Arts & Culture
Detail from Luciano Garbati’s Medusa With the Head of Perseus / Jeenah Moon / The New York Times / Redux
IN THE GREEK mythology I was taught as a child, a recurring plot always struck me as deeply unfair. A god seduces—or rapes—a mortal woman, who either succumbs to the coercion or tries to resist. If she resists, she is punished. If she gives in, a jealous goddess punishes her.
The fact that my classmates and I had to read these myths without being encouraged to deconstruct them still disturbs me. My desire is not to sanitize art nor neuter its political incorrectness, but rather to see people (especially children) realize their agency as readers, particularly in instances where misogyny should be questioned. Which is why the installation of Luciano Garbati’s sculpture Medusa With the Head of Perseus in New York City represents a delightful inversion.
As the story goes, Medusa was a beautiful young woman, unfairly punished for being a victim of Poseidon’s lust. Because the rape takes place in Athena’s temple, Athena, believing her sanctuary defiled, turns Medusa into a monster. Medusa, now with snakes for hair, is so hideous that she can transform anyone who beholds her to stone. Perseus, a demigod himself, is tasked with killing Medusa, a duty he executes via beheading. A 16th-century bronze by Benvenuto Cellini, titled Perseus With the Head of Medusa, depicts Perseus in his moment of triumph. He holds Medusa’s head aloft while snakes emerge from her neck.
A Change is Gonna Come
Regina King’s film One Night in Miami is a reflective depiction of Black excellence and the crossroads faced by a generation’s luminaries. Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke consider their callings in this intimate imagining of a night that actually happened. Amazon Studios.
A Way Forward
From Seneca Falls to Stonewall to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons maps the traditions of progressive Christian activism in the U.S. A healing balm and a mobilizing guide, Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity invites readers to the co-creation of a just world. Broadleaf Books.
From Crip Camp
FOR A YEAR defined by isolation, 2020 has been fascinatingly full of stories about relationship. It feels oddly appropriate that during a time when we’re constantly confronting our divisions—ideological and physical—we’ve been surrounded by cinematic reminders of the importance of community and the various ways we find it. Films of 2020 have come out largely through streaming platforms, and we’ve watched them in our homes, by ourselves. They’ve still managed, however, to inspire connection.
Kirsten Johnson’s documentary Dick Johnson Is Dead chronicled her father’s dementia by celebrating her dad’s life, while Natalie Erika James’ horror film Relic addressed the real-life existential terror of watching a loved one’s mind fade to the same disease. Other films such as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks examined how adult children relate to their parents’ flaws. Of course, family doesn’t have to mean the people we share our genes with. Movies this year addressed found families too, from Crip Camp’s community of disability activists to The Old Guard’s fiercely devoted group of immortal warriors. Even popcorn fare such as Bill & Ted Face the Music celebrated the way long-standing bonds support us throughout our lives and help us in turn to love others.
Nikky Finney and her father, 1972 / family photo
FOR BLACK people in the U.S.—a collective from which lives are still stolen on a daily basis, as though the slave-boat travels of 1619 never ended but merely set course in new directions to the same destination—reclamation is essential. Perhaps our history motivated the poet Nikky Finney’s father to repurpose a phrase that long had a negative connotation into a moniker to give his daughter positive focus.
“My mother steeped us in the stories of Black history and my father named me ‘Love Child’ in order not to give anyone else the opportunity to distract me from what I had come to earth to be,” writes Finney, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry, in her newest collection, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry. “So be she.”
And so she is. About a month into quarantine 2020, Finney released perhaps the most history-and-affection-freighted book to be published this harrowing year. Love Child’s Hotbed cannot be read on a Kindle. Less a typical, slender publication of modern verse, and more a hefty coffee-table book of startling import, it brings to mind The Black Book, that historical anthology co-edited in 1974 by Toni Morrison, the eventual Nobel laureate in literature who was an editor at the publishing company Random House. A book that strove to contain the vast lives of Black people in the U.S.—their horrific experiences and their magnanimous achievements—The Black Book was a gift to the nation’s children and grandchildren of slaves (and even inspired one of the greatest novels of all time, Morrison’s Beloved). Likewise, in a time of immense death and thus plundering of families, Finney’s latest book is a blessing for a continuously undone but never destroyed people, reaching into the past to grasp hope and self-worth to sustain their future.
Ethan Hawke as John Brown in The Good Lord Bird (2020).
I don’t begrudge Ethan Hawke for wanting to play John Brown and producing this project. John Brown’s life was vast and exciting; his willingness to take up arms to defeat injustice mirrors conversations we still have in the church today about nonviolence.
Elijah Moss, Rev. Otis Moss Jr., and Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III are pictured filming for Otis' Dream. Image courtesy Otis Moss III.
In an effort to call faith-based communities to action during the 2020 election season, his grandson Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, shares his family’s story in the 14-minute film, Otis’ Dream.
Illustration by Jia Sung
I reckon it was the girl,
not more than fourteen. Those eyes.
Something made him stop his talk,
hoist down the lantern and mutter out with them.
And that was one sour night—
dust and wind, things banging;
“SO WHAT ARE you exactly?”
I’m asked that often. When people see my dark-black and curly hair, my somewhat “almond-shaped” eyes, my pale skin with a yellow undertone— and yet freckles—they wonder. They can’t place my ethnicity in a box, so they feel unsettled, maybe even threatened.
Depending on my mood, I choose one of a few answers. If I’m feeling sarcastic: “I’m human, thanks. And you?” Or if I’m feeling cryptic: “ Exotic, obviously.” If I’m feeling sarcastic and preachy: “Me? I’m part of the Colossians 3:12 ‘Beloved Community,’ part of God’s people that he loves from the center of his being.”
LONG BEFORE the coronavirus inspired congregations to gather outside of a sanctuary, Emily M.D. Scott and Anna Woofenden birthed congregations (St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the Garden Church in San Pedro, Calif., respectively) that shed pageantry and focused on the basics: bread, cup, and looking-a-person-deep-in-the-eye connection.
Around a dinner table and in an urban garden, these two scrappy congregations grew through environmental disasters (Hurricane Sandy and a multiyear California drought), confrontations with external and internal classism and racism, and the joys and griefs of bringing a new vision of ekklesia into the world.
It is rare to see the tangled roots of a church plant. Yet, both authors share insecurities about failed worship services, unstable budgets, and the long loneliness that comes with church leadership. The vivid character development, precise detail, and theological depth of both narratives make the reader feel at home in the possibility of worship beyond pew-lined sanctuaries.
IN THE NOVEL Transcendent Kingdom, Gifty is a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Stanford University, aiming to identify the neural pathways that suppress reward-seeking behavior. She is at the lab trying to keep two mice from tearing each other apart when her mother’s pastor calls. Gifty’s mother is sick, severely depressed ever since her son, Gifty’s brother Nana, died of a heroin overdose. Now, years later, Gifty wants nothing more than to bring her mother back to life.
In her second book, author Yaa Gyasi continues to grapple with familial loss and inheritance. But while her debut novel Homegoing examined the legacy of slavery, Transcendent Kingdom follows a young woman as she recalls her immigrant family’s triumphs alongside their devastating fight with depression and addiction. Through her methodical (scientific, spiritual, and philosophical) inquiry, Gifty tries to keep their memories alive.
What happens when the past haunts and overwhelms the present? At 28, Gifty’s life is lonely lab work and rumination, a mother unresponsive save for her hum, a father so distant he is not called by name. Even when Gifty is silent, the past reverberates loudly in her relationships. If she can find answers to her research questions, perhaps one day someone could be saved from the throes of addiction. But who will save her?
THE PAST DECADE has seen an endless trickle of negative stories about social media—data breaches, Russian bots, cyberbullying, digital radicalization, etc.—so by now almost everyone knows that the amusement and convenience those platforms offer come with a downside. But now a new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, is here to tell us one big thing: It’s worse than we thought. In fact, it’s worse than we could have possibly imagined.
In the film this alarm is raised by many of the very people who helped create the systems they now decry. We’re talking about the guy who invented the “Like” button for Facebook, the guy who designed the recommendation engine for YouTube, the fellow who invented the infinite scroll. One after another these mostly white, mostly male characters come on camera to tell us how badly their proudest accomplishments have gone awry.
The big problem these folks warn us about is that our smartphones constantly collect data (what we buy, what music we play, where we are, who we talk to, etc., ad nauseam) and that data is used to fuel a system of targeted alerts, notifications, and recommendations designed to keep us on a site for as long as possible and deliver us to advertisers who also have that data about us.
Wonderfully Made
Phillip Picardi, former editor of the LGBTQ magazine Out, looks into the intricacies of religion in his podcast Unholier Than Thou. From harsh treatment of Muslims by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to exploring the sacred role of trans people in some religious traditions, Picardi calls for good-hearted faith. Crooked Media.
Shall Not Be Sold
Appallingly, around the world many people are making money from grueling asylum processes. Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry, edited by Siobhán McGuirk and Adrienne Pine, assembles words of resistance from journalists, activists, academics, and especially asylum seekers proposing more humane visions of asylum. PM Press.
Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett in Lovecraft Country
EVERYTHING THAT THE devil stole, HBO’s giving back to me. That’s a sacrilegious statement, but sometimes that’s how I feel when I’m on my couch watching yet another show with a largely Black cast (and sometimes even crew) miraculously greenlit in a sea of Hollywood whiteness by the network titan that years ago gave us The Wire and made many of us notice the likes of Idris Elba.
For what seemed like eons to Black folks eager for visual confirmation that their lives mattered, Black characters on TV were mostly relegated to sidekick or background roles—and Black writers, directors, and showrunners were rare or entirely absent. But from Insecure to A Black Lady Sketch Show, Watchmen to I May Destroy You, HBO is perhaps the strongest ally for revolutionary Black artists and creators of color on and behind TV.
From the album 'God's Son' by Nas
IT'S ALMOST DECEMBER, and in a few weeks we may gather with our families (potentially via Zoom) to sing “Away in a Manger” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
Each of these songs depicts baby Jesus in a different way, from a poor, defenseless child to a newborn king. Each contributes to our faith in a different way. That tiny baby reminds us of Jesus’ humanity and his solidarity with the poor, while the incarnated Lord reminds us of God’s splendor and glory.
From these hymns to the latest Hillsong chorus, most songs about Jesus have been written by Christians for their fellow believers. Over the past 50 years, however, this has changed. Songs about Jesus no longer show up just in church, but also in discos, honky-tonks, blues bars, and strip clubs. Over the past 50 years, Jesus has appeared in hundreds of songs in every secular genre. These artists explore in their own unique ways the question that Jesus asked his disciples: “And who do you say that I am?”
FROM HOWARD THURMAN'S own account, his grandmother, in particular, fundamentally shaped his religious sentiments; she was his hero. His grandmother had been a slave, and later, when Thurman began writing his books on the spirituals, he had her words in mind. Nancy was also a midwife in Daytona, known generally by the community as “Lady Nancy,” and remembered by Thurman as the “anchor person in our family.” She came from a large plantation estate in South Carolina; her owner, John C. McGhee, had moved to Madison County, Florida, before the war, where the majority of the larger planters were from South Carolina. Growing up, Thurman made frequent pilgrimages to Madison County but remembered of his grandmother, “She granted to no one the rights of passage across her own remembered footsteps.”
IN THIS TIME of pandemic and sheltering in place, we all feel the need for community. We self-isolate to guard the health of ourselves and our friends—shunning our neighbors is, paradoxically, loving them. This cultural conundrum suits our individualistic age, and the story of how we came to this rampant individualism is told in The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett.
Putnam made his name 20 years ago with Bowling Alone, diagnosing America’s shrinking sense of community since the ’60s. He propagated the concept of “social capital” to name the value of our connections, to quantify our losses. Now, in The Upswing, he takes the story back further and speaks in simpler terms of “I” and “we.”
JOHN LEWIS died the week I read this book. No American alive in 2020 was a better witness to the courage of nonviolent civil disobedience than Lewis. Ironically, that same week “warriors” from the federal government descended, uninvited and unidentified, on Portland, Ore. Violence exploded. The Bible’s final book, Revelation, seems more relevant than ever.
Thomas B. Slater’s slim volume is not a typical commentary on the biblical book, analyzing all its chapters and decoding all its symbols. Instead, Slater focuses on the political situation of seven small house churches in Roman-dominated Asia Minor (now western Turkey), to whom John of Ephesus wrote (Revelation 2-3). These believers lived in cities where temples or shrines represented the imperial cult, and all subjects were expected to offer sacrifices to the current “divine” emperor.
Illustration by Dave McClinton
IF YOU EXPECT a column about art, you may have turned to the wrong page. Though I would very much like to be writing about aesthetics, I’m afraid I cannot do so outright. The problem is simple: Our world is on fire, has been for a very long time, and we can no longer afford to avoid the why. Our country looks in the mirror and cannot recognize its face because its self-concept is built on lies. To be an American, it seems, is to be in a state of constant dissociation. Perhaps that is the fine print in our social contract—mandated distance from our inner worlds and the violence we inflict on each other.
But, if we are constantly looking away from ourselves, what are we looking at instead? The answer is, again, simple. We—this “we” primarily composed of white people—have traded a clear vision of reality away for the tawdry allure of images. Put frankly, we worship a portrait of America that has not yet come into being.
A Thousand Freedoms
The film A Thousand Cuts profiles journalist Maria Ressa, who has worked to hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for his authoritarianism. Documentary filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz captures Ressa’s fight against suppression of the press and the people’s struggle against a deadly man. PBS Distribution.
Still from The Mole Agent
ONE OF THE MOST important things art—especially narrative art—can do is inspire us to show empathy for others by making us see the world through someone else’s eyes. Stories of kindness and compassion are stories of the gospel in action. Right now, in a time of extreme division, conflict, and isolation, we need stories that remind us what that looks and feels like, and the ways in which we can show it to others.
Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi’s documentary The Mole Agent is a heartwarming testament to this type of kindness. Alberdi’s film follows 83-year-old Sergio, hired by a private detective to go undercover at a nursing home and report on the treatment of its residents. Sergio’s loving interactions with everyone he meets and Alberdi’s observational filmmaking together provide an example of love through serving others.