Talk (Back) To Me

This post was a long time coming. Sorry about the delay in posting in general, but this has been a rather busy month

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I saw the Petey Greene movie literally the DAY it came out. The movie theatre was full of black people, and I saw maybe one white face in the crowd. I had to drive to Landover to catch it, so I got to see it in the Muvico 17 Egyptian (awesome theatre)

With a good crowd, you can always rely on a great response. Cheadle really seemed a lot like Greene's character but wasn't exactly the man himself. As a person, the last part of Greene's life wasn't spent in a poolhall but in church. Petey also actually became quite a successful man towards the end of his life, even though he remained in relative obscurity. As a radio personality, its true that he was quite a DC figure and still remains one today, but his family has been a little more than reticent to share these other parts of his life that the movie miss. Also, its good to note that his family didn't even get to participate in the making of the film which meant that the very personal side of Petey (like the fact that his wife, Judy, wasn't even in the film) was unseen.

All in all, I thought it was an excellent parody of a character, but talked nothing about a man who was pretty complicated. But then again, I expect nothing less in black film. We usually don't get to see all of ourselves on film, even with a talented black director at the helm. At most, to Hollywood, we're caricatures.