The Radical Existence of Queen and Slim

In the opening of Audre Lorde's Zami she speaks of a black woman whom she admired when she was a child. A woman who strolled the streets with her hair unkempt, her stomach on full display , her joy undimmed. It's a beautiful example of isolated black freedom in the midst of a detailed and exhaustive commentary of the macro oppression of black folk in America. The same can be said of Lena Waithe's and Melina Matsoukas's film “Queen and Slim”. The central political focus of the film is not the black resistance as a whole, or black martyrdom, but an isolated tale of two people finding their own freedom from the daily reduction of black lives by living their lives on their own terms despite their impending doom. Phenomenal cosmic power in an itty bitty living space. It is supremely well acted, well shot, photographed and written, and it's ultimate message is one I received with relish and glee.

There has been much talk of comparison around the film. The most oft repeated being “Bonnie and Clyde”, though “Thelma and Louise” and “Set it Off” also readily come to mind, but the film or at least the quote from a film that first came to my mind after watching Queen and Slim was from Ridley Scott's Gladiator, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity”. Despite the chasm of difference between those two films, The matter at the heart of the both in my mind, is not how best to die, but how best to live. Gladiator from under the weight of one type of oppression, Queen and Slim from under the weight of a more modern, and layered form of oppression. The fates of the protagonist in each of these films are not nearly as important as the way they live, and I wonder how much of our own real reductive and restrictive lives in this nation play a role in the reduction of the power of this film to hinging on their fate. From the moment of the event that sets the film in motion, the two protagonists are on a journey of self discovery, and bonding that is as graceful, organic, and honest as any film about love and more to the point black love has ever been. The resistance in the film is not one of physical or political actualization, but one of self realization, and expressive defiance of the shackles of blackness in America. Ones put in the place by the consuming nature of white supremacy, and the stifling nature of black existence from under it. Throughout the movie we see both. As the police state drags a net around them, and as black folk respond to their plight in both positive and negative fashion. Meanwhile all Queen and Slim really want to do is just live for themselves in both the most literal and figurative fashion. Their desire not to die is the focus of the first quarter of the movie and extends itself naturally as more of a underlying motivation as it continues, while the figurative living becomes the thrust of the second half. This portion of the film becomes about the two learning how to do as much without worrying about the consequences of such behavior. We watch them stop by a night club for some impromptu dancing, ride horses, and hang outside moving vehicles. We also watch them heal old wounds, resolve issues they were previously afraid , or too stuck in the quagmire of a fatalistic existence to deal with.

The nature of their situation, the near inevitability of their destiny awakens Queen and Slim to a sense of urgency about life they previously could not see. For lack of better words They have nothing to lose, so they're willing to risk everything. Their senses are heightened, and their focus is tightened. Their resistance, or their form of fight back is the way they decide to live regardless of possible outcomes. In Yamamoto Tsunetomos “Hagakure” there is a quote about life and death that I think ultimately applies best to the resistance of Queen and Slim.

“If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that “All abilities come from one mind” sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat.
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— Yamamoto Tsunetomo -Hagakure

It is easy to mistake this sort of approach and attitude with a macabre fetishization or fascination when death when in fact it is the opposite. In setting ones mind to making peace with the looming shadow of death, one is able to best live ..

“If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way.”

— Yamamoto Tsunetomo -Hagakure

“Freedom in the way” …. Freedom. Three quarters of the way through the film Queen and Slim end up on a sort of guided tour with a young boy from town who admires them, and what he feels they're doing. While talking with them, he says something to the effect of don't worry you'll make it, but even if you don't it will be okay because you'll be immortal”. It's important to note two things about this boys words in the context of the film and it's message, because there are some who have identified this as the gist of the movie to which I disagree in part. I say in part because if you only use the latter half of what he said, you're taking his own zealous misinterpretation of what it is Queen and Slim are accomplishing, and what they desire as the thrust of the narrative, when it is merely a response to what is the actual narrative. It's a response to the daily marginalization endured by black folk in America and a hyper reaction by an immature mind to a display of freedom rarely if ever seen before by black people. Hearing this young boy, and watching his reaction which is rooted in his own misconceptions about rebellion, I couldn't help but think on Ernest Dickerson's 1992 film “Juice”. Tupac's character Bishop is similarly a young black male who is tired of the daily compression of his life, and rather than watching real life “Outlaws” as does the boy from Queen and Slim he watches James Cagney's Cody Jarrett in “White Heat” and has a very similar reading of what it is he's seeing…

For Bishop, and for the young boy, freedom is found in the ultimate control. Control of one's own destiny, or one's own narrative. Immortality, Glory, these are about being remembered, being seen, and for those of us who feel the burden of life as a black person in this country may be predetermined and destined as one of little value, it's a way to have an impact, to upend the order of things. But that is not what our two protagonist are seeking. Queen and Slim have a burning desire for freedom as do many of us, but it is much more isolated, and it concerns itself with how best to live while accepting the ever present possibility of death, not with immortality, revenge, glory, or how best to die. Through these things undoubtedly have places where they intersect, they are not one in the same. The proof of this is everything Queen and Slim do afterwards. This is not Bonnie and Clyde, Set it Off, Natural Born Killers, or Thelma and Louise. They are not on an larceny filled road trip to a poetic destiny over the grand canyon, or on a socio-political revenge spree on corporate marginalization by way of banks, or even a psychopathic bloodlusty whirlwind across state lines, they are two people connecting as the world burns around them, thus the love scene that coincides with the political rally put together on their behalf. In those other movies each one of them keeps pushing the line further and further along the way. They, (like the boy) were hurdling their bodies towards immortality. In Queen and Slim they are merely trying to live their best life with a pure hope that they will make it to Cuba and live full lives there, (something they mention over and over again) while learning to make peace with the specter of death. The movie is about learning to live , not exist but live while fighting oppression. It's resistance is found in the rebellious nature of refusing to be confined to anxiety, anger, malcontention, repression, and respectability.

When we meet them they are on a rather awkward Tinder date, that seems merely okay, much like their existence up to that point. They live their lives for others , to (like so many of us) be an example that distinguishes itself from so many tropes and attitudes about us and sometimes by us. Slim doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and attends the same diner regularly because it is black owned. He exist but he doesn't live. He holds it in, he denies himself certain joys because he feels such things impair not only his senses, his responses, but his armor. Slims lives his life as a protection from and against the very thing that happens to him anyway under white supremacy. Such is the feeling that all to often arises from being black in America. Queen is no different in that regard. She denies herself time to enjoy things, to fully realize people, to be average at things, or even bad at it. She is filled with a righteous anger (which she puts into her work as a defense lawyer) and an acute eye for red flags and danger, but has no idea when it is safe to let her guard down. This is justified by the reality of being black in America, but it is not living. I've often thought of marginalization as an existing in a state of righteous paranoia. Paranoia being defined as delusions of persecution in this case, the righteous being in front of it making it justifiable by way of a history of actual persecutions. Some of us know this feeling all too well even if we don't consciously recognize it. We are in a constant state of hyper-preparedness and alertness that leave us unable to truly live in the moment, to allow for all the variations in behavior, perception, and outcome that are possible because doing so is a risk in an already risk filled existence. The triggering event in the movie is like a snapped finger after a long trance. It wakes them up to all they have been missing, and their sense of the moment and of time becomes heightened. All the quicksand, the murk, the cobwebs, and caked on dust of a frail, and cold existence begin to shake themselves free, and warmth slowly but surely makes its way into the film which Matsoukas and cinematographer Tat Radcliffe highlight with increasingly textured and open shots as the film goes along. Queen opens herself up. She shares the weight and the wounds of her life with family, and to her mother, and to Goddess, and to Slim. She shares the burden, learns to take chances, and most importantly to enjoy the moment, irrespective of the presence of death in her life , of her mother, of her client, and now of herself. Slim takes a drink, smokes some weed, rides a horse. He begins to open himself up to vulnerability, to being less armored, and to take chances, and risks. The presence of death, the shadowy gnarled fingers of white supremacy are ever present in black lives. Despite our best efforts, they are always there, and our responses to it are fragmented and many, as this movie depicts to some degree. Despite the best efforts of the protagonists in this film when we are introduced to them, both white supremacy and death nearly snatched each of their lives, and in the aftermath they learned how to live fuller expression of their lives out from under, rather than just exist within it. Their fates, the varying responses to their plight, their resistance, were not of their own making, and it is not the movies intention to guide them there to make a point. These were simply the outgrowth of their own bold defiance. Thusly Queen and Slim becomes not a destination movie, but a movie about the journey. Not a meditation on black death, but an instruction on, and inspiration of what black life, black love, can look like free. It's an extension of any black persons desire (and especially artists) to be free from what is expected, or even from having to do what isn't expected. Queen and Slim is not about being ultra realistic, if it was there would be fewer people helping them, more scenes with cops in them. It's not only a political movie either, though the politics of black lives are present nonetheless. It's not about shocking us, or disavowing us, it is a film that just wants to tell a story of two people who find each other in the world and despite all that goes on around them and all that has happened to them - decide to hold on to each other and let go of the rest, and I love Lena and Melina for it. For giving us an adventure, a thriller, a love story, that expresses both fantasy and reality, imagining a radical existence for it's protagonists that transcends tragedy and struggle, rather than just living in and meditating in it and on it.