The musings of a madman...

     I called it back in October, when I put out the call to ABSOLUTELY protect Chadwick Boseman at all costs. [ link ] The upcoming movie Black Panther is an event to us.  It is finally the chance to see Black Excellence in cinema.  Yes, we last visited the idea of Black Excellence with October’s Marshall, but comparative attention should be paid here.  As of when I type this sentence, Marshall has cleared only $10.1 domestic, not even covering the cost of production, while Black Panther broke Fandango’s advance ticket sales record the day they went on sale.      So back to it…  Black Excellence.  Portrayal of someone who looks like us as royalty.  Royalty to be admired, royalty of unimaginable wealth, physical ability, intelligence and respect.  Compare this to the slaves, dope fiends, coons, criminals and philanderers “they” love to bankroll for us usually.  Black Excellence.  The enthusiasm is palpable, people who don’t even CARE about comic book movies are talking ab

     Look, we didn’t watch the Golden Globes, but we have also been looking in on the news in its wake.  Apparently my third wife in waiting Oprah Winfrey gave a moving speech in which she took Hollyweird to task for its misgivings in unauthorized diddling. Read it here .      The speech was seen as one of those moments that touches off an apparent run toward the presidency and in an Amerikkka where it is no longer necessary to BE a politician to become a politician, the internets has gone nutso.      And we support this, full heartedly.  No, seriously, we are ALL the way here for this.  We’ll offer up a few reasons why… 1 – Her net worth is higher than 45 can readily prove his is…      She could offer not to take a salary as president and actually tangibly follow through with it. 2 – She started that school for girls in Afrika…      Shows she is about the cause for brown people, more than any president prior to her.  If self-proclaimed Hotepest Hotep Gawdt Supreme

     …  and it couldn’t be happening to a better group of people. We’ve reached a juncture where Karma is showing up to the door and is fully prepared to collect her dues.  The motion picture industry has never been a friend of brown people and has actively sought to use its pull to keep brown people under its thumb.  Look no further than our Hotep Hollywood label for a running count of their fuckery.      I don’t think I need to chronicle every name that has been embroiled in a scandal surrounding things ranging from unwanted sexual advances through more egregious sexual harassment all the way up to and including – sometimes at the same time (!!!) – sexual assault and pedophilia.      Well the chickens are coming to roost.  You can’t do EVERYONE wrong all the time and expect that shit to just get swept under the rug.  Not terribly dissimilar to what has happened to the most of professional sports wherein brown people are seeing themselves better represented in respo

("one of these things, is not like the other things") And yes, “White Savior” is a thing.  Not that it should be a thing but when has that ever put the proper brakes on such foolywang.  Click here and check up on it sometime. Done reading?  Welcome back! [ Phlip note : pun TOTALLY intended]      Welcome Back, Kotter was a sitcom that aired from 1975-1979 and in various forms of syndication for those like myself born in 1979 or after.  In it, we have a wise-ass teacher returning to his Alma Mater to take on the task of whipping a remedial class into shape.  Some good ol’ Stand and Deliver -type shit, right? Wait…  Stand and Deliver came out in 88, strike that from the record.  Anyway, we have failed baseball player and mediocre comedian Gabe Kaplan in his showrunner and acting debut, revising the history of his apparent real life, except this time he gets to come in and help The Sweathogs with comedy and hilarity.      Still pretty safe, no? WRONG!!!

     “There is no way I could be racist, some of my best friends are black!” is what they say when some greasy shit has been said or they’ve been caught agreeing with 45 about kneeling for the anthem.      Cruel fact: that “… some of my best friends” black friend is not even a friend at all.  He/she is some brown person – who might actually not even be black! – that the person who has found themselves cornered in conversation used to work with, or went to school with, or whose sister he tried to fuck in college.  That “friend” has never been to their house, eaten their food, met their family or played spades with them. There is nothing honorable about being the “black friend,” it is a token position for which there is no real benefit… -    Will the cops not shoot you first if y’all get into some shit out in the world? -    Would their great-grandfather not kick someone out of the family if you dated their sister? -    Have they ever ACTUALLY attempted to properly pronoun

     I am not joking, I mean this shit. This man has played Jackie Robinson in 2013’s 42 .  He played James Brown in 2014’s Get on Up .  Fuck, he was one of seven Black people who got real camera time in 2016’s Gods of Egypt and just might be the only one who was actually allowed to play an actual god! Further, we have seen him make more Black people care about comic book movies with his portrayal as T’Challa/Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and in the upcoming eponymous Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War movies.      I thought of this post on Saturday when one of my wives my lady took me to see Marshall in the movies.  The trailer for Black Panther played before the movie and this naturally made it more obvious (to me, at least) that with the above-listed movies an even MORESO after watching and LOVING Marshall (for real, y’all go pay money to see this) , Chadwick Boseman is fast entering Hotep Hero status and is worthy of the best protecti

     “Good Times” What ‘good time’ there to be had when you literally can NOT escape the projects under any circumstances?      Hollyweird.  Hates.  Us. Is that becoming a constant around here?  It should be, since it seems to always a proven point.      In one of a few instances where a Black family is shown with both parents present as a constant, they seemed to find themselves mired in far-fetched bullshit to show off that they couldn’t catch a break.  Of 133 episodes of Good Times through the years, the Evans family (no relation) – as an ongoing plot focus – made several attempts to get OUT of what is implied to be Cabrini-Green. I won’t even bother with why they were even IN Chicago when the show was spun off of Maude, which was set in NY. Anyway…      A black family making due with no substance abuse, extramarital children, no babies having babies an artistic older son, a daughter on her way to school and a young son who is interested in the issues.  Sh

     Y’all know one of the Hotep-est movies ever made was based on a real-life event, right? In the 1989 classic film Lean On Me , Joe Clark (above right), portrayed by the voice of everyone’s conscience Morgan Freeman (left) is tasked with the tall order of being the cleaner of beleaguered East Side High in Paterson NJ.      Hollyweird norms would serve it that he would fail MISERABLY in this task and eventually need to be saved by someone whose skin is much paler than his own, but be-damned-lieve it or not, he succeeded! He went up in that school and he yelled at people, he bullied the crackheads, he threatened the dealers and risked his own freedom to keep those kids safe and get those damn test scores up! Hoo-fuckin’-ray Hollyweird!  One time in the then-76 years of motion pictures featuring sound, they let a Black man come into a shit situation and make it a NOT shit situation without first involving a White Savior™. AND this shit was based on a real true story? S

Hollywood is here to teach us to hate our own.  We are not, under any realistic circumstances to see ourselves in a positive light in the movies coming out of that shithole.  Today, we are here to discuss the five types of Negro that they WILL allow us to see ourselves portrayed as. The Black Friend© This is the cat you normally find in buddy cop movies.  He is partnered with an alcoholic, but grizzled veteran, cop who does all the thinking and decision making.  His role as Black Friend© is to be the comic relief and come up with Sassy Black Phrases™.  You can expect to see shit he/she says to steal cheap laughs on a t-shirt at the nearest HBCU homecoming to you. . The Magic Negro™ We’ve all seen The Green Mile.  That is the most prominent Magical Negro film ever created.  But not all “magic,” as employed is necessarily metaphysical.  Remember that Eddie Murphy movie last year Mr Church ?  Of course you don’t, the film only had a domestic take of $700k and most people sto

     You get a budget of approximately $11 in food stamps, a liter of Hennessey and a pack of Newport 100s… What kind of movie do you make?      You don’t get to go summer blockbuster because those require a star commanding $20m or more a flick.  You don’t get to license a cutesy franchise because of your budget above.  You want people to come see your movie, and you want them to come in groups so you need a “date night movie.” Solution?  Black Romantic Comedies!      Here at Hotep Movie Moments, we have come to notice a few things about these movies and will spend a few minutes today discussing them. 1 – They always have the same people. How may different ways can Morris Chestnut fall in love with Taraji P Henson contained inside of 97 minutes of pseudo hilarity?  It is kind of like the black church plays circuit in that you KNOW what you’re going to get and who you’re going to get it from, but you are made to feel obligated to throw money at it anyway. And sp

I have found the very reason that we are not allowed to see many movies about strong Black upliftment from Hollywood. I call this my Rocky Theory, brothas and sistas. Look back at the Rocky movies… Rocky – Rocky matches up against a superior but supposedly cocky Apollo Creed and uses the Black man’s hubris against him and stays upright for the whole fight.  No winner was declared, but we all assumed Rocky to be because of how it all played out. Rocky II – Having had his name sullied by being matched by an inferior fighter, Apollo asks for a rematch and is rebuffed.  The still-cocky black man spends a whole movie making him take the fight, then LOSES the fight due to a brash obsession with knocking the white man out. Rocky III – Now having disposed of the original cocky negro, Rocky is the best thing ever invented and can move on to new targets.  This time, a NEW cocky original African Black man named Clubber Lang assaults Rocky’s precious manager causing him a heart a