To cope with the loss of his father, Micah spends time in church lighting candles that are perpetually blown out by the wind. He encounters a stranger who persuades him to reconsider his self-imposed exile, and reconcile with his brother.
White audiences saw Peola’s mixed-race passing as a Black woman’s struggle to be white. Black audiences saw it as the rebellion of a Black woman trying to gain privileges only given to white people.
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.
It was always people for Joe, and he ultimately found them at the end of a long, painful, yet illuminating quest for self-discovery outside of one, confident constant - his bisexuality.
Dune has stunning visuals, a striking soundtrack, and great performances. But it has issues everywhere from its pacing, to its story, to its diverse representation.
The trouble with Yara (2021) is that in its attempt to tell the whole story, it struggles to tell a consistently engaging story.
I highly recommend Kill Bill: Volume 2. In classic Tarantino fashion, specific sections of the film are a tad too long, but overall, it’s a wonderful piece of escapist fiction.
