I exist because my grandfather escaped his intended lynching—an
issue regarding alleged impropriety with a white woman—by about twenty minutes.
He fled north, later meeting my grandmother. I had always assumed that my maternal
grandparents, both native Georgians, met down south and moved to New York together.
Apparently that was not the case.
However, this is not about me. I am not so egotistical to believe
that I am the final step in some grand and intricate design of fate! But it is astounding
to reflect on how such small moments have a monumental impact on families and
societies and nations. It is not that I exist
because my grandfather was able to escape a band of murderous terrorists—it is
that so many exist. A whole tribe of
people who draw breath because one man had the savvy and ingenuity to escape
those determined to extinguish his.
I’m impressed—and not surprised that I only learned of this in 2019. African Americans have the tendency to bury the pain and the injustices inflicted upon them to spare their children and grandchildren. Perhaps we feel that our offspring should be kept from the knowledge of such horrors. Even as an adult the awareness is nearly crippling, to know all of the ways the people who loved you suffered and to know that they will never see justice. Ever. It’s an anger that can break you. But what does not kill you makes you stronger. And what does not break you can nourish and sustain you—compel you to draw a line in the sand and ensure that it will never happen again. You destroy a people when you bury their history. You empower them when you uncover it.
Netflix’s new heartfelt romantic comedy Juanita is based off Sheila Williams’ Dancing on the Edge of the Roof: A Novel. The Juanita of the novel is 41. Alfre Woodard, the absolutely stellar actress who plays the lead character Juanita Lewis in the film, is 66. Woodard is wonderful, but in taking this role she has erased a particular black woman from a story that has long needed to be told.
“On the surface, ‘Juanita’ is a fantasy that gives its older black heroine permission to chase her happiness, whatever that may be (the narrative wonderfully portrays it simply as elsewhere). But even more than that, the film is a testament to how necessary and urgent it is for black women to embark on purely selfish adventures in order to rediscover themselves.”
The original Juanita is in her very early forties with three grown children and a grandchild that she cares for. And her age is important to the story conveyed. Because the Juanita of Dancing is a woman who did not get to enjoy a rebellious and adventurous adolescence and young adulthood because she was too busy fulfilling the obligations of being a mother. And now here she is at 41, the last of what she believes to be her youth and vibrancy slipping away, and she is stuck repeating her narrow, tiny life with her grandchild as she did with her children. That is what drives her to pick up and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. To be something other than what she has always been.
A Juanita in her early sixties who waited until she was well into her thirties to start having children—the Juanita that Woodard plays—would have had ample time to “live” in the space between her youth and her maternal obligations. And we are given no information on what Juanita did during that span of time and why it was not enough to satisfy her. And I believe that information is necessary. I think devoting more time to Juanita’s phobias regarding travel and open spaces and how it had limited her would have helped to make sense of these glaring gaps.
I enjoyed Juanita thoroughly, but the stretched timeline that went unaddressed became an elephant in the room over the course of the film. I would love to see more romances involving women in their forties and in their sixties that address the particular roles these women play in our society and culture. Altering the script of Juanita to address the particular concerns of Woodard’s generation instead of “playing it straight” from the novel would have improved an already semi-solid romantic comedy.
I believe that there is a point during the grieving process
when the individual who is grieving comes to the realization that if he
continues to grieve as he has been grieving, he will die. This realization
doesn’t put an end to one’s grief. This realization doesn’t even ensure that
one will put a stop to existing destructive behavior. It is merely knowledge
that one did not possess before. If I
continue to carry this pain in this manner, my life will degrade to a point
that it will cease. Am I okay with that?
Often? One is okay with it. One is not only okay with it but
deeply angry at the length of the process—frustrated at the amount of time that
stands in the way of reunification. Each morning is a nightmare one cannot wake
up from. Life is a sentence with no reprieve. You must do your time. And there
is so, so much time, each second of it nearly unbearable.
I cannot imagine how much more painful grief is to endure as
an atheist. There is no comfort of an afterlife. But there is no fear of one as
well. How are you driven to continue without the specter of Hell looming? How
do you take comfort in the end of your loved one’s suffering if you believe
nothing lies beyond the pain and agony of the body?
Our religious beliefs shape how we grieve. They dig deeper than the surface rituals of burial to show how we deal with absence—or if we consider there to be an absence at all. If you believe the ancestors are always with you and speak to you, then death is not a separation. It is merely a change of form.
I’ve been watching After Life on Netflix and it is a fascinating look at how one grieves when one has no fear. The lead, Tony, is white, male, straight, middle-aged, cisgender, and of an economic class that is comfortable. He is also an atheist, fairly recently widowed, and devastated by loss. The absolute emptiness and cessation of interest in life is spot on and so familiar. However, Tony’s behavior towards authority figures, those in the service industry, and his family and friends is abominable. Grief has not made him retreat from the world, but defiantly remain a part of it and abuse others so that they feel the pain he feels. As someone who belongs to multiple groups expected to put aside their own pain to serve others, the idea of inflicting that pain on others instead boggles the mind. What kind of person makes others hurt because they hurt?
At one point during the series, a nurse who cares for Tony’s
ill father chastises Tony for his behavior and questions why he cannot adhere
to basic social graces for the sake of getting along. Later on, Tony acquiesces
and apologizes, but I can’t help but feel that had Tony not been born with
certain privileges, he would have never considered rejecting the behaviors
society expected from him in the first place. Because for Tony there are no
repercussions for being—and I am using this term wholly in the British sense—a
complete and utter cunt.
Tony is cruel to his friends and cold towards his father. He openly ridicules his brother-in-law/employer. He threatens to terminate the job of the nurse who cares for his father. He smokes heroin! My God! Even in the deepest depths of grief and depression I managed to make sure my vehicle registration was up-to-date because I am that fearful of breaking the law. The fact that Tony is so cavalier about a much greater transgression shows that not only does he not care about himself, but he also has zero fear regarding the results of his actions and how they harm others in his community. It is not unusual in grief to stop caring about one’s life, and this is illustrated well in After Life. Tony does not care for his body—getting little food and sleep to sustain it. However, it is unusual to stop caring for others. Wanting to die doesn’t give you carte blanche to be mean to the waitress—unless you were raised to believe you never had to be nice to her in the first place if you didn’t feel like it (and that she was only lucky you felt like it for so long). That is privilege in action.
Is Tony irredeemable? God, no. He’s grieving. He’s in pain. And when pain gets to be too great, one retreats or attacks. The conditions of our birth coupled with our experiences push us towards one option or the other. Our religious beliefs determine how we engage with our selection. One who is a devout Muslim would likely not retreat into a bottle. A strict Catholic is wary of suicide. Tony, an atheist, has decided to attack—but merely with words. Does his atheism drive him to cherish and respect the physical existence of others more than most? Is that what stops him from engaging in the physical violence that he admits to his therapist that he fantasizes about? Heavy questions for a comedy, I’m certain, but so far After Life doesn’t seem afraid of tackling them. However, I doubt it will tackle one unspoken and painful reality of grief—that sometimes people do remain irrevocably broken. Tony will likely return to some semblance of the man his wife fell in love with, giving viewers an upbeat ending worthy of a sitcom. But like the privileges Tony enjoys, that is not always an option available to all.