Brangelina have twins!

And here's proof: Apparently Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twins in Nice, France. Above is the Mayor of the city holding up the birth certificates. Welcome to the world, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline! Shiloh, Zahara, Maddox and Pax are like, super duper excited to meet the additions to the clan--er...family.

Wombs for Rent?

So Oprah's show on Thursday discussed the journey to parenthood with couples involved in surrogacy. Couple Jennifer and Kendall opened up to correspondent Lisa Ling about their journey to have a child after unsuccessful attempts at conceiving. Enter the Akanksha Infertility and IVF Clinic in Anand, India. This clinic houses Indian women for the 9 month gestation period where they are artificially inseminated with the embryos of a couple. Most of the people these women service are American couples, as it costs roughly $12,000 in the country instead of upwards of $50,000 in the United States.

I have to admit, I sort of cringed during the segment...with "exploitation" and "objectification" being the two buzz words to describe this method of conceiving. The discourse around surrogacy can be pejorative, with some likening it to a baby brokering service. It can even escalate when these mothering incubators are women who are required to leave their homes and sometimes forced to keep their pregnancies a secret from their families due to societal values and norms in the culture. Though Oprah's program did include interviews with these Indian women, the slant of the segment was decidedly pro-America (read: pro-rich white couples), focusing on a holistic approach to the idea that women across borders can share a deep bond and as Lisa Ling comments, cultivate a sort of "transnational ambassador" role for the conceived child.

So both parties involved get what they want...American couples get the child they always wanted and the Indian women are able to provide for their own families with the $5000 they get for their services, akin to 10 years worth of working. But I still feel somewhat iffy about the whole process. What does it mean that we go to India to outsource customer service for technological products as well as people to have our children? Is this a new phase of globalization? What does this situation look like through a postcolonialist lens? How do we approach this as a trannsational feminist conversation? Hmmm...maybe more on this later.

What's Race Got To Do With It? Will Smith as Fractured Superhero

Many of our most beloved superheroes face not only super villains but also super existential crises. Who am I? Where did I come from? What is my Purpose? Obligated to keep their “true” identities hidden, they are forced to self-regulate their images both publicly and privately until inevitably someone unearths their secret life. This is the general plight for our comic book-turned-film protagonists.

Except for people like Hancock. Hancock (Will Smith) is in many ways the superhero for our jaded postmodern era. He does not prescribe to the same formulaic narrative of the likes of larger than life DC do-gooders Batman or Superman. Nor does he exactly fit in with Marvel misfits Spiderman, Iron Man, or The Hulk. Hancock plays by his own rules (that of drunken asshole in need of anger management classes) and feigns nonchalance at his less than stellar representation in the public eye for screwing Los Angeles up on a daily basis with his unchecked superpowers.

Enter public relations executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), an idealistic publicist (oxymoron you say???) who believes in saving the world and Hancock’s bruised image. I won’t pour over the details of the B-movie because what I really want to discuss is the construction of our beloved Will Smith as a superhero himself of extraordinary capabilities.

Thomas C. Holt in The Problem of Race in the 21^st Century writes of Michael Jordan and his ability to transcend race in the global marketplace. The uber-successful marketing campaign “I Wanna Be Like Mike” becomes a consumptive exercise for the public to forget difference. What does it mean to be “like Mike?” While it may certainly connote his excellent sportsmanship and talent, it most certainly doesn’t refer to his racial identity. His race is effectively erased from his image only to be marked when the dominant society brands him as an exemplary figure of the potentiality of African-Americans. It is my assertion that Will Smith is indicative of this “Michael Jordan Effect” for the millennium.

Hancock is yet another one of many roles in which Smith’s racial identity does not play a factor in the filmic text. Hancock is simply just a guy and his blackness is never accented-- except for comic moments such as the superhero flying to a freeway to straighten up some clearly marked Latino criminals as Ludacris’ “Move Bitch” plays as soundtrack to the scene. Furthermore, Smith has a track record for roles that involve romantic relationships with non-black women—whether it be Eva Mendes in Hitch or Charlize Theron in Hancock. When he is linked with African-American females on screen, it is usually because in the film he is marked as black.[1] No other black actor has really pulled off this feat simply because no other black actor can play a universal race card like Smith can. Audiences are drawn to him simply because he is Will Smith.

This is an interesting observation if only because the story of Smith’s production and consumption as a black star bizarrely follows his role in the emotional profile of Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness. In playing Gardner as a character, Smith reflexively relives his own transcendence of race...from Fresh Prince to Hollywood's 4th of July release Golden Boy...to obtain the American Dream. How patriotic!

Now finally back to Hancock. Is he a black superhero? Survey says no. If Hancock was actually coded as black then the film would have a lot of explaining to do. It would become not just your unique superhero text but rather a commentary on urban waste, homelessness and poverty in the black community, and yes…the maladaptiveness of interracial relationships. While you can still read these ideas on the film, Hancock makes sure it does not highlight them with Will Smith as star. Therefore the film is as much about Hancock’s image as it is about Will Smith’s fractured relationship with racial identity in his career.

Whew.

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[1] His relationship with Vivica A. Fox in Independence Day is duly noted as an aberration in this formula.

Robot Romance

*credit to Rotten Tomatoes*

Yesterday I went to see Pixar's latest CG romp, Wall-E. I had no desire to watch the film at first, fond memories of Finding Nemo and Ratatouille still embedded in my brain, their awesomeness not to be touched by some...robot...with a funny voice. But the buzz got the best of me and I found myself at the theater at 10 am in an audience filled with kids and old people. The verdict?

I absolutely LOVED this movie. With a great story and clever execution, I haven't had this much fun as an audience member in a long time. While Wall-E is a cautionary tale about the effects of global warming and mankind's ability to destroy all of its resources (to the point where we all become huge computer graphic tubs of lard in outer space sitting in automated chairs that give us food in a cup), the most endearing message of the film came from one of mankind's oldest master narratives: Love Conquers All.

The film gets a little help from the musical "Hello, Dolly!" to get its point across about the merits of finding love. From the initial credit sequence, we understand that Wall-E is a professed lover of musical theater. And he has a penchant for Barbara Streisand. One of the numbers in the musical that becomes a thread throughout the entire film is "It Only Takes a Moment" sung by Michael Crawford and Marianne McAndrew. The scene details a lovestruck Cornelius who croons about how his life changed when he moved out of Yonkers and fell in love with the lovely hat-maker Irene in just a "moment". Wall-E watches this scene numerous times in his make-shift home, particularly the moment where Cornelius and Irene finally touch via hand holding. It is this instant of pressing need for (human) contact that makes Wall-E not just a robot, but an actual person capable of emotional desire. When he finally meets the sleek and chic Eve, it is love at first sight for Wall-E. The film is at its best when depicting the theme of love through these two main characters. Adding to the intensity of their romance is the fact that for 95% of the movie, their names are all they can communicate to each other through words. I couldn't help but relate Wall-E's pained cry of "Ev-uh!" to Marlon Brando's heartwrenching shouting of "Stella!" from A Streetcar Named Desire. The characters' frequent attempts at successful connection are not at all circuitous, but rather provide a solid framework for the narrative as a whole. And it made me tear up a little, particularly when Eve realizes that Wall-E loves her through reviewing her own security footage.

In "It Only Takes a Moment," Cornelius wonders, "Isn't the world for wonderful things?" The film directly deals with this issue, in reminding us of the beauty of life, living, and most of all love. For me, Wall-E is inevitably a tale of what lengths we are able to go to for such things.