Ep. 341: Deconstructing The ”New” Candyman Film -- Is it a Masterpiece or Something Else Entirely?

Adilifu Nama is Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is the author of several books including Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes. His newest book is I Wonder U: How Prince Went beyond Race and Back.

Nama critically interrogates the “new” film “Candyman” and locates it relative to horror genre conventions, cinematic representations of black pain and trauma, and what if anything the film has to offer in terms of a substantive engagement with the black culture industry and “representation” and so-called “wokeness”.

Nama also makes a very provocative intervention that “Candyman” may in fact be Jordan Peele’s way of speaking back to (white) critics and the general public’s expectations about the trajectory of his career after the success of “Get Out”.

By contrast, Chauncey makes the claim that “Candyman” may in fact be a genius film – depending on what is revealed about the intentionality of Jordan Peele and Nia DaCosta in terms of parody and the film’s too obvious political commentary.

On this week’s podcast, Chauncey also reflects on America’s spiral down to outright fascism as seen in how Texas and the Supreme Court are taking away women’s and black and brown people’s civil and human rights.

SELECTED LINKS OF INTEREST FOR THIS EPISODE OF THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW

• Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging
• Sotomayor’s Defiant Dissent
• Roe v Wade died with barely a whimper. But that’s not all
• Republicans Are Giving Abortion Opponents Power Over the Rest of Us
• The Sinister Origins of the Texas Abortion Law, and Why Democrats Are So Unprepared to Do Anything About It
• Trumpists live in an alternate reality — but they believe in it, and that's terrifying

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Music at the end of this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show is by JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound. You can listen to some of their great music on Spotify.