Film: Little (2019)
Screenwriter: Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon
Director: Tina Gordon
Starring: Regina Hall (Jordan Sanders), Issa Rae (April Williams), Marsai Martin (young Jordan Sanders), Trevor (Luke James)
Dear Black Filmmakers, Producers, Actors, and Screenwriters,
I want to start out this post by saying I am really sorry.
In this journey I’ve created, of looking into film as a way to help understand our culture, our collective psyche, and my own formation as a human being, I have been recognizing how still very segregated we all are. I don’t always do a good enough job of getting out of my own milieu to capture enough diversity of experience and creation in this little film blog.
My upbringing, in my early years, involved a lot of television with black creators and actors, as well as music that inspired me by black artists. But at a certain point, when it came to feature films, I watched mostly—if not all—white people tell stories of human truths and connection. I had cable television. It was usually white people showing up on the screen.
I admit I have no idea what it is like to live as a black person in the United States, with full awareness that the country got rich and “powerful” by enslaving my ancestors and disintegrating the structures of my family.
It was on Juneteenth that I realized I wrote about a film made by white people on the actual date, and that made me pretty upset with myself. Clearly something is lacking in my awareness, and clearly my world is too insular, that I would have made that particular mistake.
I began looking into what movies were showing at my local theaters, and what is advertised on my streaming platforms to understand what it was that kept me in one small milieu of moviegoing rather than branching out more often. And when I looked at the local, more artistic theaters I tend to go to for movies—and where I have gone for years—I realized that the movies that are playing are almost always made by, and starring white people. The small county theaters that get the fundraising, the ones that feel intimate and are set up in cute little neighborhoods? These tend to show films by white people, and white people are likely the ones filling the seats. And I am a white person. I have my habits, and I am in the dark.
I am sorry for any unconsciousness on my part with regard to this. I am really, really sorry. This is why the one-person-alone, doing-a-thing, isn’t always so helpful. What I crave, personally, as an artist, is collaboration, and that can be hard to come by in a divided society. People got a lot of stuff to do. People got a lot of pressure. It feels, a lot of the time, like we are all in our own separate tribes, sadly.
I did some researching this week, feeling such sadness for my lack of respect, and I found out about the movie Little, made in 2019, created by black women. How come I never heard of it? What chumps am I spending too much time with, that I missed this film, which is the perfect feel-good, gather-your-girlfriends-to-watch, kind of story?
Little is fun and funny, with great lessons, too. It has all the formulaic elements of high-grossing white-girl movies like The Devil Wears Prada and In Her Shoes (pretty much anything with Anne Hathaway and Cameron Diaz), but the story here is about ambitious, successful, and coming of age black women. The characters are in a situation relatable to so many people—trying to find your way with a difficult boss, or amidst social cliques, and maintain your dignity, and be heard, seen, and supported.
Jordan Sanders (played by Regina Hall) has gotten so focused on her own success and comfort that she treats her employees poorly. She is abrasive, rude, selfish and self-seeking—even though her clothes and make-up are out of this world. April, her assistant (played by Issa Rae), does not know how to stand up to her boss, because she wants to keep her job. Jordan’s main focus is money, and not empathy or the morale of her employees, or any higher vision for her work. It takes a young girl who shows up trying to brighten spirits for people in the company to put a hex on Jordan so that she has to wake up as a middle-schooler and experience adolescence all over again—what it is to be demeaned and insulted, and considered “small.”
Black girl magic is real, people!
While the rich and successful adult Jordan Sanders has everything she could possibly want, the middle-school Jordan Sanders is not given much clout in her classes or school. Her handsome teacher does not respond to her advances (because she is only 13). The kids in the lunchroom do not think she is very special, because she’s the new girl, and they take turns putting straws in her hair when she is not looking. Jordan finds the only nice group in the room—misfits and outcasts that are not “cool,” but have a lot of heart, and who hope and dream and support one another. Jordan makes these quirky kids her entourage, teaches them what she knows about image and perspective, and begins to learn what really matters, beyond “success” and how things look. What matters is friendship—true friendship, not just a list of followers or “friends” on a social media feed, or what things look like on the outside. That external stuff can be bought, fabricated, manufactured. Love, kindness, and support from people who care about your best interest? There is not a financial price to that.
Jordan is an example of a person who was treated unfairly as a kid—bullied and put down—and decided to toughen up and treat others unfairly, and make them fearful of her, so that she would no longer be bullied. But in doing that, she realizes she lost what was actually more meaningful than money or accolades. She lost her heart, and she lost true friends.
Is the path of class and status, to the detriment of one’s own humanity, ever worth it? I can’t imagine it is. A person can have a high-rise apartment, a house in the country, a few nice cars, and pay for assistants to help with it all, but still feel painfully empty and lost on the inside. A healthy and fulfilling life is more about how it feels on the inside, and the richness of good relationships. Luckily, Jordan has some grace in her life, including the attractive-artist-boyfriend named Trevor (played by Luke James) who cares for her even though she’s difficult, and gives us viewers the eye candy and heart-thumping we crave in a “chick flick.”
Marsai Martin is the young actress who plays the adolescent Jordan. Martin was 13 or 14 in the making of this film, and I am astounded by her ability to capture a sassy adult living in a teenage body. Maybe it’s because many adults are still living their teenage selves, and many teenagers have wisdom beyond their years about what matters? Regardless, Martin plays Jordan Sanders with such sass and confidence, you can’t find a trace of doubt in her performance, about who she is and why she matters. That kind of energy just is what it is, and there is no getting around the truth of such brightness and light—in the actor or the character.
Toward the end of the movie, in a conversation with April, the young Jordan shares something that we can all take to heart:
I’ve been winning the wrong way. I realize that I wasn’t letting people be themselves because I never accepted myself. Now I know that I can win and still be me.
As all the yogis and spiritual teachers share, it is not about the “what” we have or “what we achieve”; it is about the “how” we go about it. The energy and space from which we propel ourselves forward in this world is, as the yogi Sadghuru shares in his book Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, our karma.
Jordan has made herself a name as a business owner by working hard and treating people like trash. She is fortunate to have a few people who stick around, even though she doesn’t necessarily deserve their good graces. What she learns through being an adolescent, and going through an experience where she is not in charge, is how to treat people, and what really matters in the grand scheme of things.
She also discovers what a joy and pleasure it is to buy your employees doughnuts sometimes. Doughnuts seem to go a long way in this world. People just freak out and love you when you get them doughnuts.
In Peace,
Ms. Wonderful-ish-y
Starting next week on the Ms. Wonderful Film Club, we will be examining the work of actor/director/artist Ethan Hawke for the Ms. W blog and podcast. If you want to follow along and watch the films McGraw and Rose will be discussing this summer, they are as follows:
Dead Poets Society (June 29-June 30)
Hamlet (July)
Great Expectations (July)
Wildcat (August)
We will sprinkle in other Ethan Hawke films, but these have the literary connection that began the friendship for McGraw and Rose.
Check out our first podcast episode and see if you like what we are saying.
Happy Solstice and summer, and subscribe for updates.