Outlandish Blues

Outlandish Blues (The Movie)

Outlandish Blues (The Movie) ... newly arrived Africans were classified in the North American lexicon as "outlandish" in that they were "strangers to the English language " and had yet to learn their new roles. MICHAEL A. GOMEZ Where else can you sail across a blue sea into a horizon emptied ofwitnesses? This is the cathartic's truth, the movie mind's eye, a vibrant ship voyage where the slaves luckilyescape, where the horizon empties of witnesses, and the food and the water and the mercy run low on this photogenic voyage where slavesluckilywill escape, but not before sailors throw a few souls in the ocean. Before the food, water and mercy run low, watch the celluloid flashes of sexy, tight bodies that the sailors throw into the mouths of waiting fish, bodies branded with the Cross, baptized with holy water, tight-packed bodies flashing across the screen, Hollywood flat stomachs pressed to buttocks pressed to shoulders first branded with the Cross, baptized with holy water and then covered with manufacturedfilth. The stomachs press to buttocks press to shoulders and of course, there is no pleasure in the touch— under the filth we can see the taut blackbeauty and we guiltily consider the following: Are we sure there was no pleasure in those touches? Are we sure most kidnapped Africans were not full grown? We guiltily consider the following: Were these reallychildren picked for long lives of work? 43 Are we sure these were not full grown Africans instead of children stolen or sold from their parents, picked for long lives of work to be squeezed from them? Must we think on coins passed between white and black hands? These were children stolen or sold from their parents though we don't see any of that on the movie screen. We don't see coins passed between white and black hands. We don't see any boys and girls raped by the sailors. We don't see much of their lives on the screen, only the clean Bible one of the male slaves is given. We don't see any boys and girls raped by the sailors, only prayers for redemption the slave definitely receives. There are close-ups of the Bible given to aslave but no questions about the God he sees in his dreams. Who gives him the redemption I'm sure he receives? Who will he call on—the God of hisparents? Who is the God he sees in his dreams? Who placed him in the gut of this three-hour nightmare? Who will he call on—the God of his parents or his Bible's Savior, a man who walks on water? Who placed him in the gut of this three-hour nightmare? Certainly not the God of cathartic truth or even the Bible's Savior, a man walking across water, just right on over blues cast like bait upon the sea. 44 ...