My biggest gripe was by far the amount of race card waving going on. I swear, not 5 minutes could go by w/out some sort of reference to race, or dramatic re-enactment of the “Black Experience.” Not only was the sheer amount of it was egregious, but it was hardly used or explored in any meaningful manner. No different opinions or experiences, just this echo chamber of like-mindedness. The only thing they seemed to have forgot to show was a dark-skinned black thumbing their nose at a light-skinned blacks’ opinions, or vice-versa, simply because of skin tone. I mean shit, they even squeezed in the old classic BE : “Chinese woman in the back of a cop car to identify your black ass on the spot” in the first 8 minutes. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Blaxpoitation films did a better job of not exploiting racial sensitivities to drive a story and its character(s) forward.
We saw BL somewhat challenge one of his daughters’ viewpoints in the second half of the show, which I hoped would produce an insightful exchange, but then she just called him a race traitor 20 seconds into it and that was the end of that nuisance.
I’ll watch a few more episodes, but the first episode really left me sour. I hope they reduce the frequency of using race as a means of getting from Point A to B, and/or make race-related dialouge / experiences more varied and thoughtful.
Seriously though, I liked the fact that a show on primetime TV went there and showcased all the various pitfalls a straight-laced black man faces daily.
Could it have used more nuance? Probably, but this is a superhero show, not the West Wing.
Luke Cage also has the benefits of not being locked to network TV, with all the various standards and practices that entails, a bigger budget, and probably longer lead time.
I think they did okay with what they had… I was all ready to shit on the show, but came away pleasantly surprised and interested to see where it goes from here.
Hardly. Thought I pretty clearly stated I didn’t like the rapid-fire depiction of such moments, and the lack of substance that came out of each one–probably because they felt the need to blow their load in one episode.
This show has a fantastic opportunity to contribute to the greater dialouge on race and justice. The first episode leads me to believe it has every intention of touting only the “You’re Black ; America And Everyone Hates You” narrative with hardly any inclination to explore much deeper than that. In current social climate where people are drawing lines in the sand and are growing less eager to hear what “the other” has to say, this not only is wasted opportunity to implore communication, but could exacerbate the issue.
Maybe my expectations are “too high,” but my hopes for the show was either to just be another superhero show where race has little to do with the character interactions or motives, or weave a narrative that shows these things are more complex than one group being intentionally malicious or harmful to another “because they can.”
I think in this ultra-PC environment the showrunners didn’t want to get any angry letters and op-ed pieces from BLM members about how the show isn’t blackity black enough and doesn’t show “the struggle”, and being the CW they went overkill with the narrative due to a lack of experience tackling more complex issues. I mean from this pilot we’re led to believe that only one cop actually cares about the black community and isn’t a prejudicial asshole (who also happens to be black) and high schools in gang-infested areas have zero police presence so roaming gang members can just stroll in and kidnap students in broad daylight.
But like I said before, it’s the pilot. Once the show is established it might tone down these themes once they realize they’re over-correcting to appease their imaginary black audience.
lol @coachella vs afropunk debate. like that nigga has no right to call the dudes daughter an alternative black girl. aignt no nigga i know wanna go to coachella and pay them down payment on a car type prices.
According to this, Black Lightning’s ex-wife is John Stewart’s sister. I don’t care if he’s GL or not, having John appear on this show would be awesome.
I like the fact that hes an older dude coming out of retirement as opposed to getting the powers and seeing him trying to learn them as well as having two daughters whereas most of the DC CW characters are young ,childless adults.
Being a HS principal and having the school backdrop is a good angle for stories.
When the cop said, “Get yo black ass down” and he went full Raiden on them, I’m sure people would have clapped if it was shown in a theatre.
Speaking of Raiden, its an interesting nod that they got Raiden #2 James Remar as his token white friend.
Also, Im surprised they went with a “domino” mask instead of a Batman/Cap mask with only the mouth visible. In this era of security cameras and smartphones, he would last 2 seconds before being found out lol.
The suit itself is mediocre. The outfit he used as young guy was better actually.
The daughters are hot of course as per CW law.
I chuckled at the older one teaching 3 days/week while being a med student.
We have school/clinics 5-6 days minimum a week so either shes a super student or her school is super lad back lol
I like it overall.
I havent watched any of the DC CW shows this season (Gifted was my jam this season) but I will tune in since the season is 1/2 length.
