Queer Eye (2018)
NAIROBI — Marie Ainomugisha’s WhatsApp notifications lit up within minutes of the ban on a film about a forbidden romance between two young women being temporarily lifted.
Her group chat was buzzing, and so were her DMs. It felt like nearly all of her friends were asking the same thing: Now that they were allowed to watch Rafiki, how would they get tickets?
As it turned out, Ainomugisha, a 24-year-old film editor, was the closest of everyone she knew to the only movie theater in Nairobi screening Rafiki. So she quickly hopped on her bike, rode the 1.5 miles from her office to Prestige Cinema, and scooped up a handful of tickets for the first showing: Sunday at 10 a.m. She’d been planning on going out Saturday night to celebrate her 24th birthday, but quickly canceled those plans. This, she thought, was more important.
Ainomugisha’s reaction was mirrored by hundreds of other young Kenyans, especially in the creative and LGBT communities, who had been gripped by the drama surrounding Rafiki. It all started when the Kenya Film Classification Board banned all screenings of the film in the country in April because, according to the board, it “promoted lesbianism” and went against the country’s dominant values. That meant, despite Rafiki being the first Kenyan film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival; despite the fact that it was shot in Kenya, was directed by a Kenyan, and features an all-Kenyan cast, Kenyans could not watch Rafiki in their own country. Since the ban, it has also shown in Durban, South Africa; Zanzibar, Tanzania; and Toronto, Canada.
So on Sept. 12, Wanuri Kahiu, who directed the film, sued the classification board, urging them to lift the ban so that she could submit it as an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. (According to Academy rules, a film has to be shown for seven consecutive days in the country where it was produced in order to be considered a nominee.)
And she won.
me, talking to a dog: you’re soft. are you even aware of your mortality? of course ur not. u pure, wholesome and sentient unselfish being. do u feel that? that’s my heart. i love you. look at those ears. here take my wallet
Our neighbor didn’t die, he was just needed someplace else.
He took a moment that was about recognizing him and turned it into a moment to recognize everyone who was there and everyone who made it possible for him to do what he does. If you want a perfect example of why he is so fondly remembered and such a great person, it’s tough to find a better one than this.
I’m going to need y’all to stop putting the stuff on my dash and reducing me to a pile of tears. I swear Mr. Rogers just instantly turns on the faucet for me.
Just look at the faces on the audience. You can tell how moved they are to think of the people who helped them along the way. Maybe they were thinking of a grandmother or a sibling or a best friend or kindly neighbor. He made that moment so real for all of them.
“Early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television— gently, of course— to just shut up
for once, and television listened. He had already won his third Daytime
Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy’s Lifetime Achievement
Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show
sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting
saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone,
‘All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you
just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people
who have helped you become who you are… Ten seconds of silence.’ And
then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his
watch, and said softly, ‘I’ll watch the time,’ and there was, at first, a
small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as
people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man,
an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked…
and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds… and now the
jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears
fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal
chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said,
‘May God be with you’ to all his vanquished children.“
- Tom Junod, Esquire
I love the idea of Mr. Rogers being an authority figure you wouldn’t dare disobey, not out of fear but out of pure, overflowing, deep respect. To disappoint him is unfathomable.
amyordman