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jb-blaq · 5 years

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Luke Cage is the Voice of this Moment in African America.

By Jre Best

July 20th, San Diego Comic-Con, 5:45 pm, I am in the audience of the “Luke Cage” panel. Cheo Hodari Coker The showrunner for "Luke Cage" says "The world is ready for a bulletproof Black man" and when he said that I knew that we were in for something special September 30th, 2016. The Netflix "Luke Cage" series is possibly the most relevant television series of this decade so far, it is a show that not only captures black culture but discusses the problems within black culture with a level of intelligence that I rarely see. It's a show with a lot on its mind and a lot to say and tries to say it in the most entertaining way it can, making a modern-day blaxploitation television series. Does this approach work? Did it strike a chord with audiences? Did it get across its point clearly? That's what I'm going to be looking into.

A little context "Luke Cage" is based on the Marvel comics character of the same name more specifically the comic book "Luke Cage Hero for Hire” from 1972 which was where he first appeared. This was Marvel's way of capitalizing on the blaxploitation genre of film which was at an all-time height at this point. The premise of the series was simple Carl Lucas was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. At this prison he was subjected to cruel and unusual experiment that left him with bulletproof skin. After breaking out of jail he forms the Heroes for Hire if you need a job done and had the cash to pay for it then you go to Luke Cage. It was a fun and clever premise for the time, unfortunately, it didn't last too long with the series being canceled a year later. Then the series was revitalized and just called Heroes for Hire where it starred Luke Cage and fellow superhero Iron Fist, who also has received his own Netflix series. Nowadays this book is known for being a cult classic and rather important to the comic book industry known for its culturally relevant storytelling. Unfortunately, at the time Blaxploitations hay day had passed and started becoming derided by so-called “enlightened film press” As seen in Williams, LA and Carmona, George article in the New York Amsterdam News. So heroes for hire and Luke Cage faded into the background only really being brought up to be laughed at as a silly some might say offensive figure. It took a long time for mainstream culture to come to terms with blaxploitation movies and the conversation about these films is still going on today but generally, nowadays people agree that there was a lot of value in these seemingly schlocky films. This widespread reappraisal mostly happened around the early 2000s, documentaries like “BaadAsssss Cinema” and tribute films like “Undercover Brother.” This was also the same time when Marvel felt it would be good to bring back Luke and in a big way not only was he a supporting cast member in a critically acclaimed series called Alias but also was moved to Marvel's premier team the Avengers, eventually coming to lead his own Avengers team. Nowadays Luke Cage is one of Marvel's most respected and beloved black superheroes. So when Marvel decided it was going to start making Netflix series based on some of its street-level superheroes it was no question that Luke was going to get one.

With such an important and interesting character as Luke Cage who was going to make the show? Enter Cheo Hodari Coker the man behind Southland Tales one of the most beloved and well-written television series of the 21st-century. Coker was brought onboard to run "Luke Cage" not only because of his history as a showrunner but also because he had a pre-existing love for the character and knew that you could do a lot with the show. Coker was determined to make sure “Luke Cage” felt as authentic as possible even saying in an interview with the Philadelphia Tribune that it’s important that Luke Cage isn’t "a hero that happened to be Black, The same way I'm not a showrunner that happens to be Black." "Luke Cage" couldn’t have come out at a better point in time not even two years away from the infamous Ferguson riots and the mass reporting on police shootings of unarmed black men, “Luke Cage” came in and became the hero that the black community needed at that time. Speaking from my own experiences it was scary even for someone who lived in a place that seemed as safe as San Diego it was still a scary time, the community was angry and scared. And Coker knew that making a show about a bulletproof black man at this point in time was a big deal.

As for the show itself it delivered. "Luke Cage" is a show that gets black culture. I watch a lot of TV & Movies, I read a lot of comics, and due to the states of those industries most of the media I consume is made by white people which isn't a problem at all but I've always felt a sort of disconnection from it; there's something about the way the characters talk they don't feel relatable to me. In the same way, I find there's a disconnection when I'm talking to white people as opposed to say, my family. But with "Luke Cage", I don't get that. I often say everyone in "Luke Cage" is someone I've met before. This is because "Luke Cage" is one of the few western tv shows where the characters don’t speak “proper English” they speak in AAVE or African-American Vernacular English. AAVE is commonly misunderstood as slang AAVE is actually the evolution of the specific type of English Africans slaves used when they were brought to America. Most fail to understand the difference and simply have their black characters lazily speak in ridiculous and vapid slang. The use of AAVE is a big part of the reason "Luke Cage" is so good at representing black culture.

Bulletproof. Bulletproof Skin isn't something special in the realm of superheroes, it isn't even special when compared to superheroes on TV or film. It's usually among a heroes least impressive abilities so why is it so important in Luke Cage? To understand why Luke Cage having Bulletproof Skin is so important you need to know the history not only of police brutality but of America's relationship with the gun. America's one of the youngest first world nations out there. The United States didn't exist before firearms, more importantly, we wouldn't be an independent country without them. Guns whether you like it or not are a part of the American identity. But the slaves that these Americans owned, the gun wasn’t a symbol of power, how could it be? It was just another tool for oppression. Quick long range death that guaranteed that even if you were a fast runner there was still no escape from your enslavement. Even when slavery was abolished and torture devices like the cat-of-nine-tails or the tin mask faded away the gun remained. Guns have never stopped being a symbol of oppression for African Americans. Gun violence from Law Officers on people of color has never not been an issue in America as seen in Katie Nodjimbadems article “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” but in recent years the media increased their coverage of stories like the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and now people are angry again and want things to change. Things like Black Lives Matter have started and people aren't afraid to talk about this anymore. Here comes Luke Cage a character whose defining trait is that he is a black man that cannot be shot down, is getting a show released on the biggest streaming platform on the planet (Netflix) backed by the biggest entertainment company on the planet (Disney) the timing couldn't be more perfect. Samantha Blackmon shines a light on Lukes clothes in her essay “Be Black for Me: Lincoln clay and Luke Cage the Heroes We Need” she points out that Luke is commonly dressed and dark hoodies which resemble the clothes that Trayvon Martin was shot down in. This is not some coincidence, the image of a black hoodie riddled with bullet holes is use time and again in "Luke Cage" all this culminating in the sequence Bulletproof Love. A little context Luke Cage is being assaulted by a police officer well he's heavily injured, he doesn't want to engage the cop but he is forced into throwing the man into a nearby car and injuring him. Footage of this is captured and goes viral, along with Diamondback the main villain killing a cop while impersonating Luke. In one day Luke goes from Harlem's hero to public enemy number one with the entire Harlem City Police Department after him. Later on, Luke Cage ends up running into and saving Method Man from the Wu-Tang Clan and Luke gives him his hoodie which just so happens to have bullet holes in it at the time, what first seems just like a cute cameo becomes a whole lot more. We follow Method Man to a radio show where he talks about his experience running into Luke Cage. He defends Luke's character describing him as a hero and when the host of the show ask Method Man to end the show with a freestyle he raps Bulletproof Love. It's a song all about Luke Cage describing him as the hoods superhero someone who stands not only for himself but for his community of Harlem. And as this song plays we see a montage of the police in pursuit of Luke but unable to find him because the people of Harlem start wearing all his previously cast aside bullet-riddled hoodies in an effort to protect Luke. The hoodie has become a symbol of Harlem’s hero. It's a sequence that is great not only because of the context of the show around it but also because of the then current day. After the 24-hour news cycles covering all these police shootings, a song that acknowledges the love shared between the black community. Something saying that things will be okay, it made me cry the first time I saw it. That's why Luke Cage being bulletproof is so important.

Unfortunately, the thing that's probably the biggest mistake of "Luke Cage" is also the thing most people were looking forward to and that was the commentary on police shootings and gun violence within the black community. Besides the bulletproof sequence, and a few bits in the latter half of the show it's hard to even say that it fumbles the police brutality angle and more so doesn't want to talk about it. Except for flashbacks of Luke being treated unfairly in prison most of his interactions with police officers are peaceful, there are dirty cops but they're under the employee of the real villains of Cottonmouth, Black Mariah, and Diamondback. Not that it’s necessarily a flaw that the police are depicted mostly in a positive manner but to come out of the time that it did with the premise that it has it seems like an immense missed opportunity to not comment on the then current events more. These events are probably the reason this show got so much marketing and attention on it in the first place. But that's not the only flaw. Luke Cage's main ability is that he is bulletproof this is important to his character and to what he means, while the "Luke Cage" show does not choose to talk that much about police brutality it does have a lot to say about gun violence and it does it very well. Which is why it's so unfortunate that one of the biggest twists in the shows and the main plot element is that one of the villains Diamondback creates a gun that actually can pierce Luke Cage's skin. The metaphorical meaning of that is zero; what does this represent? Nothing, it comes off as cheap only there so there can be some suspense that Luke Cage might die at some point during the series. It doesn't work and these two issues are the biggest problems in "Luke Cage".

Despite these issues I love Luke Cage, It's a bright and bold television show that takes all the elements that informs and inspires it and presents them proudly. This show is destined to become one of those classics in the realm of African American entertainment that captures it's moment in time so well it's surprising. As I'm writing this we are only two weeks past the premiere of “Black Panther” Marvel's first film starring a black main character, the most successful blockbuster with a majority black cast and the first Hollywood feature to embrace Afrofuturism as its defining aesthetic. And we are only one week away from A Wrinkle in Time premiering in America the first film directed by an African American woman to have a 9 digit budget. We're entering into a new era of media. Stories told by African-Americans about African Americans are finally being put on the same global stage as everybody else. And Luke Cage is a part of that movement a little bit of the future that we got in the present. Sweet Christmas.

Work Cited

Blackmon, Samantha. “Be Real Black For Meâ: Lincoln Clay and Luke Cage as the Heroes We Need.”CEA Critic, vol. 79, no. 1, 2017, pp. 97–109., doi:10.1353/cea.2017.0006]

Coker, Cheo Hodari, et al. Luke Cage, Season 1, Netflix , 30 Sept. 2016.

L A, Williams, and Carmona George. “Cage Match: Does the Comics' 'Luke Cage' Jibe with TV's?” New York Amsterdam News, 6 Oct. 2016, pp. 1–1.

Lisa Respers, France. “'Marvel's Luke Cage' Is Music to Cheo Coker's Ears.” Philadelphia Tribune, 4 Oct. 2016, pp. 4B–4B.

Nodjimbadem, Katie. “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” Smithsonian, 27 July 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/.

Sliva, Tylah, and Emerson College. “What's the Difference Between Slang and AAVE?” Study Breaks, 5 July 2017, studybreaks.com/culture/aave/.

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