The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 — 5

‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ says screw the neoliberals

There’s a quote from a 1964 speech 

by Malcolm X that Fred Hampton, 
played by Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”), 
recounts to the future mother of his 
child, Deborah (Dominique Fishback, 
“The Hate You Give”):

“Sometimes, when a person’s house is 

on fire and someone comes in yelling fire, 
instead of the person who is awakened 
by the yell being thankful, he makes 
the mistake of charging the one who 
awakened him with having set the fire.”

Fred Hampton was murdered 

in his bed after an FBI informant 
named Bill O’Neill, the eponymous 
Judas played by Lakeith Stanfield 
(“Sorry to Bother You”), drugged him 
so that he would be unable to wake 
when the FBI raided his apartment. 
Artist Kerry James Marshall would 
later depict the night of his execution 
in “Black Painting,” illustrating the 
darkness of Hampton’s bedroom, 
evoking the truth that this eerie 
place was meant to be a safe place for 
Hampton, Deborah and their unborn 
child. It’s dangerous enough to be in 

a house on fire, but what they did to 
Fred Hampton reminds us that you 
have to be awake to know the fire’s 
even there.

The film follows Bill’s infiltration 

of the Black Panther Party on behalf 
of the FBI in return for immunity 
from his past crimes. It’s difficult to 
try to sow suspense with historical 
narratives in film when the ending 
is already cataloged in collective 
or digital memory, especially for 
Black people like myself, who know 
the story fairly well. Likewise, 
director Shaka King (“Newlyweds”) 
sometimes struggled to avoid the 
associated cliches of the genre. 

FBI Agent Roy Martin Mitchell 

(Jesse Plemons, “I’m Thinking of 
Ending Things”) has a moment of 
reckoning with the cause he realizes 
he’s fighting for, not saying verbatim 
but still evoking a revelation of, “Wait, 
you’re telling me that the FBI is r-r-r-
racist?!” 

Stanfield’s portrayal of Bill’s struggle 

not to blow his cover at times seems 
more like a closeted kid trying to fit 
in with the football players by talking 
about how hot the popular girl is, than it 
does a blackmailed man worried for his 

life. At one point in the movie, Deborah 
has a moment when she becomes 
worried for Fred’s safety. It seemed 
shoehorned in, like something that a 
white wife of a white activist would 
say to remind the viewers that the film 
considers the female perspective, but 
maybe I’m being harsh.

The cuts to Fred and Deborah’s 

romantic development felt like an 
attempt to level with people who 
might think the Panthers were too 
radical. More and more people have 
been re-educated on the work that 
the Black Panther Party did for 
community health, food and welfare, 
but the bigger picture has sometimes 
been watered down. Shaka King’s 
refusal to shy away from the 
Black Panthers’ denouncement of 
capitalism and encouragement to 
keep people armed dares the viewer 
to consider that these ideas might be 
new, but not unforgivable. 

The opening montage sews together 

clips from Agnes Varda’s (“Cleo from 5 
to 7”) 1962 documentary on the Black 
Panther, b-roll news footage and 
reenacted performances by the cast 
— most notably Kaluuya as Hampton, 
in a scene where he promises not to 

“fight capitalism with black capitalism, 
(but) fight it with socialism.” In the 
age of the imperialist girlboss and 
carceral feminism, it’s brave to show 
that the Black Panther Party was more 
successful in bringing people together 
than any corporate activists of today. 

I’m inclined to be a little cynical 

and think that any success that 
films like this have is based around 
an obsession with Black pain. That 
films like this are nothing more than 
high-budget 
blaxploitation 
films. 

But “Judas” goes beyond that. It’s not 
an easy film to watch, but there are 
glimpses of Black joy that make you 
keep watching. Even knowing it was 
all going to end badly, I still felt warm 
when Fred would feed Deborah or 
when he was embraced by his friends 
upon returning from a stint in prison. 

I’m begging people to see this 

movie as a moral text. Not just 
something to observe but something 
to live by. To reject the individualism 
that O’Neill favored by sacrificing his 
friends for his own betterment and 
instead embrace the collectivism that 
the Party stood for. I struggle with 
the push and pull between wanting 
to decentralize the viewer, to focus 

on what the art is trying to say rather 
than always looking for something 
to relate to. Then again, seeing this 
as only relevant to the ’60s would be 
like looking at Japanese kaiju films as 
monster movies and not reactions to 
nuclear warfare. 

Art is about connection. When I 

read the ten-point program or watch 
videos of Kathleen Cleaver talking 
about her natural hair, I can’t help but 
feel like they’re speaking across time. 
You can’t view this as a race-blind 
story of betrayal. O’Neill did what he 
did because he felt like he had no other 
option as a Black man in America. Not 
some new idea of Trump’s America 
but the America that has always 
existed to maintain a plutocracy. 

I wonder how producer Ryan 

Coogler felt doing this film after 
“Black Panther,” arguably one of the 
performative expressions of Black 
pride, that Hampton himself calls 
out in a scene where he says, “That 
dashiki ain’t gon’ help you when 
they come in here with them tanks.” 
Does he know that giving Disney 
all that cash made him a part of the 
capitalist machine? Does he know 
that Disney is a part of the reason 

why stories like Fred Hampton’s 
are suppressed in favor of whatever 
movie makes the most money or 
can at least be paid for by the U.S. 
military?

Still, Shaka King lives up to his 

name. He dares pearl-clutching 
viewers, who might think that the 
cop-killing is too far, to leave their 
judgment at the door. None of us were 
there. To wince at the use of violence 
by the Party because of our modern 
ideas about gun control would make it 
about us and not the story. This film is 
about as close as we can get to looking 
back in time, and as Hampton says in 
the film, “It’s not a question of violence 
or no violence, it’s a question of 
resistance to fascism or nonexistence 
within fascism.”

The filmmakers should get ready 

for a whirlwind of press. Whenever 
we have a new “Selma” or “12 Years 
a Slave,” white critics come out of the 
woodwork to bemoan how timely the 
film is, how deftly it holds a mirror 
to society — and it does. But these 
movies are always timely. If you 
really want us to stop thinking you’re 
racist, just give Kaluuya the Oscar he 
deserves.

MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON

Daily Arts Writer

‘Sergeant Salinger:’ A masterful reimagining 

of the author’s secret life during WWII 

“What really knocks me out is a 

book that, when you’re all done reading 
it, you wish the author that wrote it was 
a terrific friend of yours and you could 
call him up on the phone whenever 
you felt like it. That doesn’t happen 
much, though.” — J.D. Salinger, “The 
Catcher in the Rye,” 1951

“The Catcher in the Rye” is an 

ode to angst through the hilarious 
musings and reflections of Holden 
Caulfield. Reading it is a teenage rite 
of passage, and the novel’s themes of 
innocence, identity and loss remain 
with many long after their adolescent 
years have passed. Though everyone 
who 
reads 
it 
feels 
intimately 

acquainted with Holden, few know 
anything about his creator, author 
and notorious recluse J. D. Salinger. 

In his latest book “Sergeant 

Salinger,” 
Jerome 
Charyn, 
a 

prolific author of historical fiction, 
reimagines Salinger’s early life in 
kodachrome detail. Charyn follows 
Salinger’s path from his parents’ 
apartment on Park Avenue to the 
battlefields 
of 
Normandy 
and 

beyond, ending in the Tarrytown, 
N.Y. loft where much of “The 
Catcher in the Rye” was written. 
Grounded in biological fact and 
topped with a generous helping 
of imagination, Charyn’s novel 
wonderfully recreates the war years 
of J. D. Salinger. 

Charyn sets the scene in 1942 

New York, populating it with vibrant 
characters and period-correct lingo. 
The opening sequence, featuring 
an acerbic Walter Winchell (the 
famed New York gossip columnist) 
and the “voluptu-u-u-u-os” Oona 
O’Neill, is an intriguing, dramatic 
accomplishment. 
Here 
we 
are 

introduced to a young J. D. Salinger, 

“A tall yid, with big ears and olive 
skin and a Gypsy’s dark eyes.” As an 
upcoming young writer, Salinger’s 
short stories published in the “slicks” 
— magazines like The Saturday 
Evening Post and The New Yorker — 
had already accumulated a measure 
of fame. Charyn acquaints the reader 
to Salinger’s life in New York only to 
rip them away with the arrival of a 
draft letter.

Trained within the shadowy 

Counter Intelligence Corps, the 
sensitive Salinger is molded into a 
ruthless interrogator. The author 
follows Salinger, cast as a reluctant 
soldier but an excellent survivor, 
through many of the most notorious 
campaigns of World War II. From the 
beaches of D-Day to occupied Paris, 
he encounters prominent historical 
figures, including Brigadier General 
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Ernest 
Hemingway. 

He experiences the terror of the 

Hürtgen Forest “where toes froze 
off” and the nauseating liberation 
of a Bavarian death camp “where 
corpses were piled like cordwood.” 
Inexorably scarred by the “stench, 
the crippling acid smell of rotting 
flesh,” a haunted Salinger drifts 
dreamlike through the rest of the 
war. Though Salinger’s lucidity 
returns when necessary, his mental 
deterioration by the end of the war 
is alarming. 

As only the finest protagonists 

are, 
Charyn’s 
Salinger 
is 

wonderfully conflicted. Expertly 
drawing out Salinger’s struggle, 
Charyn demonstrates the dual 
nature of a young soldier caught 
between his humanity and his 
survival. At once a killer and savior 
of children, Salinger performs 
admirably throughout the war. 
Able to discern forgeries and sniff 
out lies with the ease of a priest at 
confession, Salinger struck fear 

into the hearts of the Germans 
and French Nazi collaborators. 
Even as he became known for his 
ruthlessness as an interrogator, 
he showered refugees with GI 
cigarettes and Hershey bars.

Rich 
with 
neither 
narrative 

nor scenery, “Sergeant Salinger” 
succeeds largely through the strength 
of its dialogue. Salinger’s steady voice 
guides the many dialogue-heavy 
scenes, evident especially during his 
interrogations of suspected Nazis. 
It’s a fast read and a blur of a story 
toward the end, as Salinger’s mental 
state fragments. The prose is fairly 
minimalist, with adjectives picked 
and placed sparingly. 

Often, the novel reads like a tribute 

to the literary lions of Charyn’s own 
youth including Hemingway, Kafka, 
Fitzgerald and, of course, Salinger 
(Jerome Charyn is 83 years old). At 
times, Charyn cannot resist throwing 
in a reference; “He also admired the 
lushness of Fitzgerald—Gatsby was 
his favorite book.” 

One of Salinger’s most famous 

short stories, “A Perfect Day for 
Bananafish,” is alluded to when 
Salinger asks his sister, “Doris, do 
you remember the bananafish?”, 
after which she promptly questioned 
his sanity. Charyn clearly draws 
inspiration 
from 
writer 
Kurt 

Vonnegut; 
“Sergeant 
Salinger” 

resembles 
a 
more 
coherent 

“Slaughterhouse-Five.”

Charyn’s 
ability 
to 
create 

dynamic characters is his other 
great success. Bold in the way only 
an older writer can be, Charyn 
writes Hemingway in as a character. 
Though 
Charyn’s 
Hemingway 

is slightly exaggerated, many of 
his mannerisms seem perfectly 
emulated. From their first meeting 
in 
the 
celebrity-dappled 
Stork 

Club to their reunion in war-torn 
Nuremberg, Salinger’s interactions 

with Hemingway are audacious 
and memorable. Other characters, 
such as Salinger’s sister, Doris, are 
complex and fully realized — she 
even narrates one of the last chapters 
during his return to New York as 
he struggles to readapt to civilian 
life. From rabid SS commandos to 
charismatic American lieutenants, 
Charyn’s characters are capable of 
inspiring both palpable loathing and 
starry admiration. 

If you’re looking for a classic 

combat novel, “Sergeant Salinger” 
may miss the mark. Yet, if you are 
looking for a more nuanced war 
novel, a story of World War II and 
what it did to the young men forced to 
fight it, this is the book for you. 

Salinger entered the war with 

a youth’s vitality and emerged 
warped, his conscience twisted 
irrevocably by the futility and 
suffering he witnessed. Despite 
some chronological irregularities, 
the novel skillfully blends fact 
and fiction. Charyn writes the 
war 
through 
a 
surreal 
lens, 

mimicking the experience of scores 
of disillusioned young soldiers, 
Salinger included. This is perhaps 
one of Charyn’s broader points — 
that the absurdity and trauma of 
WWII eclipse even the wildest 
fantasies of any writer. It doesn’t 
matter whether everything in the 
book is factually true: Salinger’s real 
war experience could hardly have 
been less extraordinary. 

Far more than a biopic of the 

enigmatic man who began writing 
of Holden Caulfield during scattered 
moments in bunkers and foxholes, 
“Sergeant Salinger” is an homage to 
what might have been and possibly 
was. Though we’ll never know all 
the true details of Salinger’s life, 
contenting ourselves with Jerome 
Charyn’s masterful reimagining will 
have to do.

SAM MATHISSON
Daily Arts Contributor

No strings attached: Sphinx 
Virtuosi’s ‘This is America’

Orchestral music has always felt 

like a commitment. Listening to 
Mozart, Bach or Brahms is not for 
enjoyment, but rather a more serious 
soundtrack for getting my work done 
(without wasting an hour dancing 
to Megan Thee Stallion). Maybe it’s 
the lack of lyrics or the high-brow 
nature of classical music, but Western 
string instruments never gave me the 
excitement I crave in music.

But, what if orchestras were more 

than the sum of their boring parts? 
What if orchestras could create music 
that engaged an audience rather than 
lull me to sleep? 

Chamber orchestras around the 

world have tried their best to capture 
the height of human emotion by quite 
literally rubbing strings together, yet 
few have caught my heart. Classical 
music has had one foot in the grave 
ever since Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica,” 
but that doesn’t mean orchestras are 
six feet under just yet. 

Sphinx Virtuosi is a perfect 

example of that, breathing life into 
their orchestra with new work from 
underrepresented voices in music. As 

a Detroit-based, not-for-profit social 
justice organization, Sphinx uses 
the arts to uplift underrepresented 
musicians 
through 
education, 

leadership and performance. Each 
pillar of their mission is seen through 
one of Sphinx’s professional chamber 
orchestras, Sphinx Virtuosi.

With an orchestra of Black and 

Latinx musicians, Sphinx Virtuosi’s 
program “This is America” was free 
to the public with truly no strings 
attached.

“This is America” is a six-

piece presentation that highlights 
the work of Black and Latinx 
composers. The program clocked 
in at barely over an hour making 
it feel more like listening to your 
favorite no-skip album and less like 
a marathon. With recent trends 
showing less than five percent 
of orchestral musicians as being 
Black or Latinx, organizations like 
Sphinx Virtuosi are crucial spaces 
for 
underrepresented 
identities 

in orchestral music. Providing 
performances ranging from solo 
commissions to lively, full-length 
orchestra recordings, each of the 
program’s songs pack a punch and 
provide a worthy introduction to the 
stunning talent of Sphinx Virtuosi.

A highlight of the “This is America” 

performance came toward the end 
with Sphinx Virtuosi’s performance 
of “Delights and Dances” by Michael 
Abels. The dissonant joy of the piece 
was exemplified through the quartet’s 
viola performance by Celia Hatton. 
Hatton’s performance was rich, 
robust and personified the heightened 
emotional presence of a prima donna 
singing their heart out.

In a killer ensemble, Hatton’s phrasing 

was matched by the fellow members of 
her quartet — Rainel Joubert (Violin I), 
Melissa White (Violin II) and Thomas 
Mesa (Cello) — with each member 
offering a wavering pull into the handoff 
of every phrase of the song. Together, the 
piece captured the wonderful ebb and 
flow of bittersweet joy that comes with 
Abel’s work. You might have heard his 
music before in “Get Out” or “Us.” Abel 
is known for working in the more eerie 
sectors of music. Yet, this piece felt like a 
requiem of hope for the history of Black 
music in America.

Although most programs and 

live events have struggled to keep 
up during COVID-19 times, Sphinx 
Virtuosi, with the help of Four/Ten 
Media, was able to create a more 
engaging chamber orchestra than 
that of their predecessors. 

Using individual recordings of each 

musician, Four/Ten Media created an 
inventive visual collage of musicians 
performing each piece. The visual 
collection of members recording 
their part shifted throughout each 
performance, focusing on fast runs of 
the violins one moment and the deep 
plucks of the double bass the next. 

This virtual enhancement allowed 

me to observe each musician working 
at their craft and appreciate the tactical 
ability that comes from being a virtuoso 
by the likes of Nicki Minaj or Taylor 

Swift. Although at times the virtual 
setting was punctuated by hearing the 
musicians breathe, in a way, it made 
me feel as though I was breathing 
with them through each phrase in the 
music. 

So, maybe not all orchestras are 

that boring. Sphinx has simply cut 
inequitable ties that have persisted 
in the orchestral field and the music 
industry as a whole. Sphinx has no 
strings attached and no, I’m not just 
saying that because it’s a bit of fun 
wordplay, but because they aren’t 

trying to tie their audience down in 
the details. 

Sphinx Virtuosi is no strings 

attached because they offer up “This 
is America” as a free experience to 
uplift Black and Latinx musicians for 
communities who usually don’t have 
access. 

No strings attached because 

the stories they tell are authentic 
and capture your heart. No strings 
attached because they let the 
musicians speak for themselves — 
and it is magnetic.

MATTHEW EGGERS

For The Daily

Sphinx Virtuosi

There’s nothing more beautiful 

than seeing a friendship blossom 
between two women in a powerful 
pact, especially when the characters 
are entirely different. It embodies a 
connection in which we all dream of 
experiencing in our lives. Hollywood 
has done an amazing job with its 
representation of female friendships 
in television from characters like Issa 
and Molly in “Insecure” to Blaire and 
Serena of “Gossip Girl.” Although 
these relationships may sometimes 
seem to focus on superficial aspects, 
the 
focus 
on 
positive 
female 

friendships is so important for young 
and female-identifying viewers. 

Based on the novel by Kristin 

Hannah, “Firefly Lane” is one of 
the most accurate representations 
of 
female 
friendship 
witnessed 

on-screen. It isn’t as powerful as “The 
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” but 
there’s something lovable about this 
series that keeps you glued to the TV 
as it dives deeper into the history of the 
two main characters. 

Tully 
Hart 
(Katherine 
Heigl, 

“Suits”), the daughter of a drug-
dependent hipster mom with a troubled 
past, moves to Firefly Lane where 
she meets her next-door neighbor, 
Kate Mularkey (Sarah Chalke, “Rick 
and Morty”). Kate, although nerdy 
and quirky to the extreme, captivates 
Tully, and they eventually become the 
best of friends. The series explores the 
friendship between Tully and Kate 
from youth into adulthood, portraying 
the finer and not-so-fine things in life. 

Maggie Friedman, the show’s 

creator, skillfully portrays both the 
positive and negative aspects of 
female friendships. Think of it as 
the “Woman’s Saga.” It explores 
everything from happiness to anger, 
jealousy and life’s growing pains. 

While the show is set up to 

encourage viewers to root for either 
character in their personal storylines, 
it still portrays how codependency 
can take shape in friendships. It 
illustrates 
what 
happens 
when 

two friends are so invested in their 
friendship with one another, they 
begin to ignore their own personal 
problems or, even worse, ignore the 
ill-treatment of one party all for the 
purpose of having a friend. We get 
insight into an unspoken tension that 
lies closely beneath the surface. So 
close that in every new episode, you 
expect it to eventually blow up in 
their face. 

The series doesn’t shy away 

from the difficult issues that girls 
go through. It feels authentic and 
familiar, which is what these types 
of television shows need. It’s what 
one would call a “Bildungsroman,” 
illustrating how the main characters 
rely on one another for moral growth. 
They ultimately begin to learn more 
about themselves, albeit at different 
paces. “Firefly Lane” is a positive 
representation of friendship in its 
entirety. The life of a friendship 
is capable of sustaining longevity 
through an understanding of self and 
the situation, through thick and thin. 

This show is for the softies. It 

makes me want to call up my best 
girlfriends for a night out or a Friday 
night slumber party. Everyone needs 
a best friend simply to share thoughts, 
feelings and triumphs that they can 
relate to one another with. That 
emotional support develops a strong 
bond that is extremely hard to break, 
and life could be really detrimental 
without it. 

But what happens when one 

party crosses the line? Granted, no 
friendship is perfect. But that doesn’t 
mean differences that occur in a 
friendship gives the right to end it. 
Things happen. Life happens. But 
friendship is forever. 

‘Firefly Lane’ proves that 

friendship is forever

JESSICA CURNEY
Daily Arts Contributor

