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Category Archives: Film

Fathers and Walls

17 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by metagcarstarphen in Film, Literature, Observances

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Tags

Death of a Salesman, Father's Day, Fences, O.I.C., The Wall documentary, Tony Awards

It was the middle of December 2010, but sweaty hot in Lagos, Ghana.  My friend and university colleague, Loretta Bass, and I were trying to navigate dust and sidewalk in a compact industrial and residential area looking for one man.

He was the sole contact for a Ghana-based site connected to the Opportunities Industrialization Center,or O.I.C.  This innovative job training program has a long and illustrious story, but I only wanted to know about one topic at that moment—my Dad, John J. Carstarphen Sr.

Dad during one of his work trips in Ghana for O.I.C.

I left that short visit to go on to finish the university business that had sent me to Africa without finding anything that I thought I needed to know about Dad.  So, I was stunned to open my email a short time later to find that this tenuous meet-and-greet with a man I didn’t know produced something precious to me about a man I did know.  There was attached a picture of a group of people, including my Dad, who went to Africa four decades ago to help expand the O.I.C. success to Africa.

If you look at this picture on the back row, on the right, you will see a man in a white shirt mostly hidden and almost absorbed into the background.  That was Dad.  There wasn’t a lot of fanfare about him and he wasn’t famous.  He worked hard and tried to make a difference for people in his sphere of influence.

As kids growing up, my brothers and I knew, vaguely, that Dad traveled sometimes for work and would be gone for a long time.  This picture put an important layer of reality to his job, and life for me.

Today we honor fathers and the meaning of “fathering,” and indeed we should.  Yet, I bet for many of us, we honor mysteries and hidden lives.  We grow up seeing the outer shape of a man doing what we expect dads to do, but often we have no real idea of what they experience as men, trying to find their places in this world.

Dad and I enjoying a tour of the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

Two literary geniuses of our modern times tried to reveal this world to us.  One was the playwright Arthur Miller.   He wrote Death of A Salesman and is frequently remembered as one of actor Marilyn Monroe’s husbands.  But in this play, Miller wrote one of the most piercing insights into the life of an ordinary working man and a father to be written.  On June 10, this drama one a 2012 Tony Award for the “Best Revival” with performances that apparently impressed judges and critics, as have previous versions starring actors Lee J. Cobb and Dustin Hoffman.  As we see the main character, Willie Loman, pummeled by life and in conflict with his sons, we hear him cling to the vision of himself where he is someone special.  I am not a dime a dozen, he says.  I am Willie Loman.

Another dramatic masterpiece of equal power is August Wilson’s Fences.  Recognized as one of our country’s greatest playwrights, August Wilson wrote from the context of the African American experience.  In Fences, the main protagonist is Troy Maxson, who gives insight into his complex worldview after a contentious exchange with his son.  Explaining why he doesn’t have to “like” his son to provide for him, Troy finishes a punishing exchange by giving his son a life lesson: Don’t worry if someone likes you; just make sure they do right by you.

These plays feature two ordinary mean, with two different worldviews but a shared emotional core.  Both believe that they are more valuable than what the world has known of them.  One strives vainly for this recognition, while another burns slowly under the weight of knowing that he will never achieve it.  Yet, as Miller wrote in his play, “attention must be paid” to men like Willie, to men like Troy, and all of the vast numbers of men who are not named.  Have you wondered—is your dad a Willie or a Troy?

Today, and throughout the year, let’s pay attention.  We should attend to the men who are fathers not just because they have biological bragging rights, but because they go to work every day and come home.  They may be the step-parents, grand-parents, god-parents or “spiritual” dads to children of all ages.  They may be the husbands of some father’s daughter.  Whoever they are, they are the foundations of what we know and what we think we know, because they showed up, and kept showing up when they didn’t have to.

My dad was a mystery in many ways to us kids.  He went to Africa and other places for work, but he always came back.   Now, my brother is working on an ambitious film project that will help shed light on what he was coming back to, and what so many other men of his generation had to face.  This documentary is called The Wall, and it is stunning so far.  John is still a way from completing it as he works on acquiring more investments [hint, hint] for this amazing project.

Let me know what you think.

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The Great White Hope, circa 2012

11 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by metagcarstarphen in Film, Politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Great White Hope, Jack Johnson, Jack London, James Earl Jones, President Obama, Republican primary

I love movies.  One of my all-time favorites is the 1970 film, The Great White Hope, which found onscreen success after a heralded theatrical run on Broadway.  Venerable actor James Earl Jones starred in both the stage and film versions as a  boxer named Jack Jefferson.  Jefferson was a fictional character, but he was based upon the real-life experiences of Jack Johnson, heavyweight boxing champion, .

For some reason, the political news of the day has me thinking a lot about this movie.

If you have never seen this classic, you ought to check it out.  Jones, a magnificent actor whose voice is part of cinema history as the dangerous Darth Vader, is onscreen in pure masculine glory as a champion boxer.  And although the script took some creative license with the actual facts of Johnson’s life, it stayed true to the fascinating dramatic tensions of a man who wanted to be the best in his field.

More recently, an excellent PBS documentary by Ken Burns, Unforgiveable Blackness, explored the facts of Johnson’s life.  It turns out that the facts of Johnson’s life are more compelling that the fiction.  In 1908, after a 14-round fight in Australia, Johnson fought and defeated a Canadian boxer, Tommy Burns, to become the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world.  So unthinkable was it to sports fans and commentators in these segregated times to accept this new champion that a backlash emerged.  One of the most prominent voices to rise opposing Jack Johnson was that of sportswriter and novelist Jack London, who may be best known for his fiction, Call of the Wild.  London was a vivid writer, and not above a bit of high-blown language.  He could also turn a memorable phrase. He coined one of them, as he spoke of the “disgrace” of  an African-American in a newspaper column, by calling for a “Great White Hope” to defeat Johnson.

Media commentator and screenwriter John Ridley does a brilliant job of detailing the way in which media, sports hype and London’s influence helped to elevate Johnson’s eventual match with a White fighter named Jack Jeffries to epic proportions. Johnson was not criticized for his boxing techniques or performance.  Instead, he was demonized for his “audacity” win the title.  He was attacked for everything from his appearance, his personality, and his choice of women. By the time they met in the ring, audiences no longer saw this as a contest between two individuals, but as a referendum on morality and universal life values.

Fast-forward to August 19, 2011, when Kansas congresswoman Lynn Jenkins openly stated that the Republican Party was struggling to find a “great white hope” to defeat President Obama in the 2012 election—only to apologize for her choice of words.  I don’t believe there has been any real apology for the actual sentiment.

So why have I been thinking about this movie a lot lately?  Watching the Republican primaries bob and weave their way through each state only heightens the comparison.  Political rhetoric describing the primary season debates among the candidates illustrates the virulent “fight” analogies in place as the Republic contenders describe how they want to “knock out” Obama and remove him from the White House.  And, although the election of a U.S. President is a serious thing, the way it as being discussed as a choice about our “way of life” has inescapable undertones.  Still, studies show that the Republican primary season continues to be fraught with uncertainties about who the best candidate should be. It seems that many are still hoping for the perfect colossus of a candidate who will appear upon the political stage and obliterate all opposition.  From the list of previous hopefuls who have dropped out, to the names that are still being bandied about, to the roller coaster-like results from the state caucuses, it seems clear that all of the misguided yearnings for a “great white hope” will be thrust upon the last man standing.

I’m not the first to call attention to the racial undertones of this election season, nor will I be the last.  But this discussion is more than skin-deep.  Because if there is a parallel between the mediated opposition Johnson experienced and what Obama faces now, it is also based on competence and even excellence.  There are no attacks on someone like, say, African American rapper Flavor Flav, despite Ann Coulter’s misguided attempt to compare him with the President. Pure buffoonery is not as threatening compared to serious intent.

Jack Johnson was a target, in part, because he was an enormously talented man. Besides his prowess in a tough sport, he was an inventor who registered a patent for a popular tool. After he retired from boxing, he headlined a traveling vaudeville show that both capitalized on and poked fun of his boxing career.  Turns out, he was a talented entertainer too.

Maybe the political debate will shift more to performance and fact issues and away from hysteria and hype as time goes on.  Any takers?

In the meantime, I just can’t help thinking of that movie.

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Dr. Meta G. Carstarphen

Professor
Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication
405.310.9081
mcarstarphen@ou.edu
**Check out my personal blog about learning, life, and engagement at http://metaprof7.wordpress.com

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