Queen + Slim: Black Vulnerability
So I went to the movies on a rare December night off and first let me say I’m so happy to be alive at this moment in time.
Movies like Queen & Slim, If Beale Street Could Talk, Moonlight and Black Panther make me realize that I’m so used to seeing us portrayed in very specific ways that I didn’t even notice we often aren’t allowed to simply be human in movies.
Typically black characters are used to move the story along while fully expressing a plethora of stereotypes in what little screen time they get. We don’t usually feel very invested in them because they’re devoid of their humanity or any complexity.
With all of that being said, I feel like it’s also important for me (as a black woman) to find balance in how I show up to these works. What I mean is I have to manage my expectations while consuming the works of black filmmakers responsibly.
We don’t get many shots at the box office and understandably this can create a bit of anxiety around black film releases. More to the point it’s like, we better break records or we won’t have another run for 30 years.
The standards and the stakes are high. This puts a lot of pressure on filmmakers - and yes pressure makes diamonds, but these are artists, not Gods.
What I want for all of us as creatives more than anything else is space to experiment, explore themes, genres etc. just like our white peers without being treated like what we do as individuals will bend the fate of an entire group people.
Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet.
Instead, leading up to the night I went to see the movie, I found myself watching filmmakers speak as if they are civil rights leaders to promote movies. That’s quite heavy, no? I get the sense they want to make us proud, which is beautiful but it worries me.
Ok, enough on that. Let’s talk about Queen & Slim.
*Spoilers Ahead*
These are simply my takeaways. I’m not a movie reviewer or a filmmaker but there is much to discuss and consider here.
Queen & Slim was all at once frustrating, inspiring, beautiful, nonsensical, artful and real af.
More than anything I walked away hyper aware of the lense thru which we watch movies featuring a black cast.
In the diner scene at the start of the film (on their Tinder date) I laughed when Queen wanted the waitress to get Slim’s order right because it’s such a familiar exchange. At first I wondered why the angst was absent from her delivery, maybe this wasn’t a pet peeve Jodie (the actress playing Queen) could really relate to. As the story moved along, something else struck me as maybe more plausible. We’ll come back to this later.
Immediately Queen comes across standoffish. She’s emotionally guarded and mostly there because she didn’t feel like being alone. Slim on the other hand is excited, sweet and patient. He even expresses compassion for their waitress, makes nothing of the oversight and is instantly endearing.
On the way home they’re pulled over by a cop. Now, what happens here is interesting because despite the fact that we as a mostly black audience understand that black people are being killed by police officers even when they speak politely, “behave properly” or even when they are inside their homes minding their own business, watching Queen question the officer for an unlawful search and general aggressive behavior was infuriating and our frustration was aimed at her.
They’re both innocent and behaving as any innocent and free people might.
They both seemed not to know the code of conduct for black people when dealing with the police.
We have a serious problem.
Well, we have a litany of problems. Police officers abusing their power is certainly high on that list.
A world in which our instinct is to silence the innocent is another heartbreaking problem. It’s a side effect of our conditioning and our will to hopefully die of old age peacefully in our sleep instead of at some b.s. stop that escalates unnecessarily.
We’ve truly internalized these ideas of how we are meant to behave. That theater wasn’t mad at the cop. Nope, his behavior was expected as it would be in real life.
That audience (myself included) was flabbergasted. How could they not know the code?
They should’ve known better.
Still it was hard to ignore that other feeling, the one that feels forced to accept this reality with no actual promise of getting out of situations like that alive no matter how we behave.
Truth is, if an officer is racist they just want us docile while they figure out how generous they feel that day.
Throughout the movie we see black stereotypes played out, which seem stuffed into the storyline to be honest.
Like accidentally hitting the guy with their truck in the parking lot and having to take him to the emergency room (which Queen was against btw).
Comic relief I guess? Sure.
It felt like the writers wanted to show the solidarity many felt but it did feel a bit clumsy. Again, I’m no filmmaker but that’s what I saw.
One less in your face stereotype goes back to Queen. She seemed flat at times, maybe like she wasn’t connecting. The more I thought about her I realized, I could actually relate to her. It was hard to tell how she felt most of the time. This is what we do as black women, we fight ourselves to keep it together and hardly (if ever) feel there is space held for us to be vulnerable. When that space is made available, we don’t trust it.
Not only is she black, she’s an attorney!
This character is nuanced, and slowly lets Slim in little by little when faced with her mortality.
As a duo, they did so many things wrong. Let’s see there was putting a cop in a trunk, leaving their wallets in that same car, riding around looking like they were perpetually club bound in the loudest blue pimp-esque car.
Queen’s bullet wound was so obviously on display, the only thing missing were arrows pointing to it with a full description following her around.
On one hand I’m thinking “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
On the other I’m thinking this isn’t Bonnie & Clyde - the joy riding murderous criminals.
This is Queen & Slim, the perfectly innocent, stunned and afraid duo running for their lives. They made a ton of mistakes because they were scared, they did dumb things because nothing was pre-meditated.
You never know how you’ll react in a situation like that.
When I was 12, hanging out where I wasn’t supposed to be, I saw a white van pull up to Ebbets Field projects. The doors flung open and out jumped under cover cops, the first one had a gun pointed at a black boy who took off running. If I was watching that as a scene in a movie, I’d be thinking RUN!
In the moment my legs lost all feeling, and I couldn’t move. I remember just trying to move towards the gate and someone helping me get out of the way. From the outside looking in, that was dumb from the inside I was numb.
In a high stress situation, the truth is we don’t know what our bodies or minds will do.
Now, is this a lot of grace for holes in the writing or empathy for the innocent?
See, that’s the thing I need to work on. I’m not sure.
As for the ending, I have to say it was one of the very few times all I wanted was a happy ending. A slice of escapism would’ve been a masterful and welcomed surprise.
I’d love to know what you thought of the movie and what you took away.
