>>Yeah I wasn't nearly as impressed with it as twitter or
>some
>>of yall. I was engaged for the entire 40 minutes but by the
>>end I felt like they setup something cool and didn't know
>what
>>to do with it so they just killed everybody.
>
>This show has often introduced characters and situations only
>for them to be single episode/scene type things, so aside from
>the killing everyone you can say this about any number of
>Atlanta episodes. It's kinda their thing. But of course this
>was going to end in some deaths.

I am not sure I follow you. My issue isn't with introducing characters and situations and having a one-off episode. My issue is with setting up this strange scenario and character and not having really thing interesting to do with it. That you say that of course it was going to end in some deaths shows that they didn't really come up with something interesting and different and did what viewers would see as inevitable.


>
>
>>My first problem was that there were some
>>filmmaking/storytelling technical questions that I found
>>distracting. Was Donald Glover suppose to be a white man or
>a
>>black person in whiteface (a la Michael Jackson)? But then
>I
>>generally find whiteface distracting because its like White
>>Chicks, no matter how good the makeup is, you can never
>really
>>suspend belief enough to really believe anyone won't see
>that
>>it's a black person in white face. If the story intended it
>>to be a black person in whiteface and make commentary on
>MJJ,
>>that's cool but they could have signaled that in the
>>storytelling. If they intended that to just be a white guy,
>>well then the idea DG gave an emmy winning performance is
>>silly to me.
>
>
>This was incredibly obvious. He wasn't a white guy. The photos
>of Benny/Teddy very clearly show a black man.

I miss the photos. I figure he was black but wasn't sure. Like I said, it was a minor gripe.

>
>
>>Anyway, that's a minor gripe. My biggest gripe is that this
>>is so obviously a Get Out influenced episode but I am not
>sure
>>why people give it the benefit of the doubt of being a
>tribute
>>as oppose to being a rip off? It wasn't a parody of Get Out.
>>It wasn't Commentary on Get Out or the reaction to the movie.
>
>>It didn't openly reference Get Out. It was just very similar
>>to movie without being additive. That's not terrible.
>Artist
>>do this all the time, but I kind of feel like because it's
>>Donald Glover, folks are giving him a pass they wouldn't
>give
>>other artist. Small storytelling gripe: Comeon folks talking
>>about this is as scary as Get Out, different from Get Out
>you
>>just knew that they weren't going to kill Darius so the
>stakes
>>were way different in this episode than the movie.
>
>I guess you could call this a spiritual cousin of Get Out in
>ways, and there were allusions to it for sure, but how is the
>trope of "Guy goes to a place where a seemingly friendly
>person turns on them" something that belongs to Get Out?

It doesn't belong to Get Out. But if you are going to do something so similar to get out, with actors from Get Out, you should do something different from Get Out or comment on Get Out.


>>I think there is something interesting their about celebrity
>>and MJJ, but I don't think they said much besides tough show
>>biz parents can screw up their kids.
>
>Absolutely disagree and if you thought that was all it was
>commenting on, I've got nothing for you.

I didn't see alot more than that. I mean yeah they had a michael jackson type character but I didn't see any comment on the role of race in the formation of this weird character.

I am sure folks can and will all sorts of deeper things into it, but alot of it is a stretch to me.


>
>>What I roll my eyes at are all these people reading so much
>>deep meaning into this episode. I just don't think it's
>>there or that the Glovers went that deep with it (e.g., the
>>elevator was intended to invoke the death of Prince. I might
>>have bought that if one of the actors actually died in the
>>elevator but naw. Or that this episode was the freeing of
>>Darius's character from Get Out. Nope). I think this
>episode
>>was borne out of Donald Glovers desire to try white face and
>>they really didn't have a lot of deep ideas about what to do
>>with it.
>
>You can disagree with some of the other theories (IE the
>elevator/Prince thing, which I agree is a stretch) - but if
>you think this was just Donald wanting to do some make
>up...well, I dunno what to tell you.


You got a lot of "I've got nothing" and "I dunno what to tell you". If it's there it shouldn't be that hard to break it down or communicate.



>
>
>>And I am not an anti-critical literal analysis type. I was
>an
>>English Major. One of my last college papers was about how
>>Hamlet was the first self-aware literary character because
>he
>>was aware he was actually in a play and he was being
>literally
>>when he said "All the world is a stage...." So I can dig
>>different readings of a work. But it is one thing to
>ascribe
>>different meanings and readings to a work and it's another
>>thing to say the author INTENDED certain deeper esoteric
>>meanings. Like I read this today:
>
>Honestly, when you miss really obvious things, like whether or
>not Teddy is black, I kinda question your literary analysis
>here.


Please feel free to question and disagree. I appreciate you pointing out my factual error about whether Teddy was black or not. But can you go further and tell me what you think DG was trying to communicate with this episode?

>
>


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"