Dahling,
I fall asleep during so many movies. It may run in my DNA—who knows? When I went to see one of those Star Wars movies in the theater? Zonked out. Some fancy 1930 flick called Morocco, which I was so excited to see on the big screen? Can’t tell you what happened in the last third. And I didn’t even have wine or a reclining seat when I fell asleep during that one.
This happens to me when I stream films at home, too. I put them on, I drift off, I rarely go back because it was just another drop in the bucket of the crowd of things that flicker and dim.
But Bruiser, on Hulu, starring Trevante Rhodes, Shamier Anderson, and Jalynn Hall—well, that movie I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. to watch. And I am usually long asleep by that point.
I got Hulu for the sole purpose of watching the work of Trevante Rhodes. I need to study and gaze at this actor of magic and craft. He has something beyond what normal actors have. He’s gorgeous, first of all, and I do love a gorgeous moviestar to watch if I am dedicating two hours of my life to a screen. It’s the aura though, of this man, that pulls me in. There is presence, an energy field, solely his own. And now, with Toula67 Entertainment—whose mission is “to create southern centric, auteur driven films, led by people of color”—he is establishing filmmaking that reflects honesty, beauty, artistic humility and craft, and so much depth and wisdom of heart.
What Bruiser accomplishes, and what it invokes, is the question of role models, mentorship, leadership, what a father is. The exploration of black masculinity on-screen.
What do I know about black masculinity? I am a white woman and mom. I cannot speak to what it feels like to be a father, or a black person in America. I can’t say from any personal experience what it is to be a black man in a culture where black men have been beaten and crushed by forces in society that have wanted to convince us all that white skin is superior. I can’t speak to what it might feel like to carry the pain and trauma of so many generations who have been beaten down, taught messages of indignity, challenged by a systemic tide trying to hold them back in family, money, and life.
But I can speak to the feeling of a being a kid who wants a dad to look up to. Wanting a dad who offers love and support, encouragement, advice, friendship. I know the longing for a good father, and that is why I felt most strongly for the 14-year-old character Darius, played by Jalynn Hall.
(Look at Jalyn Harris for a moment, here. There is an angel beaming inside him. Talk about a lamp on a stand!)
I don’t want to spoil any of the gift of this film, Bruiser, in the way it unfolds, and the lessons it reveals. So let’s just say Darius has two parents who love him and mentor him as a young man. Two parents who want to be actively involved in his life. And instead of finding a way to teach him the expansiveness of love, and helping him find a way to love both in a way that keeps a healthy stability in his life, these two adults have a battle that becomes more about themselves than what is best for him. Their battle becomes a competition for worthiness, for the dad trophy: Who is bigger and better! Who deserves more attention! Who has done more work! Who made the bigger mistakes!
And on and on.
Isn’t this why spiritual scriptures teach love of your enemies? To show that fighting leads only to destruction instead of growth? Because if you keep engaging in battle, the battle goes on and on, and so much life goes unlived while you are fighting to establish a superiority complex so flimsy it can fall away overnight.
Darius wants both men, both father-figures, in his life. Both offer something significant. Why should he have to choose one over the other?
There is the biological dad who made a choice to leave, and comes back with a new gleam in his eye, a different heart, and hope. And there is the dad who spends years of energy, and the financial and emotional investment to raise a son, who seeks to protect his boy and guide him into a man, but who loses his mind and his way when he sees that his grip as an authority figure is weakening.
Beautiful Bruiser asks questions: Are parents owed something back for the time, attention, and love they give children? Is a blood relationship stronger than a time-relationship? What levels are too far when it comes to one’s desire to protect a child?
When you try to force gratitude on a kid for the energy and time you’ve invested, gratitude becomes guilt, and a kid may grow into an adult who feels unworthy of the gifts he receives. All investment toward him, all acts of love, he learns, come with a repayment plan. Love is a control mechanism, a weight hanging around his neck—Do I deserve this? What do I owe back? Can I accept love without an obligated return of services?
It is only through time that a teenager (and even an adult) can begin to see and feel the value of what has been given to him or her—not through explanation, anger, and pushiness. And let’s throw God into this equation—the true God. Because all things are possible with God, though we may not know who God is if we are forced to look at him or her in an ivory statue only on Sundays.
And so, while the movie has a unique twist on the story of two parents who both want love and time with their child—what we can see is a child’s desire to have adults he can look up to, who know a way forward without fists and put-downs, through friendship and equanimity instead.
A child—or any human being—isn’t a possession or a prize. He is entitled to his own mode of expression, his own journey, no matter his age.
What would happen if a father sat his kid down, and instead of suggesting he has all authority and knows everything, tells his son, “This is how I feel. And this is why I am concerned. And I am human, too. Can I hear from you, so we can determine a way forward?”
For love is never an ultimatum. Love is never a hostage situation. When a parent engages with a child through force or control or manipulation—love me this way, or that way, respect me, look at what I’ve done for you, remember what this man/person did or didn’t do, look at all the imperfections of that other person and how right and good I am to you—well, the only thing that child will begin to do is grow up gravitating to more people and places where he feels like a hostage. He will think love is a battlefield, a weight, a sea of scars instead of freedom. Love becomes a duty, a show. Manning up then, is about constricting. Lessening yourself. Ignoring your own inclinations and soul. And until such a painful pattern is stopped and transformed, it goes and goes.
What would I do, if I were a kid getting convinced I was the root cause in a battle like that?
I might just get my license and a car, and keep driving.
Cheers, XO,
Ms. Wonderful
The Ms. Wonderful Film Club is all about exploring relationships through story and film. See the vision for The Institute for Healthy Relationships here.