{"id":153159,"date":"2021-05-07T07:41:28","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T07:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=135600"},"modified":"2021-05-07T07:41:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T07:41:28","slug":"lady-day-and-the-feds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/05\/07\/lady-day-and-the-feds-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Day and the Feds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States Vs.\u00a0Billie Holiday<\/em>\u00a0is a powerful biopic streaming on Hulu now.\u00a0Academy Award nominee\u00a0Andra Day nails the\u00a0times and troubles of the famous\u00a0blues singer known as Lady Day, as she battles racial capitalism during the Jim Crow era.<\/p>\n

Lee Daniels,\u00a0whose body of work includes\u00a0Precious<\/em>\u00a0(2009),\u00a0directs\u00a0The United States Vs. Billie Holiday<\/em>. \u00a0If you watched the former film, you know that he pulls no punches. In the current film under review, Daniels grabs viewers with his unflinching\u00a0depictions of the anti-blackness that Holiday experienced,\u00a0and\u00a0in\u00a0part,\u00a0facilitated\u00a0her drug addiction.\u00a0Some scribes have criticized Daniels\u00a0on the latter score.\u00a0I do not, and this is why.<\/p>\n

Daniels\u00a0socially\u00a0contextualizes Holiday\u2019s addiction\u00a0to heroin. He does this\u00a0via flashbacks and characters\u2019 dialogue.\u00a0I think that approach works. Some critics disagree.<\/p>\n

To say that Holiday\u2019s life of 44 years was no crystal staircase is the year\u2019s understatement. The harm she experienced in childhood and later left her traumatized\u00a0and susceptible to illegal drug use.\u00a0\u00a0Uncle Sam\u2019s response is repression, attacking Holiday through her\u00a0heroin addiction.<\/p>\n

Andra Day\u2019s portrayal of\u00a0Holiday\u00a0conveys\u00a0her\u00a0pain and suffering, but also the wit and wisdom of the singer,\u00a0well.\u00a0Like the black singer Ma Rainey, Lady Day struggled to receive just compensation for her artistry, which legions of fans loved. The scenes of\u00a0Holiday singing such songs as\u00a0All of Me <\/em>are\u00a0<\/em>memorable for that reason. Andra Day\u2019s\u00a0terrific voice\u00a0soars.<\/p>\n

Trevante Rhodes,\u00a0who I first saw\u00a0play the main character Chiron\u00a0as an adult\u00a0in\u00a0Moonlight\u00a0<\/em>(2016),is one of the\u00a0characters in Daniels\u2019\u00a0film who complements Holiday.\u00a0Rhodes\u00a0plays Jimmy Fletcher, an African American\u00a0government agent who entraps Lady Day and comes full circle to adore her.\u00a0Fletcher works in a racially segregated\u00a0office\u00a0within the Federal Department of Narcotics, a testament to the color line of that time.<\/p>\n

COINTELPRO, the federal government program to disrupt and destroy\u00a0radical political\u00a0groups such as\u00a0The American Indian\u00a0Movement and\u00a0The Black Panther Party in the 1960s,\u00a0has a history. We get a slice of that in\u00a0The United States Vs. Billie Holiday<\/em>, a testament to Daniels\u2019 political consciousness whereby class and color intersect.<\/p>\n

In brief, Uncle Sam\u00a0seeks to end Holiday\u2019s career as a popular singer because she performs\u00a0Strange Fruit<\/em>, the anti-lynching ballad\u00a0that Abel Meeropol, son of the executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,\u00a0wrote. Holiday\u2019s\u00a0then-husband and others prodded\u00a0her to cease and desist\u00a0singing\u00a0Strange Fruit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As the lead\u00a0government\u00a0agent\u00a0aiming to\u00a0muffle her\u00a0artistic\u00a0<\/a>voice of dissent,\u00a0Harry J. Anslinger\u00a0is a proxy for\u00a0Uncle Sam\u2019s\u00a0anti-black\u00a0drug policies. The aim is to stifle the fledgling civil rights movement. Such punitive policies are systemic. They range from cooptation to repression.<\/p>\n

Johan Hari\u2019s\u00a02015 book\u00a0Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is the basis for Daniels\u2019\u00a0The United States Vs. Billie Holiday<\/em>. The and now, the Drug War, U.S.-style, is an excuse to persecute and prosecute African Americans.\u00a0Daniels\u00a0shows\u00a0how Uncle Sam harmed one of the greatest singers of the 20th<\/sup>century, a relevant tendency that connects to the ongoing police killings of unarmed black and brown Americans.<\/p>\n

The post Lady Day and the Feds<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States Vs.\u00a0Billie Holiday\u00a0is a powerful biopic streaming on Hulu now.\u00a0Academy Award nominee\u00a0Andra Day nails the\u00a0times and troubles of the famous\u00a0blues singer known as Lady Day, as she battles racial capitalism during the Jim Crow era. Lee Daniels,\u00a0whose body of work includes\u00a0Precious\u00a0(2009),\u00a0directs\u00a0The United States Vs. Billie Holiday. \u00a0If you watched the former film, you More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Lady Day and the Feds<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153728,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159\/revisions\/153728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}