More Notes on Race and Time Travel (Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures)

The Whoniverse’s spinoffs, with their lack of TARDISes, travel in time far less than the parent show does, but there’s still the odd time-travel episode here and there.  This offers a few more opportunities to explore race when 21^st-century characters of color visiting the past.

On Torchwood, “Captain Jack Harkness” finds Jack and Tosh transported to 1941.  Tosh, who’s of Japanese descent, is lucky to be in Wales in January rather than the U.S. in December, but it’s still a thoroughly-unnerving experience.  As soon as she realizes when they are, she gets anxious, and rightfully so.  “Jap” trips easily off of people’s tongues, and Tosh’s natural out-of-placeness from being displaced in time is interpreted by those around her as traitorous behavior.  She’s quickly suspected of being a spy, and without Jack asserting her loyalty to Britain, things might have turned very ugly for her.  For me, one of the hardest-hitting moments of the episode is when she worriedly asks Jack what will happen to her if they can’t get back, and Jack replies, “I’ll take care of you.”  Yes, it’s one friend looking out for another, but it’s also one friend acknowledging that the other will experience additional danger solely because of her race and that he, due to his privilege as a white person, will need to protect her.  Very sad, but very honest.

With The Sarah Jane Adventures, we have two PoC of different races with separate time-travel experiences, which are interesting to compare.  Rani visits the past twice and gets “exotic foreigner” reactions both times.  When she crashes a mid-century village in “The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith,” she causes quite a stir (to be fair, that’s partly because she’s wearing pants.  After she leaves, a villager exclaims, “Can that really be the fashion in the Punjab?”)  Rani has a bemused/weary acceptance of shocking the locals, replying, “Yes, hello.  Ethnic person in the ‘50s.”  Her other jaunt into the past is in “Lost Time,” where she, Clyde, and Sarah Jane are sent to different points in history.  Rani meeta Jane Grey, under the guise of being her new lady-in-waiting, and while one of Jane’s servants doubts the “foreigner” can be trusted, Rani uses the “mysteries of the East” thing to her advantage.  She plays off any out-of-time faux pas as Indian customs, and Jane, fascinated by but ignorant of Asia, easily buys her excuses.

It disappointed me that Clyde was the only one not to visit the ‘50s in “The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith,” and I was glad he finally got to time travel in “Lost in Time.”  Clyde is sent to the WWII era, where he and an evacuated boy thwart a group of Nazis planning an attack – he’s tossed right into the deep end, isn’t he?  I’ve already mentioned the main race-related scene here, when the Nazi commander calls him a Negro, and Clyde in turn amazingly calls the Nazis “a gang of bullies picking on others for what they look like” who will lose the war due to their “blind, stupid prejudice.”  (I love it so much.)  But what really strikes me is what I think may be the reasonClyde only time travels once, and then only to WWII.  I wonder if the writers were aware that, as a Black boy, Clyde would experience harsher, blunter racism than Rani would as a South Asian and wanted to be sure that racism came from obvious bad guys (Nazis, people.)  When 1950s villagers gawk at Rani, their exoticizing is more about ignorance than malice, but if Clyde had walked into the same crowd, he would’ve likely had a far colder welcome.  It’s ugly enough for a Nazi call him a Negro.  If he’d had that contempt from one those pleasant villagers?  From one of Sarah Jane’s parents, maybe?  Way worse, and harder for Clyde to push back against.  If the show really had that kind of understanding and planned Clyde’s one time-travel adventure accordingly, it shows a pretty unflinching awareness of history and race relations.

Original: The Silence (2012)

I forgot to post my usual end-of-month poem on Thursday, so I'm giving to you now.  Short and sweet today.

*          *          *

The Silence

I’m the silence, not the song –

Am I more the lull in the conversation

Or the still air muzzled by the morning chill?

Am I the moment of held breath between the song and the applause,

Afraid to break the spell?

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Too bad – the silence doesn’t tell.

Trevor Noah: The Daywalker (2009)

Since both Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show were dark this week, I thought I’d review another Trevor Noah standup special in lieu of the usual News Satire Roundup.  IMDb tells me this was Noah’s first televised comedy special, filmed in Johannesburg and broadcast in South Africa.  In other words?  Thank you, YouTube!  Both of the other specials I’ve seen from Noah (as well as all his work on The Daily Show, obviously) were made in the U.S., and while he spends plenty of time talking about Africa in all of his comedy, these other pieces I’ve seen are definitely framed for U.S. audiences.  Other than a handful of shorter clips, this is the first piece I’ve seen made specificially for South Africans, and it’s interesting to see what Noah’s work is like in that setting.

I’ve read that Noah tailors his routines a lot based on where he’s performing, and from what I’ve seen, that seems to bear out.  As a result, much of the comedy here is about people or cultural norms that I know very little about.  The hour-and-20-minute show covers all of South Africa’s presidents (crazy to think that basically every person in that audience was alive for the country’s first democratic election,) including a lamentation that Jacob Zuma, the current (then and now) president, is a disappointment, comedy-wise, and a fantastic bit about Nelson Mandela’s 91^stbirthday party.  There’s also a ton of material on similiarities and differences between various groups in South Africa – white, Black, colored (meaning mixed race,) and Indian – with a number of specific geographic references, snatches of assorted languages, and a wide array of accents.  However, even though certain references alluded me and I’m sure it’d be a lot funnier to someone who’s familiar with those cultures and knows those politicians, I still got plenty out of it.  Funny is funny, and Noah’s comedy doesn’t have to be packaged specifically for me to work for me.  (Note:  his various African accents are a lot thicker here than the one he typically uses in the U.S. now, and there are some jokes that my American ears simply couldn’t decipher.)

Something that I found really interesting is his stories about being colored/mixed.  Now, this is a common theme in Noah’s comedy, and I’d already heard some of these jokes in routines he’s done elsewhere, but while I knew that his experiences as a biracial person born during apartheid was unique, I didn’t realize that they were unique even among mixed South Africans.  As part of his introduction to the topic, he notes a light-skinned woman in the audience, asks if she’s colored, and then verifies that her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all colored as well.  Because “colored” was a separate racial group under apartheid and racial groups weren’t supposed to mix, many (most?) biracial people there came from families where everyone is biracial.  Therefore, having one Black parent and one white parent wasn’t the norm even for a mixed person.  Having heard it and knowing what I know about apartheid, it makes sense, but it had never occurred to me before.  This routine offered some interesting tidbits I hadn’t known; I knew that Noah’s father was kept a secret until after apartheid ended, but I didn’t know that secret even extended to his mother’s side of the family, and while I knew that some people mistakenly thought Noah had albinism (rather than being mixed,) I’d never heard him talk about it, and his story of rolling with his “albino crew” was pretty fun.

Warnings

Thematic elements, sexual references, a little swearing, and alcohol references.

Favorite Characters: Rey (Star Wars)

I can hardly explain how well Rey works for me.  She’s smart, tough, capable, complicated, in over her head but still getting by, and even though she could easily seem over-the-top or too good to be true, she just comes off so well.  With her in the foreground, I think the Star Wars franchise is in fine hands (a few Rey-related spoilers for The Force Awakens.)

As with the other two members of the new trio (more on them some other time,) Rey bears a distinct resemblance to those who came before.  While the guys both take on some Han-ish qualities, Rey is definitelyreminiscent of Luke.  I mean, come on – a young person of uncertain parentage with itchy feet stuck on a desert planet?  A talent for ships and flying, a natural flair with droids, and strong Force sensitivity that she hasn’t discovered yet?  She’s so Luke.

But at the same time, she’s not, and I like that.  Rey is more remote, more guarded, than Luke.  She doesn’t push people away exactly – in fact, she seems to fall pretty easily into friendships – but she’s incredibly self-sufficient, and she sort of wears that self-sufficiency around her like armor.  It’s like, she’s more than happy to have others around her and work together with her, but it’s important that they know she’d be fine on her own if necessary.  When Finn first meets her and (badly) tries to come to her rescue, she’s a little annoyed that he felt the need to try. 

This is informed, like so many of Rey’s traits, by her abandonment at a young age.  For such a long time, it’s been just Rey and she’s learned to make do with that, and so it weirds her out a bit when people act like she needs their help.  Incidentally, though, this same abandonment probably plays a big part in her compassion and her own inclination toward helping others, and in a way, that’s her “in” to letting others get close to her.  From almost the moment she crosses paths with BB-8, she’s determined to help the droid and even leaves her planet – which she’s clung to in the hopes that those who left her there will one day come back for her – to do so.  This means that Finn, and later Han and Chewy, become people who can similarly help BB-8, and that’s why she tells them to stay with her.  Even as it feels pretty obvious that she at least subconsciously craves a reprieve from the fairly solitary life she’s been living (she and Finn quickly fall in like old friends, and she probably sees something of a father in Han,) the official reasons she gives them are all about getting BB-8 back to the resistance.

And, also due in part to her years of fending for herself, Rey can get crap done.  She explores and investigates, she fights well with a staff and is a quick study with a light saber, and she both pilots and repairs unfamiliar ships with innate aptitude.  As she starts understanding her affinity with the Force, she soon learns to use it to her advantage.  All these skills likely have some calling her character a Mary Sue, but for me, it works.  Her abilities mostly feel earned, and I think they’re balanced out by her very human fears.  By all accounts, she can rock just about anything, but when she is first told about her true potential, it completely freaks her out.  She doesn’t want to be powerful or chosen or anyone’s great hope – it’s too large, too much to take in at once, and like so many heroes before her, she initially runs away from the call.  The Force Awakens shows her beginning to find her way back to it, and I’m excited to see where she goes next.

Once Upon a Time: Season 1, Episode 17 – “Hat Trick” (2012)

I’ll be honest – about half of my motivation for initially checking out Once Upon a Time was the knowledge that Sebastian Stan had had a small but beloved role in it (the other half, by the way, was stuff I’d heard about Mulan,) so it’s not really surprising that I was more than ready for Jefferson’s first appearance on the show.  But even apart from that obvious check in the plus column, “Hat Trick” is one of my favorite episodes from season 1 and, really, I think it’s still one of the best the show has ever done (episode spoilers.)

At this point, Storybrooke is still under the curse, Emma is a disbeliever in Henry’s stories and her role as the Savior, and the show is dividing its screentime between the main characters/seasonal arc and more minor Enchanted Forest denizens, giving us side plots of Emma meeting and helping these characters in present-day Storybrooke.  We get some of both in this episode.  Snow/Mary Margaret has escaped jail, mistakenly thinking that Emma helped her get out, but in fact, Emma is desperate to find her before her arraignment, lest she get in even worse trouble.  Along the way, she meets and is captured by Jefferson, an unstable young man who corroborates Henry’s stories and insists that Emma, the Savior, is his only hope for being reunited with his daughter Grace.  In flashback, we see how Jefferson is separated from Grace when Regina talks him into making a return to his old ways:  opening portals between worlds with the aid of an enchanted hat.

There’s a lot to enjoy here.  I really like the story of Jefferson and Grace, which is emotional and well-acted by all involved.  I like seeing Emma pull out all the stops to help Mary Margaret, and I loveMary Margaret discovering her inner badass princess/bandit Snow White, if only for a moment.  I like the inventive direction the show takes with the introduction of the Mad Hatter, opening up the series to other worlds beyond ours and the Enchanted Forest (some might argue that it’s not been a development for the best, since the show hasn’t always used its expanded universe well.)  Similarly, I like how elements of the Mad Hatter story manifest in Storybrooke.

But all that (even Sebastian Stan playing one of my favorite characters of his) doesn’t live up to what this episode reallydelivers in terms of the show’s mythology.  Before seeing “Hat Trick,” I was moderately entertained by Once Upon a Time and found some of the characters/actors quite engaging, but after seeing “Hat Trick,” I was invested in this narrative.  Jefferson’s conversations with Emma are so vital, both for Emma’s journey as a character – she still doesn’t want to believe, but against her will, she’s starting to – and for the trajectory of the series. 

Jefferson isn’t the only character in Storybrooke who retains his Enchanted Forest memories under the curse, but he’s probably the most interesting to me.  I love his observation about this world, that “everyone wants some magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”  And his response to Emma’s insistence that “this is the real world” is exactly what she needs:  “A real world.  How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one?  There are infinite more.  […]  They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last.  […]  Some have magic, some don’t.  And some need magic… Like this one.”  Though Once Upon a Time has a number of thematic cores, I think this one might be the most profound and well-articulated.  Moving forward, it’s what allows the day-to-day and the fantastical to exist side by side.  Bringing magic to a world that needs it.  How cool is that?

Made in Dagenham (2010, R)

In a lot of ways, this reminds me of Pride.  Let’s see here… British period piece about a labor strike.  Features a group of people who are historically overlooked and underestimated.  Despite its powerful subject matter, has an overall buoyant feeling that’s deftly reeled in when it needs to be.  Strong message of unity and the triumph of the little guy/woman in the face of pretty big odds.  Yep – definitely familiar!

In 1968, the all-female group of machinists working at the Ford plant in Dagenham complain about their work being relabeled as “unskilled labor,” with the pay cut to go along with it.  The women, led by the quiet but strong-willed Rita, go on strike, but soon, it becomes about more than a classification, an individual factory, or even an individual profession.  Rita sets her sights on a far bigger goal:  gender pay equality.

As I said, this movie takes a predominantly light tone, but it does get serious when the job calls for it, particularly when it comes to Rita and the other women looking to their husbands to support their movement, as the women in turn supported their husbands in previous strikes.  While it doesn’t shy away from the struggles or the injustice, it also has a lot of humor and knows how to have fun.  I can understand that some may find this attitude flippant, as if a women’s labor movement is more “frivolous” than that of their male counterparts, but that’s not how I see it.  For me, it’s more about showing the indomitable spirit of these machinists, who lean on one another and find ways to laugh even in hard times.  When one of them staggers under the weight of what they’re up against, the others rally around her and bolster her up, lending her the strength to keep going, and I think that’s really cool.

Sally Hawkins (a former Anne from Persuasion, and she has a lesbian Victoriana twofer under her belt, having appeared in Tipping the Velvetand starred in Fingersmith) is tailor-made for Rita.  She can bring a lot of force to her performance, but she does it with this little voice and this unassuming nature.  At the start of the film, she doesn’t think of herself as a person who can speak up, but she does it anyway because she just can’t abide continuing in silence.  Watching her, you see Rita discovering what she’s capable of at the same time that you do.  Really great work.

The rest of the cast is packed with familiar British faces.  For Harry Potter alumni alone, there’s Miranda Richardson (Rita Skeeter – but more importantly, Queenie!), Geraldine James (Lily Potter,) and Roger Lloyd-Pack (Barty Crouch, Jr.)  We also have Rosamund Pike (Amy from Gone Girl, a former Pride and Prejudice Jane,) Rupert Graves (Lestrade on Sherlock,) a young blink-and-you’ll-miss-him Robbie Kay (Peter Pan on Once Upon a Time,) Richard Schiff, Bob Hoskins, Daniel Mays (from “Night Terrors” in series 6 of Who,) and Andrea Riseborough (Angelica from The Devil’s Whore.)  Continued proof that two degrees is the farthest any living British actor can be from any other.

Warnings

Language, light sexual content, and drinking/smoking.