The cult of Black and white cinematic symbolism (Part 2.5)...Why the Black Diaspora should boycott the movie 'Creed'...

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, better known as Sylvester Stallone, was born in New York City on July 6th, 1946. He was the elder son of Frank Stallone Sr., who was a hair-dresser and beautician, and Jacqueline Stallone, who was an astrologer, dancer and former promoter of women's wrestling.

At age 15, afer his parents divorced, Sly moved to Philadelphia to be with his mother, Jackie, and her new husband. By this time, he had begun lifting weights and was enrolled in Devereaux High School where he took up fencing, football, and the discus. 

Following graduation, Stallone received an athletic scholarship from the American College of Switzerland. While there he was a girls' athletic coach and in his spare time he starred in a school production of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'. The experience inspired him to become an actor and after returning stateside, he started studying drama at the University of Miami until he decided to move to New York in 1969 to pursue his dream.

Stallone auditioned frequently but only occasionally found stage work and eventually had to resort to appearing in a softcore porn film titled, 'Party at Kitty's and Studs', which was later repackaged as 'The Italian Stallion' after he became famous. He managed to secure a bit role in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971), but after he was turned down for The Godfather (1971), he became even more discouraged.

Rather than give up, Stallone channeled his frustrations into writing, churning out lots of scripts, some of which were produced. Still auditioning though, he managed to land a starring role in the movie, 'Rebel', in 1973.

In 1974 Stallone married actress Sasha Czack and they moved to California in the hope of building their acting careers. His first minor success came when he wrote the screenplay for the film, 'Lords of Flatbush' (1974) with Henry Winkler, which he also co-starred in.

Then, on March 24^th, 1975, Stallone went to see the Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner fight. Now, supposedly, he was so inspiried by what he saw, he went home and after three days and twenty straight hours of writing, he produced the script for his film, 'Rocky'.

Now, other stories like the autobiographical flick 'Somebody up there likes me', about the life of Rocky Graziano, may have been the real inspiration behind this film; but personally, when I saw the movie 'On the Waterfront', starring Marlon Brando, I was shocked at how many comparisons I saw to the film Rocky. After watching several scenes, I was literally thinking, oh, so this is where Sly got that idea from.

The film Rocky was released in 1976; and we all know how this was the movie that made Sly an international star. I think we've all seen this flick about a journey-man boxer who works part-time as an enforcer for a local Philadelphia loan shark. One day Rocky is given a shot at the Heavy-weight boxing title by it's owner 'Apollo Creed', and even though Rocky loses to him in a split-decision, Rocky's still lauded for 'going the distance' with the champ.

And I'm pretty sure everyone knows about the other sequels in the Rocky franchise. But the one I'd like to focus on is 'Rocky 4', where he squares off against the hulking Russian, 'Ivan Drago'.

Now, Rocky 4 was released in theaters on November 27^th, 1985. It was also written and directed by Sly Stallone, and it was produced for a budget of $28 million, and raked in over $300 million in american theaters.

This movie is the story of Russia's top boxer, Ivan Drago, coming to america to show his athletic superiority to the whole of the american boxing community. Ivan wants to fight Rocky, but instead Apollo Creed agrees to introduce him into the ranks of american boxing. Ivan kills Creed in the ring, and afterwards Rocky fights him to get revenge supposedly for Creed, but more so for his country. Thus, the poster of Rocky 4, where Sly is draped in the american flag.

Now, what I wanna' comment most on is the killing of Creed. If you've ever watched this flick, you'll remember how Ivan Drago was a 6 foot 5, 260 pound, giant of a guy. And what were his facial features like? He was blonde-haired and blue eyed. The walking embodiment of the aryan ideal. This was the archetypal aryan 'superman'; and these were the types of men recruited for the Nazi 'SS'. And Drago's physical traits were fundamentally what Hitler's diatribes of ethnic purity were founded on; even though Hitler himself didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes. In the 1936 Olympics, Hilter set out to show how athletically superior these men were, until brotha Jesse Owens showed 'em all what time it really was.

So right before Creed and Drago are set to fight, Creed puts on this big theatrical production, lead by brotha James Brown singing the song, 'Living in america'. Now, if you haven't seen this movie in a while, watch the scene where Drago delivers the death blow to Creed. Creed's Black corner man sees him getting killed and yells to Rocky, “Throw in the towel!” But Rocky freezes. He doesn't throw in the towel, he drops it. Now, this was supposed to show how perplexed Rocky was at Drago's 'freakish' strength, but in essence, what Rocky's doing, is letting Drago, the white aryan, kill Creed, the Black man. See, it's not enough that Creed was defeated and his title was taken away, the white fascist/aryan ideal, is that the game's not over, or the job's not done, until the Black man is dead.

Understand, the Black man has the most genetic power to breed white men out of existence. So a Black man 'Living in america', or anywhere else for that matter, is a threat to white men, and people, everywhere. And this is further emphasized by white birth rates currently falling below replacement levels. So James Brown's singing 'Living in america' before Creed dies, is sending the sublime message that for Black men, 'Living in america' is a death sentence.

Also, in one scene, while Drago is training, he's shot up with some sort of serum which looks to be steroidal in nature; this is saying something that Brotha Panic (google him if you don't know who he is) phrased beautifully in one of his lectures, and that's how 'technology is the white man's spirituality'. And it's also the way they compensate for their lack of melanated gifts that are natural to Black men (again Jesse Owens). An example of this kind of technology is the Black gun. There are guns that are painted different colors, but the vast majority of them are colored Black, especially when you think about the pistols issued to white cops. And the reason the gun is so phallic-looking, is 'cause it's paying homage to the Black man's penis being more genetically powerful than a white man's. And notice I didn't say anything about penis 'size', this is a stereotype white men/women gave us.

And anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating when I say that white men secretly wish they were as genetically, or physically powerful as Black men, should take a gander at this cover of 'Men's Journal' magazine from July 2014. I recently saw this in a dentist's office. Now, remember when Klansmen would talk 'til they turned blue about 'ethnic purity'? Well what we have now, are white men so desperate to identify themselves with Black male virility, that they're not only tanning themselves, but they're now smearing themselves with dirt to darken their skin. And if you're saying, aw c'mon bruh, you're reading too much into this cover, I want you to notice how this whiteboi is not only holding a Black bag behind his head, but how he's wearing Black trunks as well. And the sub-title, 'PUSH HARDER' is clearly a sexual reference. So you make the call.

Hell, even the Rocky poster for what people thought was the last picture in that franchise has him cast not only in Black and white (to the left), but shows him throwing the 'Black power' fist.

Moving on...

Now, the latest movie in the Rocky franchise, 'Creed', began filming in england and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 19^th, 2015; and is slated for a release date of November 25^th, 2015. And this film features Micheal B. Jordan as the son of Apollo Creed. You should take note of the Creed movie poster in this post's header, where the young Creed is still wearing red, white and blue...so white fascists are basically saying, across generations, this is still the story of the Black man in america.

I've got the trailer for this film at the end of this post, and in it, you'll see how it starts in total darkness, before a white flourescent light flickers on; this is setting up the Black and white cinematic symbolism I spoke about in my post before last. Then we see the 'MGM', 'Warner Brothers' and 'New Line Cinema' logos, one after the other, all in Black and white. A few seconds after, we see the young Creed stepping into a boxing gym, where the gym's trainer reminds him, “...your daddy died in the ring.”

This and the fact that Rocky agrees to train the young Creed for his championship fight is saying, that a Black man (Apollo Creed) can't turn a young Black man (Apollo's son) into a winner, but the white man (Rocky) can. And with the young Creed wearing red, white and blue, this flick's saying how this is one of the universal truths of the american social order.

Now this is further exemplified in this picture of Rocky and the young Creed, where Rocky is completely dressed in Black, while the young Creed wears a white t-shirt. This is meant to show Creed is the subordinate of the two. And it shows how Creed is supposedly weaker, physically or genetically, than Rocky is. Just like how white men are genetically weaker than Black men. Remember, white people are genetically recessive (the truest definition of the word 'degenerate'). Now this is how whitey always twists our truths. He takes what is real and puts his white supremacist spin on it. It's just like when white people have us calling ourselves 'minorities', when whitey knows that they're the world's real minority; but in order to keep Black people feeling inferior, they have us saying this about ourselves.

And ultimately, this movie is meant to keep young Black men content with ingesting the various aspects of american culture that are designed to either kill them, or make them hate themselves.

Now, we saw the same non-sensical mess in the movie, 'Django Unchained', where Jamie Foxx as Django was shooting down the various white men in the 'Candy Land mansion', and a Tupac song came on.

Not only was this song cinematically and chronologically out of place, but it was meant to indoctrinate young Black men and women into the idea that their history is only comprised of american slavery. Just like the crap they learn in american schools.

See, white fascists know that the last, best hope for our Diaspora to come up out of our dysfunction, lies with our young people. So by all means, they're doing whatever they can to keep them abiding by and imbibing in, the self-hating doctrine that was nearly force-fed to my generation in every pre, middle and american high school (The Umar Johnson 'scandal').

I wouldn't be suprised if they pushed the release date for this flick back to Christmas, just like they did for Django.

So if and when this flick comes to a theater near you, do yourself and the Black community a favor, and give that twenty or thirty dollars you'd spend at the cineaplex to a Black-owned business.

Let's show Stallone, that our 'Creed' from now on, will be avoiding entertainment that's meant to keep us hating ourselves and everyone who looks like us.

And like Sam Jackson said in 'Do the Right Thing': “...that's the triple truth, Ruth.”

Later...

MontUHURU Mimia

Here's the trailer for this flick...

The gospel of white supremacy (Part 7)...the damsel in distress, the independent sista and the deepened rift between Black men and women...

Merian Caldwell Cooper was an american aviator, screenwriter, film producer and director. His most famous film was 1933's 'King Kong'.  

Cooper started his film career by doing documentaries for Paramount Pictures and from the years of 1933 to 1935, he was head of production for RKO Radio Pictures. The film King Kong which he co-wrote, co-directed and appeared in, was said to be very technically innovative for its time. But the film's real innovation, was how it spoke directly to the bigoted, white fascists who've been ever-present in this country, since Merian and his people got here.

For those who've never seen this crap flick, this film, and it's many incarnations, are about the abduction of a white woman by a colossal ape that's been captured from some tropical island. Somehow, this ape escapes his captors and is completely smitten with some white woman he sees. He scales a large building with this inbred of a woman in his clutches, and is shot down by white men in airplanes.

Now let me tell ya' what this film is really about; King Kong is the cautionary tell to white supremacists about the Black man mating with white women. This is basically the tale of whitey's fear of being bred out of existence, via the Black man. And being that the average white man feels sexually and physically weaker than a Black man, they use their technology, i.e. their airplanes, which are a metaphor for their 'weapons' technology (guns, bazookas, tanks, armed policeman, biological weapons like HIV, AIDS, Ebola, etc.), and how they will ultimately have to use these, to kill off Black men.

Now, let's fast forward from 1933 to 2005; the latest iteration of this silly flick has actress Naomi Watts cast as the white woman in the white dress (The first pic in my header is of her). And for some reason, whitey won't let movies like this one and 'Tarzan' die. I'll speak about the bigoted legacy of the Tarzan movies and TV shows in another post. But if you want further clarification of whitey's real intention with 'King Kong'; all we have to do is look at the 'Vanity Fair' cover with Lebron James on it with some dim-witted, white wench in his arm (pictured above).

Now, since people of every ethnic group grew tired of seeing this dumb-founded flick, white fascists needed to put a different spin on the King Kong mythos.

Enter the movie, ‘Taken’…

This movie was released in 2008, and this flick tells the story of a sweet-as-pie white girl, being abducted by swarthy asians and Black Africans. This girl is then sold into prostitution, until her white father, who just happens to be a retired CIA agent, rescues her.

This was much more palatable to a contemporary mainstream audience. And this film spawned two sequels.

Now, I remember when I was in my pre-teens and would watch old Black-and-white monster movies. Without fail in these films, they'd always show a white woman running from the monster and falling down. Then she’d stay in a prone position, screaming with her arms raised in front of her, before the monster killed her.

Myself and my friends would always laugh at this dim-witted white woman and yell at the screen for her to get up and run.

We never realized we were watching one of the greatest weapons of psychological warfare known to mankind. Let me explain why...

We all know how white women have been touted as the epitome of feminine beauty because of their facial features; but what these monster movies did was show the vulnerability of white women. And this quality, is ultimately what made her epitomize the modern archetype of feminine beauty. The white man was saying that white women are the exquisitely fragile flowers of this earth, and they needed rescuing by men. And this speaks right to the heart of what every man is looking for in a woman; someone who's delicate, soft-spoken and demure...someone who's peaceful and non-judgmental, like I spoke about in previous posts. These traits are the ultimate aphrodisiac for any man.

Now, I also remember the 'Salt 'n' Pepa' song, 'Independent funk', that came out in 1990; this was the decade where 'feminism' was being further mainstreamed for Black women. This was also what I called the 'I don't need no man mantra' period. See, this was the zenith of the white fascist campaign to portray Black women as hard, abrasive and completely argumentative. They propagandized the Black woman as being a female who ultimately wanted to be left alone. So while they portrayed their own women as docile and genuinely domestic, they portrayed Black women as belligerent single-mothers. And this was the message being sent to Black men. Mind you, this is straight out of the 'Willie Lynch letter' which says, white fascists have to separate the Black woman from the Black man.

Now, one of the main ways white fascists popularized this myth about the Black woman, and continue to, is through TV shows; and I'd like to detail how they've done this over the course of decades and generations, through three particular sit-coms.

The TV sit-com (short for situation-comedy, for the uninitiated), 'Sanford and Son', aired on NBC from January 14^th, 1972 to March 25^th, 1977. Now, this show told the story of Fred G. Sanford, who owned a junkyard in Watts, California, with his son Lamont. And it was adapted from the british TV show, 'Steptoe and Son'.

Now, what's acknowledged during the show is Fred's wife, Elizabeth, has passed away, and Lamont is single. So right off the bat, we see two generations of Black men without Black women. Also, during the course of several shows, we see Fred and Lamont dating various Black women, but somehow, this never results in any kind of relationship; but the woman they seem to always come in contact with, is none other than the inimitable LaWanda Page, a.k.a. Aunt Esther.

And what is Aunt Esther like? Belligerent, abrasive and confrontational. So while we're laughing at Aunt Esther calling Fred a 'fish-eyed fool' and Fred calling her everything but a child of God; subconsciously, the Black Diaspora gets the message that this is what Black male and female relationships are predisposed to be. Across generations.

Now, the TV show, 'The Jeffersons', came at this message from a different angle. This show aired on CBS from January 18^th, 1975 until July 2^nd, 1985 and is one of the longest running sit-coms in american TV history. This is the story of George and Louise (Whezzy) Jefferson, and their climb up the socio-economic ladder resulting in their ownership of a luxury apartment in New York City. Mind you, this show features a loving Black couple, but white fascists created two relationships to counter this. The first one was in the Jefferson's own home, this being George's contentious relationship with their maid, Florence. Even though George was her employer, she had little to no respect for him; they bickered constantly, and this just reinforces the rift that white fascists want to keep alive in Black relationships. The second, was the marriage of the Jefferson's friends, the Willis'. Helen Willis, the late Roxy Roker, Lenny Kravitz's mother, is married to the white (Uncle) Tom Willis. And this couple speaks volumes to the subconscious minds of the Black audience it was created for. It says to Black men, that more than likely, any Black woman will probably date and marry a white man over you, even if you do have money. And it says to Black women, that your goal in life, if you want to live an upper-scale and affluent lifestyle, is to marry a white man.

The 'Martin' TV show, aired from August 27^th, 1992 until May 1^st, 1997. This sit-com told the story of Martin Payne, a disc jockey with a girlfriend named Gina Waters played by Tisha Campbell-Martin. Martin works for the fictional radio station WZUP and later for local Public-access television station Channel 51. Now, Martin, is basically a gainfully-employed brotha, who has aspirations of moving up the ladder career-wise; and who's he in a relationship with? The ultra light-skinned, curly haired, bi-ethnic looking Black girl, Gina. And who is Martin always arguing with? Gina's dark-skinned girlfriend, Pam. This says to Black men, in a not-so-subtle way, that if you're gonna' commit to any Black woman, she shouldn't be darker-skinned. And what white fascists who green-lit this show are ultimately saying is, 'pure-bred', or pure-bred looking Black men and women shouldn't be together, 'cause this pairing is bound to lead to an unhappy courtship, dating and married life.

And of course, they do this 'cause they don't want Black men and women producing more pure-bred Black children, that will grow up having the greatest potential to breed white people out of existence.

Now, combine these messages with the ones we get in movies like King Kong and Taken, and the self-hating tenets we're taught in american schools; is it any wonder why Black men and women have such a hard time being in relationships with each other.

And like I've said in the past, no other ethnic group gets the level of self-hating conditioning that the Black Diaspora does. None.

Now, when I've said in the past that the most revolutionary act a Black man and woman can commit is falling in love with each other, that wasn't hyperbole; and these TV show examples are but a few reasons why.

So here's the real question, if we see that everything in this white fascist social order is diametrically opposed to Black women and men being together, what are we gonna' do about it?

What are YOU gonna' do about it?

The only solution is us ridding ourselves of our self-hatred; like Malcolm said, by any means necessary.

So whether you rid yourself of this by chanting, meditation, visualization, etc....

I say, just do what works best for you!

'Cause this revolution won't start with hundreds, thousands or millions of Black folk...it'll start with YOU!

So, let's all get to work!

Later...

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S.

My mention of Gina, played by Tisha Campbell in the TV series 'Martin', made me think of a post that a lot of viewers of this Blog seemed to like; that post was titled, 'The cult of the curly-haired, light-skinned, bi-ethnic looking Black girl'; and you can check it out here. 

P.P.S.

If you'd like to see the other six parts of this series, you can do that here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Why the Black Diaspora can't pray away their self-hatred...

In the time I've come to curate this Blog, there have been several instances where I mention how it's absolutely imperative that the Black Diaspora recondition themselves/ourselves out of the self-hatred bred into us by the american school system and other mediums. 

Every time I've said this, almost without fail, a Black person will respond saying they'd rather pray to resolve these issues. 

Here's why that's a losing proposition. 

A couple of years ago, a woman friend of mine had a relative who was in rehab. As you could imagine, she didn't particularly like going to this facility to visit this relative, so on a few occasions, she asked me if I'd join her for a bit of moral support. I agreed.

One afternoon, this relative invited us to see the rehabilitative regimen this facility made them go through; and basically what it consisted of was heaping doses of christian doctrine and prayer. What struck me as odd was the seemingly militiristic regimentation of the classes they were mandated to take to complete the program; the place really came off like some sort of christian concentration camp. Nevertheless, the relative of my woman friend completed this program and left the facility. 

Less than a month later, my woman friend's relative relapsed and was back in that same rehab facility. And I'd heard about the same things happening to the majority of this facility's patients. 

You see, what the Black church and the white supremacists who founded these religions won't tell you, is prayer does change things; but one thing it doesn't change; and never will, is behavior. 

In order to really change any kind of negative behavior, you have to plumb the depths of your subconscious, because more often than not, these are symtoms of some sort of childhood abuse(s). Just like the Black Diaspora's self-hatred. 

Now, you may think analogies of child abuse have no place in the landscape of what's happened to the Black Diaspora in american schools, but I can assure you, if you're a Black man or woman reading this, that's exactly what that education exposed us to. 

Let me give you an example; thinking of this kind of abuse, right off the bat, I can still remember the young Black woman in high school who told me, "Man, God didn't give us (Black people) nothing, we got big lips and nappy hair..." And I understood exactly how she felt, 'cause I'd been made to feel the same way. Now, let's look at this statement from both theological and psychological points of view. 

This young Black woman said emphatically, "...GOD didn't give us nothing..." This means the message she got in any church she went to, 'cause you know there's one on every corner of Black neighborhoods, told her that the white jesus, or as spanish people like to call him, christo blanco, made her feel like an outcast or pariah not only to the notion that she could ever be beautiful, but to the notion that she, or her people, had anything to do with what was righteous, divine or sanctified. Those virtues were reserved for whites only. And she was doomed to live and die this way. Now, can you see the kind of psychic damage she endured to get this lowly opinion of herself at such a young age? That is but one result of the american school system's methodical abuses of Black children, thus, I use the term child abuse. 

And Black people have to remember, in terms of the Black slave trade in the americas, the people in control of this were white christians. The Ku Klux Klan practice something called 'white christian science', why do you think they burn crosses? And like I've said in previous posts, the first slave ship to wash up on these shores with Black people in its belly was called, 'The Good Ship jesus'. Don't take my word for this, go look it up. Also, in the wake of a lot of Black slaves committing suicide rather than live under white people's torturous conditions, white christianity made suicide a sin, so every one of their Black slaves could literally be worked to death. And here's some more christian scripture that speaks to this sentiment: Ephesians 6:5-8 reads, 'Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.  Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.' And this part really gets me...'Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving THE LORD, NOT PEOPLE!! Because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.' Now, here's what the Black Diaspora, or the portion that considers themselves christians need to question, why would their bible endorse slavery? And why would they tell people to obey these slave masters like they obey their god? Doesn't that contradict the first commandment? You know, the one that says: 'I'm the lord your God, you shall not have any Gods before me.'
 
Black people need to realize what white supremacists have done is, they've taken our Black spiritual sciences (Like Vodun/Voodoo, Yoruba, The Orishas) and are now ruling the world with them, and gave us their impotent white supremacist religions (i.e. christianity, buddhism, islam, judaism, etc.). See, our ingenious ancestors knew the spiritual sciences dealt not only with the conscious, but the subconscious mind; they also knew that the rituals performed in the Black spiritual sciences before or during prayers in some way, shape or fashion, could connect the person doing them to the subconscious, which gave those incantations, divinations and prayers their real power. Without these rituals, prayer becomes a crap shoot; where you have a fifty-fifty chance of what you're praying for happening or not.

I personally have tried some divinations without tying them to the subconscious; and without the subconscious acting like more or less of a battery for these spiritual forces, they don't work. This is what's happening to Black people stuck in the paradigm of christian prayer.
 
And mind you, we're talking about literal decades of conditioning we've gotten to hate ourselves; so saying five 'our fathers' and ten 'hail marys' ain't gonna' do squat to reverse our self-hating mind state.
 
So what I'm currently working on is a technique to get into the subconscious mind within the span of less than five minutes. I realized, the more traditional methods of meditation I offered in previous posts were a little too labor intensive. So much so, I was having trouble keeping up with them. But this technique is helping me to consistently keep up with daily meditations. I'm putting this technique through more trials, but once I'm done, I'll definitely share this with the family next year.
 
And speaking of years, this one has been particularly trying for me; but I'd like to thank all the people who ventured to this Blog and commented, pro or con. In 2015, I've got plans for this Blog to be more productive and informative; so stay tuned, 'cause the best is truly yet to come. 

See you next year! 

Ma'at Hotep and Kem Wesir!

MontUHURU Mimia