Karen: The Karens Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

 

Karen- Who Is She, What Is She Up To, And Why. So what compelled African American filmmaker Coke Daniels to make this movie on the Karen racist phenomenon - starring Orange Is The New Black's Taryn Manning as the Karen in question, and civil rights George Floyd family attorney Ben Crump turning up on screen too. 

Though a Karen movie is long overdue, it's by no means a recent ugly phenomenon - and really as old as this country itself. Whether precipitating the countless slave and Jim Crow lynchings or some of the most glaring reported cases of Emmett Till and the Tulsa Massacre with connections to the particular phenomenon of white female racism, it's about time to say the least. And though critics out there are not at all happy with this particular Atlanta Karen created by Daniels, their motivations may be either bossy backseat driver tendencies to have not made a movie their way - or methinks the Karens doth protest too much. 

Or perhaps it's considered a violation of the unspoken demand when it comes to placating liberal guilt at the movies, that an emotional rather than political catharsis is required for a stamp of approval on any film about what is always the controversial topic of racism. So were they dismayed at not encountering to their liking a documentary or a weepie instead. Though admittedly, that fast forward happy ending seemed in too much of a rush to cut narrative corners. 

In any case, props to Daniels, in reviving the subversive, irreverent blaxploitation genre - while continuing the emerging Black Renaissance in film to make movies their way, in its challenge to that entrenched cultural apartheid in Hollywood and beyond. Not to mention the reference in the movie to the covert blue brotherhood of cops because yes, the police force in this country originated in plantation slave patrols to hunt down runaway slaves.

Said Daniels in my conversation with the filmmaker: "My film is for other communities to just feel, you know, the pain and anguish of what black people go through in this country on a regular basis. And this is just putting a band aid on a bullet wound. But I would just hope that showing my film in this light will maybe put the mirror to some of the Karen types of behavior in people's faces, to say hey - this is ugly what we do..." 

Oh, and by the way, regarding one critic mocking the inclusion of 'a wailing trumpeter for some reason' - hey, a little research never hurt any review. That 'wailing trumpeter for some reason' happens to be renowned Grammy Award winning jazz musician Keyon Harrold Sr., a victim along with his young son of Soho Karen in NYC, and who likewise similarly performed in a protest gathering following that horrendous incident. 

Prairie Miller