Welcome To Ink-Stained Tuesdays…A few hours late Thanks to the Author’s obsessing over a football game you may have cared little about.
I am your Weekly Host, Inkognegro. Ink, Inky, Sir, “That guy on Twitter with the cute baby in his avi” any of those will do.
I will save any other formal introduction for the Beautiful and Wonderful Administrator of this fine Blog and Get on with it, since I am already late.
I am a movie buff.
Does that mean you will find me posted up at the local cineplex destined for whatever the big hit is supposed to be that weekend? No.
It means I take movies seriously, both for the stories they tell and for the the pictures they paint.
When a movie speaks to me…it speaks to me in the framework of that film, in my life, and in society at large.
I saw A Few Good Men in the theaters in 1992. I was young and living in Southern California. I considered myself a good man, but not one who was attractive to the women around me. So much so that I was attending movies alone and losing the love of my High School years to an older white man she worked with back in Pittsburgh while I was creating what I THOUGHT was a new life for us in California. (Chuckles at my naivety of the moment)
The movie was good enough…although I am convinced Jack Nicholson STILL feels pains in his back from carrying Tom Cruise in the movie.
Even people who haven’t seen the movie know one of Jack’s most oft quoted lines explodes out.
YOU CAN’T HANDLE the TRUTH.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know that line. But what about what comes after? What came AFTER is what sets the movie apart.
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
Jack says that he is a necessary Evil. That it is a necessity for men to exist as they do. That it while it may be okay for these punk-ass Touchy Feely new age mofos to walk the earth, HIS existence is forged in decades/centuries of survival and protection. which leads him to say this:
You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall — you need me on that wall.
Ahh…There is that code word. You NEED men like him. STILL. Because, Damnit, you just cant count on those touchy feely mofos to protect you when the chips go down.
We use words like “honor,” “code,” “loyalty.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.
The background of this story is that Jack on trial for murder for ordering two soldiers to assault a third (Santiago). Essentially Killing one to save many. Honorable, Indeed.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
I would rather that you just said “thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don’t give a DAMN what you think you’re entitled to!
Ole Jack basically tells the lil’ Couch Jumping Scientologist to strap up and get like him or STFU and go make Cocktail 2. He got this. If I were writing the remake, I would have had Jack stand up and pull out his 9 and Scream “WHOSE GONNA CHECK ME, BOO?” But that’s just me.
I posted this soliloquoy as a jumping off point for my personal agenda in joining this blog.
Jack’s character is a symbol of the old patriarchal order. One who was charged with protection of the Home, the neighborhood, and the society at large. He is basically on trial, as he sees it, for doing his job; a trial perpetrated by people who have no respect for the luxuries his way of doing things have provided them. Many Black men currently chafe under what they see as a new standard of conduct as well. This is the symbolism I am using as a jumping off point.
I will be posting every Tuesday and alternating Thursday with the great Peyso(Peace to the Don) focusing on what I view as the fascinating evolution of the Black woman in light of a combination of forces from without and within. The ongoing and now critical importance of Black women heading and (co-heading) households has created a new urgency for Black women to embody many gender roles preiously reserved for men. Many of these younger women are raised from little girls with the inner strength and drive to ascend to HoH (head of household) Status. Even more are raised in a confusing duality that asks them to be hawks in the field and doves on home base.
Sending these hyper evolved creatures into a world where Dinosaurs are still being born and raised.
And you wonder why they are constantly at war.
Your questions and comments will be addressed today and inform Thursday’s post, feel free to jump in.


