Someone once opined that, “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”
The part, in other words, where youthful idealism thumps smack dab into the brute facticity embedded in the real world.
And this may well be no less true of folks who either were the President of the United States or of folks who tried to be.
Though, with respect to the man who will soon vacate the White House, I suspect that he was always more or less the calculating type. Much like the man who is about to take his place. Unless, of course, at 70, Donald Trump actually still is an idealist. If not a socialist.
And certainly a narcissist.
Not that this particular film focuses the beam anywhere near this particular agenda. It revolves far more around the “personal”. An exploration into the actual day that Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson had their “first date”.
Politics therefore is more or less in the background. It revolves instead around contexts like this one:
In the scene outside the movie theater screening Do the Right Thing, Avery Goodman asks Michelle and Barack if they think Mookie did the right thing in the climactic scene.
Trust me: If you are not much into films in which the main characters just walk and talk [think Before Sunrise] steer clear of this one.
Basically, the film takes us inside the heads of two very gifted young black folks and explores the sort of conversations that they had in a world that folks who are not black in a racist culture could not really even imagine. In particular, the tug of war between political idealism and achieving “the good life”.
IMDb
[b]According to director Richard Tanne, all of the main events of the film did actually occur on the Obama’s first date with the exception of the community meeting which happened at a later date.
In the scene outside the movie theater screening Do the Right Thing, Mr. Goodman asks Michelle and Barack if they think Mookie did the right thing in the climactic scene. In the DVD commentary, Spike Lee said he has only been asked this question by white viewers, and that viewers who question the riot’s justification are implicitly failing to see the difference between property and the life of a black man. [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southside_with_You
trailer: youtu.be/erpUF2ToUls
SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU [2016]
Written and directed by Richard Tanne
[b]Mom: Thought it wasn’t a date.
Michelle: It wasn’t and it isn’t.
Mom: Thought you said he was just another smooth-talking brother. You’re going to an awful lot of trouble for just another smooth-talker.
…
Michelle: It’s not a date, Daddy. He’s a summer associate I told y’all about, the one from Harvard Law. I mentioned I worked legal aid and he invited me to a community event at the Gardens.
Father: Yeah.
Michelle: Because it doesn’t get more romantic than broken plumbing and underfunded schools.
…
Toot: Well, where’s she from?
Barack: Chicago.
Toot: Uh-huh. Which part?
Barack: The side that’s predominantly black.
Toot: Okay, so she’s…?
Barack: Yes, Toot. Her skin is of the darker persuasion.
…
Father: So, what’s this boy’s name?
Michelle: Barack Obama.
Father: Barack-a what-a?
…
Michelle: Barack, you seem like a really sweet guy, but how many times do I have to tell you we’re not going out together?
Barack: Mm, well, Michelle, thank you for saying that. You seem like a real sweet girl. But I have to correct you. We are in fact out and we are in fact together.
Michelle: But not on a date. This is not a date.
…
Michelle [to Barack]: It’s hard enough being a woman at a giant corporate law firm. For all the talk of equality that goes around and all those filled quotas, I’m still surrounded by mostly men. So, I gotta work just a little bit harder to earn everyone’s respect. I gotta work a little bit harder to be taken seriously. Now add on that I’m black. All that extra work I put in to compensate for being a woman? Being black erases that and brings me back down to zero. So, now I’m working double-time just to be seen for who I am and what I’m capable of. Now, how’s it gonna look to a guy like Thompson if I swoop in and start dating the first cute black guy who walks through the firm’s doors? The liberal-minded people will think it’s precious and the closed-minded people will think it’s pathetic.
…
Barack: Did you watch Good Times?
Michelle: Not a family staple.
Barack: Really? There wasn’t a black family in Chicago that didn’t watch Good Times?
Michelle: We were more of a Brady Bunch,Dick Van Dyke kind of family.
…
Barack: “Dy-no-mite!” Do you remember that?
Michelle: Yes, I remember the line.
Barack: The character’s name was J.J… He was kind of a screwup. He would steal here and there, couldn’t read or write, talked jive. You know, just a bad TV stereotype, right? But, see, as the show progressed, J.J. developed this interest in painting. As it turned out, he actually had a lot of talent. But he didn’t take it seriously. Not until his dad, who was this tough, blue-collar guy, encouraged him to keep painting. He saw it as his son’s only way out of the projects.
Michelle: What did he paint?
Barack: Black ghetto life. They were crisp, exaggerated, very colorful. His style was a lot like Ernie Barnes. That’s because Ernie Barnes did all the paintings for the show.
…
Michelle: Is your mother still alive?
Barack: Hmm, oh, yeah. Still in Jakarta. She’s a wonderful lady.
Michelle: But you don’t see her much?
Barack: Nah, she has her own life. But she’s brilliant, warm. Truly wonderful.
Michelle: And she’s white?
Barack: Snow white. Born in Wichita, Kansas.
Michelle: A white woman and a black man getting married and having a kid back then. They were ahead of their time.
Barack: You want the God’s honest truth about my folks?
Michelle: Sure.
Barack: Okay. My mother thought Harry Belafonte was the most handsome man on the face of the planet. Yeah, I’d say chocolate was her favorite flavor, too. No, really, I think their attraction was that simple. My father looked like Nat King Cole and my mother looked like Patsy Cline.
…
Michelle: And your own religious proclivities?
Barack: Let’s just say I’m still evolving.
Michelle: What were you raised?
Barack: Nothing, really. My mom didn’t associate with any one religion.
Michelle: And your father? Was he like you?
Barack: About the only thing my father and I had in common was that we both went to Harvard. The only difference is he got kicked out.
…
Barack: Dying to see Do the Right Thing.
Michelle: Sounds interesting enough.
Barack: Blick, Thompson, and Cohen were talking about it in the office. And Thompson said the film might be racist towards white people.
Michelle: No, he didn’t.
Barack: He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a little out of touch, that’s all.
Michelle: I’m just tired of being two different people. I played that game at Princeton and I played it again at Harvard. There were white kids at school who would talk to me in class, but if I saw them out on the quad and they were with their other friends, they would walk right past me without so much as a nod. Now, obviously, the firm is not like that, but sometimes when I’m leaving Southside in the morning, headed for the Loop, I feel like I’m leaving Planet Black and landing on Planet White.
Barack: Come on. You got wooed just like me. You got wined and dined. You saw the corporate culture, the racial culture. You knew the score and you still said yes.
…
Barack: I’m not suggesting you silence yourself at work. I’m just wondering why you chose to work at a corporate firm where you knew your silence would be expected. And, really, what I’m wondering is why you’re wasting the fight you have inside you on battles you can’t win and issues you don’t care about.
Michelle: Excuse me? You think because we spend one afternoon together and you tried to buy me a sandwich, you’re entitled to pass judgment on the choices I made in my life? You think I’m wasting my life.
Barack: Now, I never used those words.
Michelle: You didn’t have to use those words. You used other ones, and they stung just as much.
Barack: Why? If you really loved what you were doing, would you be bothered by what I said? No. You’d tell me to go screw myself and you’d go on your merry way making tons of cash and doing trademark law for the rest of your life.
Michelle: And how do you know that’s not exactly what I plan to do?
Barack: Because you spent two years of law school in Gannett House working pro bono cases for poor single moms. And my guess is that it kills you to know you can’t put the same passion and intelligence towards cases that actually mean something.
Michelle: You’re more than welcome to pass judgment on your own father. You know what? You’re more than welcome to pass judgment on me. But quite frankly, it sounds like you know me about as little as you knew him.
Barack: Michelle…
Michelle: And the biggest offense is this is coming from a guy who quit community organizing for Harvard Law only to take a summer position at the same corporate firm he’s railing against. Now that is the height of hypocrisy.
…
Barack [at a meeting to get a Community Center for the kids]: Harold Washington was one of the reasons I moved to Chicago. When I first came here, every barber shop and chicken shack on the Southside had a squeaky-clean picture of him hanging up on the wall for everyone to see. Chicago’s first black mayor…But even Mayor Washington disappointed in some respects. He had to face the great truth of our country…that it’s not easy to get things done. You know, the founders made it that way on purpose. They made it messy so that no one law, no one government, no one man, could decide the fate of everything and everyone. In very simple terms, we got a heck of a lot of different people with a heck of a lot of different agendas. But I also believe that people, most people, are basically, at their core, good people. So, if at first we don’t understand their agenda, city council, the aldermen, and the state senator we have to try our hardest to understand who they are and what they need. We have to let go of judgment.[/b]
For some of course that explains a lot. His entire administration for example.
[b]Michelle: Okay, so what about that moment in the church before the meeting?
Barack: Which?
Michelle: I think Bernadette said it about you finally dating a sister.
Barack: Who knows with those two? They love to gossip.
Michelle: Is it true?
Barack: Is what true?
Michelle: That you never date black women?
Barack: Not true.
Michelle: But you did date white women.
Barack: I’ve dated a couple white women, yes.
Michelle: Which do you prefer? Come on, buster. Now it’s your turn to ante up.
…
Barack: So, why did you come to Chicago?
Michelle: To try and make a difference. Thought I would, too. Thought maybe I’d work civil cases. Help women, empower them. Being at that meeting today aroused some of those old dreams. Lit some kind of fire. But those last couple years, the corporate firms
descend upon the campus like a pack of wolves. And they’re so appealing. I wanted to be in a position to pay off my loans, pay my folks back, live a little, enjoy life.
Barack: There’s nothing wrong with that.
Michelle: There’s nothing wrong with it until there is.
Barack: Yeah, I know what you mean. I just feel like something else is pulling at me. I wonder if I can write books or hold a position of influence in civil rights.
Michelle: Politics?
Barack: Maybe.
…
Avery: What did you think of the film?
Michelle: What did I think? I liked it.
Avery: Well, all the hoopla leading up to it, I had to see for myself.
Michelle: Oh, what did you think?
Avery: Compelling, though the ending was puzzling and more than a little infuriating.
…
Barack: So, you got around to seeing the movie, I take it.
Avery: Yes, yes, we did. In fact, I was just explaining to Michelle how angry that ending made me. Why would the deliveryman have thrown the trash can through his employer’s window? He must have known his actions would cause the mob to riot. It seemed totally irrational.
Barack: Let me put it to you another way, Avery. If Mookie hadn’t thrown the trash can, maybe the crowd would have turned on Sal and his sons. So, instead of the store being destroyed, they might be dead. And Mookie knew the insurance would cover the damage to the store. He was saving Sal’s life.
…
Barack [to Michelle after Avery had left]: You know I only said that to make Avery feel better. Mookie threw that trash can because he was fucking angry. What a coincidence seeing him here. That’s really wild.
Michelle: It wasn’t a coincidence. It was cosmic justice. I knew damn well going out with you was the wrong thing to do and don’t even try to convince me otherwise, Barack, because there’s nothing you can say.
Barack: Nothing?[/b]