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Thursday, June 14, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

The two entered the venue 
dressed in the most opposite 
terms possible — Daveed Diggs 
sporting a Golden State Warriors 
bomber jacket, highly-distressed 
red jeans and a grill, Rafael 
Casal clean cut in an all-black 
button down and black slacks. 
They were a pair of walking 
statements, proud proclamations 
of individuality with blurred 
separating lines. They each stuck 
out in their own ways, so similar 
in that regard, that they could 
only come from somewhere the 
same. This shared, quilt-like 
quality, I came to realize over the 
next few hours, was the reality of 
everyone form the Bay Area – a 
tumultuous community of every 
race, religion, and creed, bounded 
by an acceptance of what is not 
their own.
Diggs and Casal were attending 
the 
Cinetopia 
Film 
Festival 
premiere of their first feature 
film “Blindspotting,” the story 
of two lifelong friends — Collin 
(Diggs), a convicted felon looking 
to pull his life back together, 
and Miles (Casal), a new father 
lost in an unfamiliar hometown. 
They both struggle to find their 
new places in a rapidly changing 
Bay Area. “The town,” as many 
Oakland natives would call it, is 
caught in the middle of a series of 
changes spurred on by the rapid 
gentrification of the region as 
well as national tensions related 
to race, class and gun ownership.
Diggs and Casal premiered 
their film on opening night at 
Sundance back in January, and 
“Blindspotting” is set for a nation-
wide release July 10.
In the few minutes I had to talk 
with Diggs and Casal, this sense 
idea of the “Oakland Artist” came 
up more than once. In response to 

a question about getting it right, 
Diggs said “that community is 
so isolated and self-sustaining — 
that the necessity to get it right 
— I don’t even know if people 
put [pressure] on us, we put it on 
ourselves, that’s a responsibility 
that we feel we owe the place we 
grew up. And everyone sort of 
gets it wrong, and sort of has a 
wrong perception of the Bay Area, 
so if you’re from there and you get 
the opportunity to project the Bay 
Area out onto the world, we want 
our friends to go ‘That’s right! 
That’s the bay area we know!’”
The duo had met at Berkeley 
High as teenagers and have been 
working 
collaboratively 
ever 
since. Both of their previous 
work has come largely in verse, 
Diggs as a rapper, most known for 
his membership on the original 
“Hamilton” Broadway cast, and 
Casal as a slam poetry performer 
featured on HBOs “Def Poetry 
Jam.” This attraction to form 
translates itself onto the screen 
in scenes that play out more like 
a musical than a drama. When 
asked about “the town’s” response 
to “Blindspotting,” he added 
“The thing about being an artist 
from the Bay is no one’s really 
checking for us, so we’ve been 
proud of each other anyways. 
And it’s really a pretty supportive 
artistic community. You’re always 
really excited when someone 
has something that breaks out 
and does well.” Casal chimed in 
“[Oakland] is one of the lenses 
with which we look at the world. 
I think our point of view of the 
world is so drastically affected by 
that upbringing that I think it will 
be omnipresent in everything we 
do, whether we try to or not.”
The film touches on many 
current social issues relevant to 
Oakland and to the Bay Area and 
is at its best when it allows these 
topics to exist bubbling under the 

surface rather than boiling to a 
head. “Blindspotting” is really 
a fun movie, until it reaches the 
point where it isn’t supposed to be 
fun anymore, Diggs and Casal’s 
ability to balance these opposing 
forces of levity and turmoil, an 
almost perfect microcosm to the 
current state of their home town 
— one stuck in an identity crisis, 
its transfixingly unique former 
self set up against a more sobering 
contemporary reality. Aside from 
some hiccups in the third act, the 
film delivers on its promise of a 
thought-provoking 
inspection 
on the modern intersection of 
race and class, managing to test 
its audience’s own preconceived 
notions through to the end.
The biggest accomplishment 
of the film is its wonderful 
array of characters, the list of 
notables stretching far past the 
central two. Each new, eccentric 
Oaklander 
added 
on 
screen 
contributes 
to 
the 
pulsating 
diorama of the two writers’ roots. 
These peripheral, sometimes one-
off, characters fill a wide range 
of race, class, and profession, 
melding together into a stunning 
mosaic of what was once “the 
town” and what could still be. 
The only characters who aren’t 
given this colorful treatment are 
the harbingers of kale smoothies 
and vegan burgers, the plaid fleet 
of gentrifying yuppies, the tech-
centric, oh-so-vilified hipsters, 
whose addition to the region don’t 
just raise property value but raise 
tensions as well. Miles, the Bay 
Area fundamentalist of the film, 
doesn’t hide his disdain for the 
geeky newcomers, he literally 
attacks the issue of gentrification 
opening up dialogue on a set of 
deeper issues as the film works its 
way to its close.

Cinetopia: ‘Blindspotting’

SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

CLARA SCOTT
Daily Arts Writer

I can remember those days 
clearly: Sitting with my dad as 
a child, the rain falling slowly 
outside and the sardonic yet 
calming voice of Anthony Bourdain 
on the television. By the time I 
was old enough to actually choose 
my own entertainment, I always 
loved Bourdain’s shows, from “No 
Reservations” to “Parts Unknown” 
and all the appearances and books 
in between. I stole my parents’ iPod 
and watched reruns on the tiny 
screen, wishing I could taste and 
feel the things this crazy, wonderful 
man did in all the crazy, wonderful 
places he went. Watching Bourdain 
was one of the ways my dad and I 
connected, through a shared love 
of people who didn’t give even one 
crap, leading to a joint adoration 
of a man who truly took his own 
advice. I felt as if I was friends with 
this man on the screen and the 
page, and continued to be a massive 
fan of the former chef as I grew up.
If I was sad or lost or needed 
some inspiration to whisk me away 
from suburbia, I turned on one of 
Bourdain’s shows and fell straight 
into the daring cuisine of Malaysia, 
light-saturated skylines of Tokyo 
or the cobblestone-lined streets of 
Cuba, far away from my problems 
and lack of adventure. Talking to 
people my own age, I found that 
this experience was not only mine, 
but a common thread between 
many teenage girls, their fathers 
and their search for whimsy in the 
unknown. Anthony Bourdain was 
not only charming and intelligent, 
but a people person too. He held 
no prejudices, ate what people 
gave him in an effort to connect 
and made connections with locals 
in the places he traveled, over 
a career that spanned decades. 
Those who followed his career 
would know that this sense of 

familiarity did not just end with 
the lucky few he actually met, but 
anyone who stumbled upon his 
work — Bourdain’s charisma was 
not intimidating, but welcoming, 
as if anyone who could stand 
their ground in conversation and 
consumption was a guest in his life.
When I learned of his death 
earlier this week, I was absolutely 
and 
completely 
crushed. 
The 
details of Bourdain’s passing are 
devastating on their own, proof of 
a massive problem in our society 
which will take more than a phone 
number to fix. It is impossible 
to imagine what his family is 
experiencing right now, and for 
that, I will give the issue its space. 
Instead, I feel that it is more useful 
right now to celebrate what the 
iconic man achieved, created and 
meant to all of us than settle into 
grief. Bourdain was a professional 
live-r, if there ever was a thing. 
He had a job that any of us would 
kill for, a career explained by the 
man himself in a New Yorker 
interview as “I travel around the 
world, eat a lot of shit and basically 
do whatever the fuck I want.” But 
not all would have the guts and 
bravado to actually find success in 
that pursuit, to create something 
new and beautiful out of every 
dirty alley and shambly food truck.
Bourdain taught people of all 
ages to truly appreciate all the 
hidden magic around them, and 
for that he carried a bit of magic 
around himself. No matter the 
darkness he dealt with internally 
or 
encountered 
on 
his 
path, 
Bourdain’s 
piercing 
wit 
and 
exuberance for what the world had 
to offer was contagious. For that, 
we will miss him. For him, crack 
open a beer tonight and savor it. If 
there’s one thing we can learn from 
Anthony Bourdain’s life, it’s that 
you never know where your next 
adventure could be until you seek it 
out yourself.

Bourdain’s legacy 
of guts and grub

FILM REVIEW
STYLE NOTEBOOK

STEPHEN SATARINO
Daily Arts Writer

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

