Hey Joe: Why not point at Spike Lee's 'Pass Over' with that remote in your hand?
*Not a Rogan hater, just offering some 'advice'
HARK!
I hear …a learning moment …
Perhaps you’ve heard of Joe Rogan, a popular podcaster who has been scrutinized for pushing unproven meds and hosting anti-vaxxers. It should be noted that he’s the first to point out he’s a comedian, not a doctor, and even said this week, “If you want my advice, don’t take my advice.”
Rogan also has been called out after the release (not by him) of a compilation of podcasts and videos in which he frequently used an extraordinarily distasteful, racist term.
He apologized—in his way.
As a Yahoo News story noted, “in his apology, Rogan argued that he only used the racial slur when it came up as a subject of conversation, but now understands that there is ‘no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word.’
‘“I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist,’ he claimed.”
Some of his fans say he has no need to apologize. “If they can use that word,” they say, “why can’t we?”
My answer, to those who don’t understand this issue:
Watch Spike Lee’s “Pass Over.”
Actually, I recommend anyone watch this, for a number of reasons.
First, and thank you very much Amazon Studios, it’s free—if you’ve already paid for an Amazon Prime subscription (which, by the way, is the best $119 I’ll spend this year).
Of course, there’s plenty of free stuff to watch online, which is something like the viewing equivalent of the Great Garbage Patch, that drifting island of plastic discards. All the disposable junk on Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc. makes “Pass Over” seem like a shiny diamond.
Very much like that precious rock, “Pass Over” is beautiful—and hard as hell.
Just last week—coincidentally enough, just as the Rogan tape hit the news—stumbled onto this gem, which has been on Prime since 2018, when Lee directed Jon Michael Hill, Julian Parker, Ryan Hallahan and Blake DeLong in a performance of Antoinette Nwandu’s play.
Please—don’t run away! I know, I know: Filmed versions of plays are almost a disaster, either static and boring or overdone and grating.
Lee somehow finds a perfect balance, using well-paced cinematographic touches—quick shots of the Steppenwolf Theater audience, blazing zoom-ins and jarring quick cuts—but mainly staying out of the way, letting the performers tear up the modest, one-piece set.
Lee, of course, is no stranger to racial controversies, ever since his “Do the Right Thing,” when the “accidental” choking death by a young Black man by a cop (this was 1989, by the way) leads to a burn-it-down riot at a pizzeria, had many whites scratching their heads in bewilderment. “Well, why did they have to burn that nice Danny Aiello’s pizza place?”
“Pass Over” is every bit as in-your-face, violent with its words and actions; and, hopefully, for the likes of Rogan, educational.
For a Beckett nerd like me, Nwandu spinning a modern, urban tale within the tight rails of a “Waiting for Godot” structure was amusing and mesmerizing, like watching a dynamic dancer do an entire routine in a phone booth.
Speaking of dancing, the movement of “Pass Over” should be studied by any would-be director of plays or film; while the firecracker dialogue really moves the play, the actors are almost always in motion, despite a confined, defined space.
The story is of Moses and Kitch, two young Black men promising each other dozens and dozens of times they are going to get away…yet never going anywhere.
Is it Beckett’s paralyzing ennui?
Or oppression?
Probably both.
Dozens and dozens of times, Moses and Kitch use a particular word, which to them is the equivalent of “yo brother” or “hey man.”
So, the white character Mister—who calls himself “master,” shockingly enough—wonders, why can’t he say it?
When Mister whines, “If I don’t get to say the n word, why do you?”
Moses checks him: “It’s not yours.”
As Nwandu writes, in an introduction to the play, (which, conveniently enough, you can also buy where else but on Amazon:
Amen.