My latest art is inspired by the pastoral life of Amhara, and the poster from what is probably my favorite movie in 2023 thus far. Recognize the reference? Have you seen it?
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They Cloned Tyrone.
So good, dude.
That film is sophisticated. It took what could’ve been a very heady message and made it a high-action puzzle film by playing with the genre of blacksploitation. I’m not gonna act like I totally interpreted every metaphor or whatever correctly. Odds are, I didn’t, despite the dozens of YouTube explainers I watched afterwards.
But there were strong messages in there of the system being folded against you and using stereotypes to maintain that subjugation. And then… a pimp, a hooker, and a gangster totally flipped those same stereotypes on their head to subvert them.
It made me connect the dots with how I’ve felt on some recent trips to East Africa. Countries imprinted with plenty of stereotypes that have been used to control or justify terrible moments from history. There’s power in telling deeper stories as a way of breaking apart those old narratives.