A (Feminist) Job for Tyrese

Lately, I’ve been inspired to explore the “ride or die chick” archetype. According to the best rated definition in the Urban Dictionary, this is “a chick that ain’t afraid to be down with her man, she’ll do anything her man needs her to do.”

From what I see, she’s the only female in mainstream hip hop that gets any love on a regular basis (mothers and daughters don’t fare nearly as well.) Rappers write odes to RDC, and she has become a staple in predominantly male “urban” films (as if Sex and the City, Gossip Girls, et al aren’t urban, but that’s for another blog.) I wanted to see just what a sister has to do get any respect in a genre roundly criticized for its misogyny.

So I head over to Hollywood Video and stock up on videos I ordinarily wouldn’t go near (the sacrifices one makes for social justice.) Most of these were trashed by critics and tanked at the box office only to rack up on the video market. In other words, plenty of folks are spending time and money on these movies without a half-damn for the opinions of J. Hoberman., A.O.Scott or any of these cats with initials for first names.

First into the DVD player is Waist Deep starring Tyrese Gibson and Meagan Good. Meagan is second on my list of Sisters Who Are Better Actresses Than the Roles They Get (Vivica Fox has been hard to dethrone, but let her keep on with the excessive and unnecessary surgery, hoochie antics and the WTF? flings with dudes like 50 Cent…) Despite a breakthrough performance in Kasi Lemmons classy debut Eve’s Bayou, Meagan has become a preternaturally beautiful young woman who appears regularly in films that range from the tolerably mediocre to the laughably awful. But the sister’s a goddess in hip hop circles. In fact, I select Waist Deep because she is the female lead. Gwendolyn Pough once argued that Jada Pinkett Smith was a “hip hop” film icon because by merely casting her in a role, filmmakers immediately evoked that girl who was “in” the hood yet not “of” the hood. As I settle in while the opening montage plays, I suspect that Meagan Good is on her way to becoming the symbol of the “ride or die chick” archetype.

Yes, overall Waist Deep is crappy. Sure enough, Meagan is your classic RDC who does everything her man Tyrese says so they can hustle up the loot he needs to pay off the street urchin who has kidnapped his son. And as to be expected from most films in this genre, there’s just enough visual oomph, bumping music, and crispy dialogue (Larenz Tate just skyrocketed to the top of my Brothers Who Are Better Actors Than the Roles They Get list) to make it entertaining enough for you to see it through the end, forestalling the inevitable recognition of how terrible it actually is.

But here’s the craziness. Right or wrong, I watched Waist Deep expecting all the aforementioned to be true. That said, I expected I would have to push myself to don a more sophisticated lens when deconstructing Meagan’s character CoCo, understanding that very few films can be fairly described as irredeemably sexist or thoroughly progressive.

What I didn’t expect was for Tyrese’s character Otis to be the most feminist character in the movie.

[Note: Waist Deep was co-written and directed by Vondie Curtis Hall who is also married to Kasi Lemmons so maybe their union plays a role in what I’m about to discuss.]

Not because he relinquishes male privilege, overtly stands up for women’s equality or anything radical like that. (C’mon now… this is the Game’s acting debut. Playing a thug named Big Meat, no less.) Otis stands out in the small but explicit ways he challenges traditional ideas of masculinity. For example, he is the primary caretaker of his son, stands up against violence towards women and doesn’t feel entitled to sex with CoCo simply because she’s in his line of sight.

OK, let me keep it real. Otis’s is only a slightly kindler, gentler patriarchy. He’s left with his son because his babymama’s a treacherous ‘itch, and he intervenes when some dude hits CoCo by issuing a merciless beatdown (yelling the entire time between kick and punches What the !@#$ is wrong with you, boy? Don’t you ever beat on no mother!@#$ing woman like that!) Hey, this is still the ‘hood, and Otis aka O2 is still is a down-ass thug nucca, ya feel me. For this genre, such male behavior is kinda sorta progress.

[Spoiler alert: If you haven’t yet but want to see Waist Deep, stop reading. Yeah, I figured you’d keep going. I ain’t mad atcha.]

Aw, hell. Maybe all that’s BS, and I just got taken in by the ending. Whether it’s an homage or a ripoff, there’s no denying that the climax of Waist Deep was inspired by both Set It Off and Thelma & Louise, two films wildly popular by feminists of all stripes from the street corner to the ivory tower. After smirking through much of the film, I found myself perched on the edge of my recliner when Otis, surrounded by police, drives his car off an open bridge. “Oh, no, they didn’t!” I yelled at the television. “No, you did NOT bite off of Thelma and Louise!” And let me ‘fess up. As I watched O2’s car sink into the river, I said it.




“That boy better be dead.”

Because if he was a woman, that’s the way the film would end. The tropes of feminist popular culture deems that it go like this:

1. Woman breaks out of suffocating traditional sex role.

2. Woman is deemed outlaw for such defiance and is sought out for punishment.

3. Woman gives the patriarchy one last fuck you by refusing to submit to punishment.

Therefore, unless, this is sci-fi, fantasy or some other genre not rooted in contemporary realism, homegirl must die.

So for a few moments, I was a bit heated that a film in which the female lead is little more than a plot device, the male protagnist not only gets to appropriate the bittersweet chick flick convention where the true RDC only makes the ultimate sacrifice for herself and other women, he also gets to live. He makes it to Mexico. And he has a family waiting for him to boot.

And yet if not for this appropriation, I might not have ever gone back and reexamine the character of Otis and noticed some of the other things about him that are unusual -- in a good way -- for a male character in this genre. Rather I was focused on what messages were conveyed through the female character CoCo. Yet I always preach to young men of the hip hop generation that feminism is for everybody and can liberate them from debilitating ideas of masculinity.



So this ending reminded me that part of the feminist project must include seeking out men – and representations of them in the media – that challenge archaic notions of masculinity, big and small. Like I said, Waist Deep stays overwhelmingly loyal to the tropes of its genre which implicitly necessitates the marginalization of women, and ain't changing no time soon. Within those narrow confines, however, it does engage in tiny betrayals and even, steals, er, borrows from the best of pro-women popular cinema.

So if the RDC for the cause of women’s liberation can sometimes be a man, then maybe sometimes we have to send Tyrese to do a feminist’s job.

Dodging Snagglepuss

I walk into the bodega for my cafecito looking forward to my day when there he is. Snagglepuss. That’s what I call him. Not that he knows that, but if he keeps harassing me, he just might find out.

Snagglepuss is a tubby, not-quite-menacing-yet-not-quite-comforting, gap-toothed dude who lives in my neighborhood and my latest recurring headache. He claims to be my age, but hard knock life makes him seem a decade older. Every time he sees me he says hello in that way that doesn’t strike me as very neighborly. So I ignore him, but then Snagglepuss calls after me, insisting that he’s known me since high school. I may forget a name, but I’m pretty good with faces, and with an unforgettable (and not in a good way) mug like that? No, I don’t know Snagglepuss. Never did. Dude’s lying.

I’m tired of being in this position – not knowing if it’s best to ignore a character like this or to make an effort to be friendly. Street harassment is easier to deal with when a woman encounters it outside the neighborhood where she lives. For the most part it doesn’t matter how you handle it – ignore the unsolicited invitation or opinion, attempt to engage the perpetrator in a diplomatic session of consciousness raising or fire off a pithy comeback meant to shrivel homeboy’s testicles long enough for you to escape around the corner. Just assess the circumstances, follow your instincts, and keep it moving. The chances are very high you’ll emerge unscathed and never see this joker again.

Not so when the perpetrator resides in your neighborhood. The stakes are higher because the creep knows where you live. He knows which stores you patronize and which subway you take. He can discern when you come and go, when you’re with company or by yourself. And if he’s entrenched in the street life, he knows more people than you. People you make a point not to know.

So do you ignore him or do you try to make nice? Ignoring him might get him riled up, unnecessarily escalating the situation. Then again, maybe a little small and quiet hello is all the man needs. Perhaps acknowledging him for the human being that he is will quell his desire to objectify you. And maybe it’ll even have practical benefits because he’ll tell the other corner boys, “Leave her alone. She’s a'ight.”

But what if you’re wrong? You just might decide to be neighborly and have your friendliness rewarded with more of the same harassment. In fact, it may spread like a virus. What if you give homey an “in”, and he runs with it? Yeah, I know her, dog. She fine, rah? Ayo, shawty…! Now you can’t go to the Chinese takeout for some rib tips without him and all of his boys hollering at you from the liquor store across the street.

Like I said, I’m tired of having to think about this shit, especially this early in the morning. Buying a cup of coffee at the corner bodega shouldn’t require that I run the mental calculus of street politics at the speed of light. I should be able to offer a genuine hello to anyone in my neighborhood without pausing to assess whether the gesture will result in my being me more or less safe.

But there’s really no ignoring Snags today. I’m trapped with him in the narrow aisle between the counter and the junk food rack as I wait for the bodegüero to prepare my cafecito. “Good morning,” he says, eyeing me up and down. Because there are other people in the store, and the proprietor is keeping a fatherly eye on me, I decide to err on the side of humanity.

“Uh, yeah, hi.”

“Oh, my God!” yells Snaggle. “That’s the first time you’ve talked to me in years. Like I said, I went to high school withchu.”

I’ve done what I’m about to do now and have regretted it, but I decide to do it again. Be honest with the man. “What you need to understand is that a lot of guys say that they know me when they don’t.” I say this with a tone that unmistakably conveys And the jury’s still out on you, bruh. “But when I try to be nice and say hello, the next thing I know, they’re following me around and harassing me.”

“That’s ‘cause they do,” he insists.

Aw, shit. Should’ve kept my mouth shut. But I can’t now. “No, they don’t. I know who I know,” I say. “And just because you see me around don’t mean you know me.”

“Yeah, you be keepin’ to yourself,” concedes Snagglepuss.

Then he launches into how much better the neighborhood is now as compared to the eighties at the height of the crack epidemic. He recalls how at this hour the street would already be teeming with people buying and selling crack. I glance at the bodegüero, and it becomes evident that Snagglepuss has never been nor will ever win customer of the month here. He rolls his eyes at Snaggle’s lament which does seem to smack with a bit of nostalgia. His mouth says, “Yeah, it used to be so bad back then,” but his bloodshot eyes tear: Ah, the good ol’ days.

Apparently, the proprietor has enough of Snaggle’s fake whining and wants him out his store, but he’s not going anywhere while I’m there. So I rope the poor guy into the conversation. I translate Snag’s lament in Spanish. "Eso lo qu’esta hacienda él ahí," he smirks as he snaps open a paper bag for my coffee. "Vendiendo drogas." The second he says that, Snagglepuss bops out of the store without having bought a thing. Clearly, he understood what the proprietor said about him, but somehow I don’t think he learned that in Mrs. Bitetti’s Spanish class.

I chuckle, “Siempre ‘ta diciendo que me conoces.” I peek out the door to see if Snaggle took off, but he’s loitering out front. “Dique asistió la escuela conmigo.”

The bodegüero scoffs at that one. “¡El nunca fue a l’escuela!”

I start laughing. True that, too. Snaggle doesn’t even know where the high school is. I take my coffee, wish the proprietor a good day and head out.

No sooner do I step onto the sidewalk is Snagglepuss sidling up to me, doing exactly what I hoped being nice to him would avoid. “You have a nice day,” he leers.

I’m thinking Sure, once you leave me the hell alone. But I mutter, “Yeah, you, too.”

“You married?”

This time I make sure dude can see me roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m married,” I lie. I hate that I have to do it. I shouldn’t have to do it, but you do what you have to do in the ‘hood. Time will tell if it even matters. s