“This talk comes out of having—after a year and a half of lockdown, terror, and isolation—the opportunity to encounter the work of Black artists that I was not familiar with, and to be able to encounter it in ways that made the spaces of their exhibition much clearer and more fraught to me,” Campt said in the Feb. 3 webinar. 

Campt is a professor at Brown University and a Black feminist therorist. She has authored five books, including the newly released A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (The MIT Press, 2021), which explores the work of contemporary Black artists. Her webinar explored the work of three Black artists that were not included in her newest book: Maxwell Alexandre, Troy Monches-Michie, and Jennifer Packer. Through different mediums, their artwork collectively probes different parts of the Black identity—including masculinity, queer desire, and vulnerability—and establishes critical dialogue in the largely white art world, said Campt. 

She recalled her recent visit to Maxwell Alexandre’s New Power exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France, which features paintings of Black and brown people in scenes of everyday life. As museum visitors contemplate the illustrated people, the figures in the paintings also observe their real-life onlookers. While viewing the artwork, Campt arrived at an uncomfortable realization. 

“In their gallery, all the visitors are Black. In mine, I am the only non-white spectator for the two hours I spend in the space. It’s a contrast I’ve internalized as normal—an expectation of being out of place that usually overtakes me as I approach the counter of a museum. It is equally palpable when I pass the threshold of a gallery and am met with stares or a complete lack of acknowledgement from blasé gallery staff who fail to look up from their counters,” Campt said. “New Power upends the dynamics of being out of place by recentering those often neglected and relegated to this position.”

Alexandre’s art revealed something else to Campt. As she walked around the gallery, she saw Black security guards—both the illustrated and real-life versions. When a lively group of young people arrived at the gallery, she noticed a Black security guard who closely monitored them. 

“Watching the guard as he shadowed them while moving through the gallery, I was struck by the fact that the art gallery is one of the few places where Black folks, often armed, are permitted to actively surveil white audiences,” Campt said. “What do the guards think of encountering their painted simulacra in spaces where they are usually overlooked or made invisible? … Sadly, both my French and my nerves failed to let me pose these questions. But it’s nevertheless one of the central questions posed by Alexander and articulated unequivocally in New Power … How might we lay claim to these spaces in ways that refuse not only a white gaze of consumption or exploitation, but instead initiate moans of reclamation and redress?” 

In a Q&A with the audience, Campt explained her creative process every time she encounters new art. In addition to considering the artwork, she observes the actual space surrounding the piece, the sounds of the gallery, and the people within the room, and then records her observations on an iPad. 

What’s most important is not what we literally see in the moment, but how we respond to the artwork, she said. 

“When I say that I’m writing to images, I’m writing from that response that they are soliciting from me. And in doing that, I’m trying to create a dialogue,” she said. 

At the end of the webinar, moderator Brandy Monk-Payton, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, said she observed in Campt’s work “this kind of insistence on the local, the intimate, and the interior as a way to sort of remain vigilant in some respects.”

“I’m wondering how we can sort of remain vigilant in supporting understanding of a Black gaze in this moment, this proliferation of wonderful media makers, creatives,” Monk-Payton said.

Campt said that the key to vigilance is discomfort. 

“What I’m talking about in terms of a ‘Black gaze’ is art that makes us feel uncomfortable. Artwork that makes us work. Not artwork that’s good, per se, but artwork that’s good because it’s hard,” Campt said. “How easy is this? How comfortable do I feel with that? And what does it mean to question that comfort?” 

This event was co-sponsored by the Arts and Sciences Council, the Division of Mission Integration and Ministry, and the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer.

If you’re worried you’ve exhausted all your Netflix options, look no further. Fordham News asked faculty and staff members for updated suggestions on the best things to read, watch, and listen to for the upcoming winter months. (In case you missed it, check out our last list of faculty recommendations here.)

Films

Jennifer Moorman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Media Studies

Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020), directed by Osmany Rodriguez
I know Halloween is over, but it’s always horror season for me! This one was actually recommended to me by a student in my Horror Film class, and I found it moving as well as fun. A horror-comedy focused on three boys battling vampires while simultaneously fighting off gentrification in their Bronx neighborhood (an issue that should concern all of us at Fordham), this film has so much heart. It has its share of cheesy moments and clichés, but overall it entertains while reminding us that Black lives matter, our communities are worth saving, and we are stronger together.
Available on Netflix

Bacurau (2019), directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles
This Brazilian riff on The Most Dangerous Game is a thrilling, powerful, anticolonial tour de force. Warning: It gets pretty graphic. But its messages about the dangers of globalization, imperialism, and white supremacy are as urgent as ever, and will hopefully inspire you to organize in your own community to fight the power. Its meditation on the ways that advanced technologies invade our lives and can hurt as much as they help is particularly relevant in this moment of ever-increasing dependency on digital (and specifically remote-learning) tech.
Available on Amazon

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), directed by Céline Sciamma
Arguably the greatest queer love story (or any love story, for that matter) of the 21st century thus far. Exquisitely shot, each frame is a painting. The compositions are breathtaking, the characters written and portrayed with unusual depth, and the story is incredibly moving and all too relatable for anyone who has a “one that got away.”
Available on Hulu

The Lighthouse (2019), directed by Robert Eggers
This is a great companion piece to Robert Eggers’ previous feature, The Witch (which I also highly recommend). It’s darker and more challenging, but also funnier. Its exploration of the horrors of isolation feels all the more relevant now than at the time of its release, and if you look beneath the surface, you’ll find a biting critique of capitalism and toxic masculinity (and some would say, also a homoerotic love story).
Available on Amazon

Beth Knobel, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies

Broadcast News (1987), directed by James L. Brooks
This is one of my favorite films about television news. It’s also filled with classic moments that speak to the nature of friendship, success, and love. I’ve shown it numerous times to my Fordham students to illustrate the power and limitations of broadcast journalism.
Available on Amazon

Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965 (1987)
Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965-1985 (1990)
Produced by Henry Hampton
Everyone who wants to understand the roots of the American civil rights movement should spend the time to watch Henry Hampton’s monumental, prize-winning documentary series Eyes on the Prize. Its 14 parts, produced as two series, explore the major moments of the movement, from school desegregation, to the fight for voting rights, to the elections of Black politicians in major cities like Chicago. It’s engrossing and important.
Available on Amazon

Brandy Monk-Payton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies

Time (2020), directed by Garrett Bradley
This award-winning experimental documentary by Garrett Bradley is a beautiful and intimate portrait of a Black family that follows Sybil “Fox Rich” Richardson as she fights for over 20 years to free her husband from his prison sentence. Using interviews as well as Rich’s own homemade videos, the film is a brilliant love story in an era of mass incarceration.
Available on Amazon

Television Shows

Brandy Monk-Payton

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)
Based on a 1983 novel of the same name, this limited series is a coming-of-age story about Beth Harmon, an orphan who also happens to be a chess prodigy. Set during the Cold War, Beth defies the odds as a female player who gains widespread public attention winning in a male-dominated sport, while also privately battling addiction. Watch for the mesmerizing scenes of chess play.
Available on Netflix

Grand Army (2020)
This gritty young adult drama series is set in Brooklyn and follows a multicultural ensemble of teenagers as they confront issues of identity at their prestigious public high school. At times difficult to watch due to its themes, the film has vivid characters and stellar performances by the young cast.
Available on Netflix

Jacqueline Reich, Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies

My Brilliant Friend (2018-present)
There are two seasons available of this amazing adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s four novel series set in Naples beginning in 1945. Most of the actors are non-professional, and there are wonderful echoes to Italian neorealism and other film traditions. It is compelling storytelling at its best, and when we can’t travel to Italy, the series transports us there.
Available on HBO

Borgen (2010-2013)
Borgen is probably one of the most highly praised international television series in recent memory, and Netflix subscribers can now see it for the first time. It revolves around the first Danish female prime minister and her family as she adapts to her new role. You will be riveted. Also along these lines on Netflix is The Crown, with Season 4 having just been released.
Available on Netflix

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)
One of the pioneering television series of the 1970s, Mary Tyler Moore plays Mary Richards, a single career woman living in Minneapolis. It was one of the first shows to feature work life and home life (modeled after The Dick Van Dyke Show, also starring Moore), and spawned several spinoffs (Rhoda, Phyllis, Lou Grant). I watched all seven seasons during the worst of the quarantine, and Mary’s sunny disposition and optimism were just what I needed. For a great companion read, I recommend the book Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted by Jennifer Kieshin Armstrong, which tells the background story behind the scenes.
Available on Hulu

Clint Ramos, Assistant Professor of Design and Head of Design and Production

Alone (2015-present)I love it because it shows you how we really need socialization.
Available on Netflix

Street Food (2019)
It’s set both in Asia and Latin America. I love it because it’s not about the food, it’s about the people who make the food.
Available on Netflix: Asia and Latin America

Beth Knobel

Occupied (2015-2017)
This multilingual Norwegian three-season television series revolves around a Russian invasion of Norway over energy resources. As someone who spent 14 years living in Moscow, working as a journalist, I was glued to the edge of my seat by the portrayal of the Russians and the twists and turns in this biting political thriller.
Available on Netflix

Books

Heather Dubrow, Professor of English; John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in the Poetic Imagination; and Director, Reading Series, Poets Out Loud

Detective fiction and crime fiction in general! Long-standing favorites include Sherlock Holmes and Ed McBain, especially the ones about the 87th precinct, which I enjoy not least because they are set in New York. 

Michael Connelly has been another favorite for some years—partly because of how the values of the detective are represented (he repeatedly evokes police work as a “mission”) and also because of how the relationship with his daughter has developed in the course of the series. But OK, I’ll let the cat out of the bag: I’m writing a critical article on Connelly, which demonstrates that I need to try harder to follow the advice I give my students about getting away completely from academic work occasionally. 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
What an extraordinary eye and ear he has for English culture.

Seamus Heaney
Not surprisingly, I keep returning to Heaney, virtually any of his poetry books and prose too. 

Why I Am Not a Toddler by Cooper Bennett Burt
Given our troubled times I’d recommend for light reading, especially to people who enjoy some of the originals, the parodies of golden oldie poems Stephanie Burt claims were written by her infant son. One of my favorites there is in fact a riff on the Bishop poem that is itself one of my favorites, “One Art.” [Bishop’s compelling lament, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” becomes the kid’s “The art of mouthing isn’t hard to master . . . And look! my last, or / next to last, of three big crayons…”] 

Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America by Robert Bruegmann (Editor)
I love reopening and flipping through art books, including catalogues of exhibits to which I’ve gone. Art deco means a lot to me, and right now that bedside table also includes a book on deco mailboxes, a sub-sub genre of art deco design no doubt. And I often revisit a couple of books I have on the lacquer creations and other work of Zeshin—wow.

Music

Chuck Singleton, General Manager, WFUV

WFUV’s The Joni Project, which features artists covering songs by iconic singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell

Our Stress-Free Soundtrack pandemic playlist

The EQFM “Album ReCue” series, on landmark albums from women, which includes Spotify playlists of every album and Alisa Ali’s conversation with WFUV DJs

George Bodarky, News Director, WFUV

Everyone should have Nina Simone’s “O-o-h Child” on their playlist, especially now.

But really tapping into ’70s R&B has been uplifting, including “Shining Star” from Earth, Wind & Fire. 

Anne Fernald, Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Every summer, my family and I make a summer playlist. The rule is that it has to be brief enough to fit on a CD (so 100 minutes or so) and that it should capture the mood of the summer. We spend our summers up on the New York side of the Canadian border, listening to a lot of CBC 2. Their smooth-voiced nighttime DJ is a musician called Odario Williams, and his “Low Light (In This Space)” is a song that captures the hopes and aspirations coming out of #BlackLivesMatter.

Also on that playlist was Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto,” which is both heart-breaking and inspiring and just grows and grows on me. 

And I am always charmed by the Swedish song “Snooza” by Säkert! It’s (apparently) about urging your lover to hang out and snooze a little longer. It’s a very cheerful pop song in a language I don’t speak and one of those gifts from the algorithm: a “you might like” song that I love. 

Brandy Monk-Payton, professor in the department of communication and media studies and scholar of black cultural studies, said that there has been a cultural shift in the consciousness of the entertainment industry when it comes to recognizing anti-Black racism.

“I think that there’s been sort of increased attention to thinking about the ways the entertainment industry has reproduced structural racism, whether that be behind the scenes, behind the camera, as well as in front of the camera,” she said. “We see an increased urgency around that conversation in a way that sort of did not exist in the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement.”

The Industry Response

When Black Lives Matter first started in 2013, Monk-Payton said, people were still living under the illusion of a “post-racial” moment of the Obama administration. Television addressed racism in the country at the time through “very special episodes” in shows like Law & Order: SVU or Scandal.

Calls for reform are louder now though, she said. Shows and studios are apologizing for past mistakes, and aiming for a more inclusive future. For example, back in June several creators and actors began apologizing for depicting blackface in the past. In response, TV shows such as 30 Rock, Scrubs, the Office, and more, have removed these episodes from streaming platforms.

Monk-Payton said the elimination of blackface episodes is a show of solidarity, with an emphasis on “show.”

“What I find fascinating about the desire to delete these scenes and episodes with an offense is that it’s not actually examining what I think are more insidious logics of racial representation,” she added.

Instead of just removing offensive episodes, which can build up curiosity about them, Monk-Payton said it’s more important “to situate particular film and TV texts within their proper historical context, providing audiences with accurate information in the way that HBO Max decides to preface Gone With the Wind.” (HBO Max briefly pulled the film from their streaming platform in June, before restoring it with intro videos that include a disclaimer about its historical context and depictions of slavery.)

Reboots of white shows with all Black or people-of-color casts are becoming popularized lately, including a recent reenactment of an episode of Golden Girls starring Black actresses Regina King and Tracee Ellis Ross. However, Monk-Payton warned that these reboots need to be mindful of “what happens when you translate a text into a sort of Black space or the sort of minoritarian space and the cultural specificity becomes really important.”

It isn’t enough to just replace the cast members with Black actors. “If you don’t alter it, then you’re in this kind of colorblind sort of space,” she said.

Award Shows

Award shows have long been criticized for the lack of diversity in their nominees and winners. The Academy Awards recently released a new list of qualifications for nominees that emphasizes diversity and inclusion on and off screen, but Monk-Payton thinks there could be more teeth to the requirements. She noted that many past problematic films would actually meet these new requirements, including Green Book, Crash, and perversely, The Birth of a Nation.

What needs to be changed, she said, is the elite group of people within the Academy who can cast votes.

“Widening that aperture [of who can get nominated]doesn’t change or doesn’t sort of really reckon with the sort of people within the Academy who are still going to assign who’s a winner and who’s a loser,” she said, adding that that elitism “disadvantages people of color in the industry.”

While the Emmys haven’t yet released any new eligibility requirements, there were a record number of both nominations and wins for Black actors this year. Zendaya became the youngest and second-ever Black winner for Best Actress in a Drama. But Monk-Payton emphasized that the “fact that she is only the second means that we still have a very long way to go.”

The HBO series Watchmen, which stars Regina King as a Black female police officer, also won several big awards, including Best Limited Series. Monk-Payton was glad to see Watchmen creator Damon Lindelof dedicate his wins to the victims and survivors of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and emphasize that it wasn’t his story to tell.

“While I do not think that awards shows ever dictate future programming trends,” she added, “I do think that we need more creatives like Lindelof that understand his position of power if we are to have any hope in fundamentally changing the entertainment industry with respect to racial inclusion and equity.”

The Future of Entertainment

As for the future of entertainment, Monk-Payton thinks there has been a “very visceral shift in perspective and acknowledgement” of structural racism ingrained in the industry, but she is somewhat skeptical this change will last.

“A lot of times in diversity work, it’s just a label. You don’t actually create the long lasting change,” she said. “We have to have a more robust understanding of the problem as we’re diagnosing where the actual problem is.”

She added that in addition to on-screen representation, there needs to be more off-screen representation in labor roles like camera people, hair stylists, makeup artists and other behind-the-scenes staffers.

“That also contributes to what we see on screen and whether we see Black actors and performers and characters as dignified, and how we see Black people as human through invisible labor that goes on behind the scenes.”

Monk-Payton said that there have been some promising moments. Shows like Watchmen help us better understand race in America. Media makers like Ava DuVernay and others who care about social change are helping to “fight the good fight in terms of their content,” she said. The entertainment industry, she said, can do their part by supporting these artists.

“I think it’s about creating a pipeline. It’s about empowering these media makers and performers to really utilize their voice.”