Reasons To Watch "Empire"

I started this during the first season. Seems appropriate to post now, before Season 2 kicks off.

On the Eve of Season 2: Reasons To Watch "Empire"

I became a fan of the Lee Daniels-created show Empire after only a brief internal struggle. Whereas I was hesitant to declare myself a fan at first, I am now firmly in the show’s corner despite a good deal of backlash from many African Americans who say the show’s value systems, depictions of people of color, and flair for ratchet drama are profoundly detrimental to how African Americans are perceived in this country. My first instinct upon viewing Empire was to throw up my hands and cry Lawd-a-mercy! This is airing our dirty laundry! This is just low class! This is culturally destructive! And the music’s bad!

But I couldn’t. And now I won’t.

When I turn on the television at the end of a long day, I want to be entertained. I don’t think every show on television has to represent a paragon of cultural virtue, and I’m tired of black folks bearing the brunt of the need to be politically correct all the damned time. Empire is a fast-paced, of-the-moment, let-it-all-hang-out soap opera fantasia in living color, and to me – someone proudly born and raised in the South Bronx who spent many years as a moth around the flame on the music business – it shines a light on some truths about the black experience while also shining a light into some dark corners that haven't been explored on TV. It does some things production-wise that are entirely sharp. The show often feels like who we are: fast, messy, honest, political, funny, rude, angry, conflicted, warm and lusty. It offers up the variety of black experience – because we are not a monolith – and does so with a neck-snapping intensity and dizzying pace.

Yes, Empire’s record company business tactics and politics are way over the top. And yes, some of the characters and caricatures are extreme. But in the music business, the drive to make top-selling hits, to nurture the impulse to create, to best one’s competitors on the charts, and to maintain the momentum of one’s musical career -- all of this is entirely real. And many of the personalities that drive the industry game ARE extreme.

Yes, Empire shows eye-rolling, neck-snapping black women and angry, occasionally violent black men. It approaches cartoonishness in plot development and caricature. It shows drug dealing and crime as a path to business success. Empire shows sex in a multiplicity of permutations: cheaters and kinky marrieds, cougars and cubs, lesbians and gays, black and white. It’s sex, drugs and hip-hop.

But that is not ALL it is. It is more.

Empire also offers up a wealth of other issues, realities, and portrayals seldom seen elsewhere on the small screen, and it is done with a level of spectacle that to my mind, tops even Dynasty. Here are a some issues of note raised during the show's first season:

• It’s about an African American family headed by a strong black male (Terence Howard, and let's leave his headlining personal life aside). OK, he’s a murdering, duplicitous, manipulative thug -- but a musically talented one trying to leave a legacy for his sons so they won’t have to be the thug he is.

• The male siblings love one another no matter what – even when their father pits them against each other. One of the things I like about the storyline is that although Lucious keeps setting them on a collision course and despite their different sexual orientation, Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Jamal (Jussie Smollett) are better artists when they make music together, and they know it. And the two youngest respect what Andre (Trai Byer) brings to the table and try to hold him together when he is falling apart.

• There was a depiction of a family within the Nation Of Islam. Remember when Cookie (Emmy-nominated Taraji P. Henson) went to speak with the mother of one of the label’s prospective rappers who was raised in The Nation? When do we ever hear “Muslim” mentioned in a TV narrative and it does not refer to terrorism or someone with roots in the Middle East? There is an American Muslim community firmly established here.

• Cookie’s experience in prison spotlights the rising incarceration rate of African American women in the U.S. and the profound impact of their absence on families.

• Jamal’s personal journey sheds light on the homophobia that is fracturing many African American families and turning many young people into virtual orphans with no familial support. Jamal is fortunate to have an established music career that earns him money to pay rent somewhere.

• May-December romances. Remember Hakeem working out his mommy issues with Naomi Campbell's character? The phenomenon of the “cougar” as it is impolitely referred to has long been in play. (Remember Marvin Gaye's first marriage to Berry Gordy's sister Anna, who recently passed away? She was 17 years older than Marvin.)

• The prevalence of – and current attitudes toward -- mental illness within the black community. Bi-polar depression is no joke, but this and other forms of depression are not acknowledged as much as they should be, mostly because historically people of color have had to survive regardless of any physical or mental handicaps and we are not used to admitting to any form of perceived weakness or asking for help. And there is a continued stigma around those who do. Just ask eldest Lyon son Andre.

• The unfortunate perpetuation of anti-intellectualism and ignorance-as-culture within some corners of many black communities, where those who value/seek/achieve high levels of education are seen as sellouts or traitors to their race. This form of black-on-black crime suppresses achievement, academic and otherwise. Andre’s brilliance is undercut by Lucious’ distrust of his son’s “white learnin’,” even while Andre keeps Empire Records financially sound. But it’s true that there is an educational class divide within Black America, where highly educated children and their less-educated parents can feel a loss of kinship and identity. (This was also touched on during the first season of How To Get Away With Murder, between Annaliese Keaton -- played by recent Emmy winner Viola Davis! -- and her mother, played brilliantly by Cicely Tyson.)

• The continued conversation about interracial relationships, thought to be all but irrelevant and politically incorrect in an era of swirly Shondaland programming. Andre and his wife Rhonda (Kaitlyn Doubleday) are a solid unit, regardless of what we think of their sexual and political antics. An acknowledgment of seeming white privilege is evident in the script when Andre tells his mother Cookie that Rhonda is brilliant, and Cookie responds, “Yeah, all little white girls are brilliant even when they aren’t.”

• The undercurrent of colorism and classism within the African American community, played out but not fully acknowledged in the ongoing battle between Anika (Grace Gealey), the light-skinned biracial doctor’s daughter and Cookie, the brown-skinned street-smart hood queen.

• The rate of obesity within our community and in the world in general. Television does not like to have fat people on TV unless the show's storyline is somehow about them being fat (Biggest Loser, My 900-Pound Life, Drop Dead Diva). Gabourey Sidibe's character of Becky just is. She is sometimes blonde, she rocks fashion forward clothes, she has a personality, and she's good at her job.

• Further, Empire has eye-popping, razor sharp set design, costuming, and makeup. What other show has a conference room designed to look like a basketball court? What other sets pop with paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Yehinde Wiley and others? Every episode, viewers wait with bated breath to see what outfits Cookie will rock; her palette has morphed over the first season from animal prints representing her untamed nature to wildly colored but sophisticated prints. Even Lucious’ tailored suits and American Gangster-style overcoats and scarves are stunning. Jamal’s pea coats with their mile-high standup collars are to die for; and Hakeem is frequently garbed in metallic fabrics and jewelry, usually gold, to represent his position as the company’s spoiled hip-hop Golden Child.

So as Season 2 of Empire kicks off on Wednesday (Sept. 23), I’m going to keep watching. I am sure there will be moments when I will wince, as I did when Lucious Lyon had President Obama on speed dial and intimated that the POTUS was cussing up a storm; or squirm, because I’m not homophobic, but I'm at an age where I don't really care to see any two people tongueing each other down on television for more than a few seconds (OK, they're into it, I get it, move on to the next scene!); or shake my head, as when a drunken Hakeem boldly called The President a "sellout."

But look around. Life has those oh-no-she-didn’t, “Awkward!,” What The F---! moments when everything doesn’t approach either PC levels or expectations. And it’s OK. It’s life. If you don't like the show, or what it represents culturally, that is your prerogative and your right. But whether positive or negative, Empire has made an indelible impact on television that can't be denied.

So ... I plan to pour myself a big "Olivia Pope" size goblet of vino and turn on the tube.

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10 Things I Observed Watching "Straight Outta Compton"

Waiting for the dust to clear in terms of media noise and the barrage of opinions regarding the film's dismissal of women, including the Dee Barnes incident, I finally went to see the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. Here's what I observed:

1. Theaters are checking purses and bags .. badly.
When first informed about a search, I thought the policy was racist as related to the film I had bought a ticket to see. Racially profiled at the movie theater, damn! Do I look like the type of gangsta chick who's going to wild out at a Sunday matinee in the suburbs? But then I thought, well, they did just have that mad shooter at the Louisiana theater a month ago, and the sentencing for the crazy-eyed fool who shot up everybody during Batman in Colorado just went down. So... who conducted this serious security screening in the wake of continued random cinema violence nationwide? The same pimply faced kid who had just torn my ticket, and he seemed embarrassed at having to dig deep into the two-gallon satchel I was carrying. At the bottom of my bag were the napkin-swaddled sandwich and chips I smuggled in from outside. For all he knew, it was a gun or a bomb. He barely looked. "You're fine," he said after a cursory peek.

2. The movie appears to serve as a teaching tool.
From the number of parents with their spawn at this R-rated flick, you would have thought it was the latest Disney or teen scream movie. But I saw a handful of father-son duos checking it out together. Looked like the dads -- who were either impressionable lads or hip-hop headed 20somethings when N.W.A. burst through the noise -- wanted to share with their progeny the experience of growing up black in the '80s and '90s in the age of pernicious police profiling, devastating gang warfare, joblessness, and the art of cutting and scratching on the 1s and 2s. The film offers a history lesson on the birth of gangster rap; the unscrupulous methods of the music industry; the cultural fallout of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots; the legal parameters of free speech as applied to rap; and the far-reaching impact of the AIDS epidemic. Further, one could argue that the film also offers some evidence of the moral value of hard work and remaining true to oneself. Watch and learn, Grasshopper.

3. Some kids weren't there for those lessons.
A couple of families in the theater had kids younger than 10 with them. One of these families was of the Caucasian persuasion. WTH? The film had a plethora of sex, violence, drugs, semi nudity and raw language. I'm not a parent, but I don't think I would have been comfortable passing the popcorn with my grade schoolers as this unspooled.

4. Ice Cube Jr. looks so much like Ice Cube Sr. that it's uncanny.
At times I forgot that O'Shea Jackson, Jr., wasn't actually Ice Cube. And it appears that the kid can act. Or maybe he can just act like his father. Who hasn't done their Daddy impression at the holiday kids' table? We'll have to see what the future holds for Junior.

5. The casting was strong overall.
In fact, the young actors portraying Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre are stellar, and they need to be because they carry the action. O'Shea Jackson Jr. has all of his father's wit and braggadocio. Corey Hawkins brings an eye-on-the-prize gravity and humility to Dre, who seemed the sternest of the group. And Jason Mitchell, in his third film, gives Eazy the impish charm the raw rapper was occasionally known for in real life. Neil Brown Jr. provides comic relief as DJ Yella, and Aldis Hodge gives MC Ren a wiry intelligence. The earnest faces of the main trio, not to mention the scenes of high hilarity and raw human-ness, reminded me of how much great acting can elevate a film. And it also reminded me that N.W.A., for all their gang posturing and experience with the tough streets of Compton, were teens when they began the group.

6. Actor Paul Giamatti has a hard row to hoe here.
Giamatti is an incredibly versatile and skilled actor who can do comedy, drama, and everything in between. His sweet spot is playing the schlub, the nerd, or the official who is the smartest person in the room (Sideways, John Adams on HBO, The Illusionist). Here, he has the thankless task of playing impresario Jerry Heller, who arguably helped the band achieve success just so he could take a heaping helping for himself. In the scheme of this movie, Heller is smart but Eazy-E is (belatedly) smarter. Giamatti is an excellent actor, but the film never really gives us a clear glimpse of Heller's motivations or connections.

7. The film is mysogynistic, but necessarily so.
The members of N.W.A. were not choirboys. They had a mindset toward women that was prevalent in that age and time, heavily influenced by pimp culture as defined in the wildly popular books of Iceberg Slim (read more about the writer's influence and works here and here). Did I like the party scenes with half-clad females engaging in public sex? No. Did I enjoy the scene where "Felicia" gets pushed into the hotel hall with barely a stitch on? No. But it's probably true to what was really going on at the time, and probably represented only the tip of that particular behavioral iceberg. Dre's treatment of women, specifically his beatdown of hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes, is not alluded to in this film. Considered in the context of the overall story that the director was trying to tell, and remembering that its protagonists are also its producers, I can see why it was excluded. A lot of incidents and episodes were excluded. But it would be fascinating to see another film that tells "The Dee Barnes Story."

8. Suge Knight was and is a scary dude.
His reputation was rough before Death Row and it only grew larger afterward. While I was living in Los Angeles covering music and radio, I was loath to cover any awards shows where I thought he might show up. Death Row-sponsored parties at the music conventions were events where one looked over one's shoulder constantly. Suge is currently facing charges over the death of a onetime friend associated with this film; Eazy's son has asserted in print that he believes Suge had something to do with his father's 1995 death. For Straight Outta Compton, director F. Gary Gray found a scary looking dude -- R. Marcos Taylor -- to play Suge with just the right balance of astute calculation and simmering menace.

9. The soundscape for the film is perfect.
What really makes it work is that the film not only uses the music of N.W.A. throughout, it also utilizes the output of other rap and R&B artists whose music was also in the market during those times. Heck, there's even rock and pop tunes included in the flick. We're treated to the classic N.W.A. "Boyz In Tha Hood," but also tracks by Roy Ayers Ubiquity, Tears For Fears, George Clinton, Zapp, Cherrelle, Steve Arrington, and Run-DMC . Understanding where music was at the time -- with a heavy reliance on synthesized sounds like the Roland TR-808 drum machine, but before heavy use of Autotune and the resurgence of acoustic sounds -- does much to convey how important the development of vocal rhyming as a musical instrument in itself was to hip-hop's rising popularity.

10. OK, so Straight Outta Compton is a pretty damned good movie.

Now you might say, "Yes, Captain Obvious, the film made box office history and continues to rake in the shekels! You are 2 thousand and late!"(Number one for three weeks at the domestic box office, Number One in the U.K.; $134 million in North America and counting). But we all know that popular movies are not always good movies. Though the film becomes a bit loose thematically (and factually) in its second half, director F. Gary Gray does a great job at establishing the time, the place, and the realities of Compton in the late '80s, thus setting up the environment that spawned N.W.A. and the group's uniquely hardcore approach to what had up to then been mostly an East Coast-focused phenomenon. From the opening scene that catches Eazy-E in a compromising episode, the film hurtles along at top speed, acquainting us with the main players and depicting the talents they possessed to leverage the popularity of rap music into something entirely their own.

I'm glad I saw it. I was initially trepidatious because N.W.A. represented a turn in hip-hop music that I personally didn't happen to like. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the group made a profound and indelible impact on musical history, that Eazy-E and Ice Cube were among the most engaging rap stylists on the mike, and that Dr. Dre proved to be a production wizard who, in addition to turning rap music on its head, singlehandedly raised the originators of funk music back to the legendary status they deserved.

Postscript: Hollywood is buzzing about a forthcoming Welcome To Death Row film, which would cover the founding and ultimate demise of the legendary label that made household names of Dr. De, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and others. The film would be based on a same-named documentary and book from 2001. The project is currently seeking a distributor. More here.


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