Upgrade to a Rather Retro Beat.

When I first heard it, I bopped and swang like nobodies business. For any fan of contemporary Black music, anywhere, Upgrade You has all the basics of success: it’s a base-driven polyrhythm, with the added certainty of Hip Hp: Self-aggrandizement and major Bling. The music alone makes your hips grind.

By the bridge I was scrubbing the floor, which got really serious when our Diva spilled out: I can do for you what Martin did for the people/Ran by the men but the women keep the tempo. OK. Evoking the good Reverend Doctor MLK, whom many consider to be America’s greatest civil leader, is serious business when few other images exist in the popular imagination. Worse, the story that these stars tell leaves a dampening and sober mood over the lives of girls growing up in such a racially charged and overtly sexist society.

Likening herself to the recently late Coretta Scott King made me take another hard look at the facts of Black life. MLK was necessarily middle class as much as his wife was necessarily fair skinned, and, again equally, to remain an ascetic widow for the rest of her natural life in order that she tend to that tenured flame, steadily, bravely keeping the beat for the people. Unsurprisingly this same nation is solely unprepared for women leadership. We are in fact one of the few wealthy nations to hold so tight tot this aspect of patriarchy; the sin is in regurgitating that narrow vision as a narration of our lives. Here in India, where my landlady is a widow. After one dispute a friend suggested that I politely tell her that I had heard that it was bad luck to see a widow before noon and that I just didn’t want o chance it. What’s a girl to do? According to our Diva:

It's very seldom that you're blessed to find your equal/Still play my part and let you take the lead role/Believe me/I'll follow this could be easy

Martin and Coretta, and unsurprisingly like Beyoncé and Jay Z, present very conservative gender roles in public eye (who knows what reality lies therein). Through this, I suppose, appeal for and gain public support. Ultimately Beyoncé promises to be a descent homemaker and consumer, the woman behind the great man, thereby granting her equality and the ability to even uplift her partner. Beyoncé, like the Doris Day’s of those days, promises to take care of home and stay fly. Recreating antiquates gender roles is apparently easy, and certainly sells. She will show him how to spend money- and she’ll keep titillating on stage, hustling for cash to feed their happiness. Switching his neckties to purples labels is her commercial upgrade. Home girl goes on to say: Notice you the type that like to keep them on a/Leash though…You need a real woman in your life/It take me just to compliment the deal/Just when you think you had it all. These lyrics sounds pretty regressive compared to Janet Jackson’s 1987 decree: You might say that I'm no good…I got too many things I wanna do before I'm through…Baby you can hold me down, baby you can hold me down. Honestly, I fail to see the ‘up’ in these grades.

Bling!
Our ethic of ‘I’m gonna get mine, so you betta get yours’ is one of the hottest exports to ever reach screens across the developing world. Moreover, the popular images is the image that if those people, the former slaves or even the women amongst their lot can attain such gleaning greatness in the land of the plenty, then perhaps the ethics marketed as hedonistic materialism can work for all. Yet, such ethic grounding, as author/critic bell hooks reminds us in her groundbreaking Challenging Media interview: creates a culture where there is no moral or ethical valuation that you can bring to bear upon anything ‘cause the assumption is that we all share the common morality of the dollar which is, get as much as you can as quickly as you can by any means necessary.

The hedonistic materialism perpetuated as a viable lifestyle sells an American dream that is well supported by our global policies. In these times of violence and increasing global gaps in access to basic resources such as education and health care, we must yield to messages of peace and of reconciliation. Yet, by getting more, by any means necessary, we can never come to judge our actions by any greater standard than that of appropriating resources: We can never really upgrade ourselves. I once read that if the cure to HIV/AIDS were a clean glass of water, then most of the world’s citizens would still be screwed. For several scenes in the music video, amidst the exotics cars, clothing and bedazzling jewels, Beyoncé stuffs her mouth with a multi-carrot diamond; I guess that is all that matters.

Harry Potter's Litany for Youth Responsibility

Order of the Phoenix is a triumphant display of everyday courage in the face of the continued ubiquitous memory of terrorism and the ensuing spread of socio-political conservatism. Harry, Hermione and Ron’s latest internal and external battles serve as a litany for young people to assert that the personal is the political, and therefore the importance of asserting responsibility!

After rescuing Harry Potter from persecution at the hands of his gluttonous middle class adopted guardians, members of the underground resistance group, the Order of the Phoenix, reminded our young heroine and his cohorts that fear is no sound basis upon which to guide your actions (or socio-political decisions vis-à-vis the bureaucratic, dogmatic and nepotistic Ministry of Magic). “Fear,” according to one wise wizard, “makes people do terrible things.”

Indeed, in response to terrorism, i.e. the return of Voldemort and his henchmen and women, the very same government provided the citizenry of witches with a sense of security through actively promoting conservative family values, charging any dissenters with ‘disloyalty’ (READ: unpatriotic!), thereby feigning collectivism. Then student groups were banned, clearly depriving young people of one major training ground of engaging democracy and rehearse good governance. In both Hogwarts and in real life, that collectivism turned out to be superficial and easily defeated by its own hypocrisy, perhaps, but certainly collapsing in upon itself ultimately because it is grounded in (collective) fear.

Like most of our commercially successful cultural stories, the good guys win and live happily ever after- along with the damsel from the spoils if the battle. By now kids and adults understand that Harry, Hermione and Ron always face obstacles and always vanquish. Yet in Rollins’ 2005 screen episode based on her widely successful bid to just get more people to read, Harry witnessed the murder of a respected comrade, an admired upperclassman who just happened to be the first to pluck Harry’s eventual love interest, Cho Chang. This installment opens again with Harry more easily defeating ghoulish attackers. As in earlier installments, Harry apparently suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), much like modern day youth thrown into battles started well before their time. In America, for example, a generation of such soldiers went horridly untreated- shameless! Yet, in asking readers/viewers to maintain hope, JK Rollins shows us that this too shall pass.

The Order of the Phoenix collectivized individuals based upon their courage to face obstacles. This resistance group was portrayed in stark opposition to ‘the bad guys’ who were visually portrayed by the archetypical effeminate, manicured, poised man-in-black with impeccable hair, the pure bred wizard Lucius Malfoy, like Scar in The Lion King and a plethora of our screen fables. The order also represented Harry greatest lesson- one of the overt take home messages of the film- that cooperation gets results! The ministry and the dark side itself, all relied more upon compliance- Lord Voldemort with murdering people and mind control, and the Ministry of Magic for corporeal punishment and, control of the public mind through propaganda. This cultivated the environment of fear in both spaces, versus the freethinking, socialists imagined clan on the side of our young protagonist, which even included criminal element i.e. Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, to add to the transgressive appeal. Naturally this character was visually portrayed as an archetypical gypsy, just to hone in the point.

That Damn Delores Umbridge and her dark arts!
This film also resolves one lingering quandary- Hermione and Ron’s attraction to the heretofore virtually ascetic, androgynous even, Harry Potter. The relaxed way in which the portrayal of the trio’s bond, at times flirtatious, at times jealous runs the erotic border barely segregating human emotion. In its film adaptation, the Order of the Phoenix can then be seen as wholly Queer positive in the truest sense: That all forms of sexuality are OK, and that by not shying away from erotic attraction does not endanger plutonic friendship. Quite to the contrary, the bond between Harry, Hermione and Ron never rejected any of these feelings, and were even comforted as seen in this very apex scene where Hermione finally LOL.

Meanwhile Hermione’s deep sense of compassion for Harry’s love interest, the Asian-Irish classmate and fellow Quidditch jock, Cho Chang, as compared to Ron’s ‘emotional depth of a teaspoon’ frankly leaves viewers wondering if Hermione’s pensive concern is based on jealously (after the recruitment meeting for Dumbledore’s Army she noted that Cho Chang could not take her eyes off of Harry) or Hermione’s own attraction to Harry or to Cho Chang? The ambiguity, and apparent acceptance within the world of the film, demonstrates to viewers another type of courage. Interestingly, this scene is crucially used later in the film.

Upon careful advice from a cautious new compassionate comrade, Luna, Harry choose friendship as a means to increase his overall chances of surviving an increasingly inevitable attack prompted by terrorizing visions of the Lord Voldemort attacking Harry’s loved ones. These visions blur the line between good and evil- while in the visions, Harry can even feel the will to act in those murderous ways. We are alike, he’s warned, and the only difference rests in our choices- for we have the ability to choose. But choose what?

Harry chooses to eschew the isolationist approach- a clear comment on our socio-political climate! Flashbacks of the Hermione/Ron/Harry love and friendship scene allowed Harry to resist Voldemort’s attempts at mental colonization, a technique vigorously taught to Harry by another archetypical character, Order of the Phoenix co-founder- Professor Serverus Snape. The classic Goth, as we are shown in Harry’s final lesson, believes so greatly in the cause against evil that he is able to bestow a skill upon the son of his greatest tormentor- Harry deceased dad who was apparently a school bully. This scene reiterates to viewers that Harry is different, more powerful than the rest, exceeding even his parents, because of his ability to choose. Hence in the final showdown between the good side and the bad guys, Harry declares that ‘You [Voldemort] will never know love and friendship and I feel sorry for you’. Voldemort’s weakness, his inability to build coalitions based on courage, but simply a group based on compliance and fear, is overthrown, along with the government. The Prime Minister is asked to resign, all is well at Hogwarts and our trio, now having grown into a collective, lives happily ever after- at least until the next sequel. Voldemort's weakness is Harry’s strength; the only difference between good an evil, both immensely powerful and differently seductive, are the choices we make. To do so in isolation, by usurping the powers granted through democracy and free will, is to choose to loose and leads to real transgression.

“Something worth fighting for.”
As opposed to other superheroes, those granted immense power and. Despite the terrible threats of terror- through the hero’s repeated murderous visions, or the actual return of Voldemort and the ensuing mass death- Harry Potter is comparatively non-violent. Where ‘the dark side’ has lengthy scenes maiming several important characters, including a near morbid plethora of deceased parents in abstentia, our side is often scene defeating evil by a very limp wrist. In fact, the most powerful spell that Harry has to teach his generation of fighters is to imagine the happiest moment ever, the Patronus spell! This spell “conjures an incarnation of the caster's innermost positive feelings, such as joy, hope, or the desire to survive;” indeed, happiness is the most powerful magic.

This most special incantation protect to conjuring witch/wizard through embodying an ethereal animal figure. The concept of waving a wand and asserting “Expecto Patronum,” yet is not. In the film, the spell is used to defend against Dementors, the scary ghoulish creatures that opened this film. Dementors have attacked Harry on the train, and now on the street with his cousin, whom he defends with the Patronus spell. Dementors have hunted young Harry since the first installment- a lifelong threat! And yet to conjure a ‘full-fledged’ Patronus, to defend one’s life against the scariest creature, one who attacks unrelentingly and with great surprise, whose very hooded image evokes great fear, a witch or wizard must fill their entire being with happy thoughts. And frankly, it is deeply patriarchal, reflective of the comfort one is taught to seek, through religion or patrimony, to ‘protect’ us. Oh Father, please protect us.

Magical non-violence
One last message lies beneath the wondrous imagery of the author and filmmakers’ vision of this ultimately non-violent world. The Patronus Charm is positioned in the film as the ultimate ‘weapon’ against the terrorists that Harry has to teach. Yet, in the final battle scene, we all discover that the ability to build coalitions trumps individual happiness. It is as if individual happiness, i.e. meditating one’s individual happiness as a powerful force to defend against sadness and death through, is yet incomplete unless shared. Sharing comes from empowering others, not dominating them as shown by the downfall of both the ‘dark sides’ of the magic world and the government. And even the individual only taps into a portion of their won will to live through ‘Love and friendship’ i.e. not just talking but actual compassion. Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix is a litany for international relations, if we all intend to survive. For those who’ve seen Spiderman III, you will recognize a very similar moral. (P.S. Harry’s Patronus is a stag!)

Pop Back I: The Pleasure Principle

I was 31 before the lyrics to the 1987 chart-topper Pleasure Principle meant anything to me. When the song debuted, I was already a staunch Janet Jackson fan. I was the first in our class to be able to do the famous head-bop from the song’s video- moving her neck left and right, framing her head with her right hand under the chin then the profile. Though Janet had worn full kneepads for the shoot, showcasing her best moves: In spite of her other videos, here, it was all about the dance. Like Thriller a few years earlier, every kid in any dance school around the country learned sequences from the Jackson’s. By the end of 1987, even drag queens were doing Janet’s now infamous run, jump, balance and leap/landing from a chair. She was neither the queen nor princess, nor dominatrix of pop music. By that time, coupled with Paula Abduls’ choreography, she moved beyond trendsetter to norm establisher in popular culture. Little Ms. Penny from Goodtimes was more than just a starlet shaking her tit-and ass for some coins, but, again true to her heritage, an entertainer. She was so on top of her game that she made anything seem possible.

The Best things in Life are Free

One of my mother’s best friends took me to see the Rhythm Nation 1814 Tour, and it was bad! Naturally I had purchased the tape months earlier, had memorized every word to every song, including the B-sides, as well as every melismatic twist. At that age, my vocal range could match any Jackson’s verse for verse. The rich album notes included lyrics to every song, which is of great importance when confronting head-on topics that the news chooses to ignore like racism, sexism, war, oppression and the legacy we bequeath to our youth. In ‘State of the World’, Janet wrote/performed:

To feed the baby before he starts to cry/No rest, no time to play/15, the mother is a runaway/No time for dreams or goals/Pressure is so strong/Her body she has sold so her child can eat/What is happening to this world we live in/In our home and other lands


Of the myriad of pop artists that talk about sex, few regard the topic from this, frankly popular, perspective. Many artists have simply never gone there.

That rock on your finger’s like a tumor

As a budding dancer, I scoured through every resource that I could find to learn about big band leader Cab Calloway and acrobatic dancers The Nicholas Brothers, all truly wicked entertainers from the Harlem Renaissance who made cameo appearances in the ‘Alright’ video- as a people we pay so little attention to our history. The popularized remix of this hit paired Janet with Heavy D, fashioning the R&B/Hip-Hop duo that all other now follow. Janet so neatly does Black music: Infusing the old with the new in a finely crafted message for the future. So here was a pop artists digging up old bones; her lyrics and image covered much, much more than fanatical love and hardcore sex. Most certainly, she never sang about her wealth, though I suppose growing up on 2300 Jackson Street, one grows accustomed to such riches.

Like Beyoncé, Janet can pay her own fare, she’s an Independent Woman. Yet unlike savoring the ability to ‘buy your own’ eschewing “part-time bliss” for “happiness,” Janet purports: I’m not here to feed your insecurities. I wanted you to love me … My meter’s running I’ve really have to go!” Today’s independent women and girls are simply encouraged to wallow in their own insecurities- the perpetual lust for pleasure in material bliss.