Even the title of the movie is ambiguous: Something the Lord Made, with Alan Rickman and Mos Def, both, without doubt, astounding actors who contribute to their art in many ways. The movie is set in the Jim Crow era when blacks had to seat at the back of the buses and when blacks had to pee in coloured designated bathrooms, hence the ambiguous title.
I do love a flick that manages to cast subtle critique at academia. Frankly speaking, I think academia is the last bastion in modern society that still safeguards old hierarchical values. Academia is infused with so many ceremonious bullshit that while its arguments á la Pound and its tradition arguments are solid, the fact that it hides an order is quite obvious. An order that sets a system well into place where it really shouldn’t be anymore, not now, not in this age, not this era I live in.
Academia is a frustrated limelight seeker that gives two dead rats over humanity. In academia everybody wants to be a star and everymotherfucker that steps unto its aisles is made to feel it is next in line to see God and hence a natural superstar that just needs to wait a bit before humanity bestows accolades upon accolades for nearly making it to the realm of the gifted ones.
It is nearly to the point of being poignantly ironic that at the end of the movie, Vivien, the star of the flick, gets its portrait hung amongst white intellectuals who are donning the cloth of academia while Vivien was painted wearing a suit. There are multiple interpretations to this dress code but it isn’t easy to not notice the snob.
I don’t like academia, specially the rules that surround its institutions. Academia is a very nasty beast that is a Golden calf that needs to be overthrown, a false God that cares not for humanity nor the advancement of humanity. Specially nowadays. The lifeless bloodsuckers that stand guard to its interiors are but a pack of bitter beings who are loath to admit their jobs are no better than a bureaucrat at the county offices of any county seat. These useless leeches have to go over a mountain of papers before they get any close to the chambers of God and while they peruse the stacks of papers they bitterly argue against their lot and how a waste of time their mundane chores are, that is, correcting papers made by mere mortals, Lord forbid they had anything they would be willing to teach humanity.