Marmalade is a warrior

What's happening this week.

Law And Order Party
June 29 – July 5

            Director Stephen Winter (second from left) with the cast of Chocolate Babies
        

Chocolate Babies

Stephen Winter, 1996
Streaming on Vimeo
82 minutes

Chocolate Babies was first released in 1996, but I caught it for the first time last weekend, a coincidence aligning with the Juneteenth/Pride/Fathers Day trifecta.

This no-budget drama looks at a gang of mostly HIV-positive, mostly Black, mostly substance abusing New Yorkers who stage attacks on city politicians who don’t take the AIDS epidemic seriously. The film’s early satirical scenes have an anarchic spunk about them, but the agitprop gives way rather quickly to a human drama about a chosen family of misfits, loving and supportive and abrasive and dysfunctional and sometimes awful to one another.

The film is sloppy, lending it a sense of urgency that pairs well with the idea of guerilla activism. We’re quickly introduced to characters like The Larva, a saucy motormouth with an oversized sex drive, and tired lounge performer Lady Marmalade. Earnest activist Jamela has a supportive family to fall back on; at least one other character does not. Sam is an outsider in the group, a Filipino med school dropout and the only member of the group with a regular day job. His boyfriend Max Mo-Freek is the center of the movie but also its weakest link, existing mostly in relation to the other characters. (Well, he also exists in some wildly skimpy garments.)

Everyone in the film is exhausted, tired of being neglected by the government and tired of protesting and just regular tired, too. 1996 was well into the second decade of the epidemic, after all. But these messy renegades at least have each other, along with a little rooftop hangout, or at least they do for as long as everybody’s health holds out. The ending is overly sentimental, a disappointing but maybe inevitable tonal shift as the group meets its end.

Director Stephen Winter released the film for free years ago, but it’s worth a look now that Black people and queer people (and especially queer Black people) are in the streets demanding the right to live their lives, despite an ominous plague that disproportionally affects them. Though Chocolate Babies focuses on a really specific subculture, one that's rarely seen in any film, the storytelling is unexpected and the themes distressingly prescient.

Lots of LGBTQ+ titles are available at the Law and Order Party Bookshop

6 Other Things To Do This Week

Monday/Tuesday – 8pm
The Lucky Chance
Head Trick Theatre
Head Trick Theatre's spring show was canceled back in March, but the cast got together for a Zoom reading of Aphra Behn's sex farce that will be presented over two nights. (Facebook Live, free)

Tuesday – 8pm
Josephine Decker and Sarah Gubbins
Independent Film Festival Boston
Director Josephine Decker and writer Sarah Gubbins join us for a livestreamed Q&A about their new film Shirley, starring Elisabeth Moss as quirky novelist Shirley Jackson. You can stream the film now and watch the discussion Tuesday evening. (Youtube, free)

Wednesday – 7pm
Colson Whitehead
Savoy Bookshop & Café
Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead just released the paperback edition of his bestseller The Nickel Boys. He was a great speaker when he passed through Providence last year. (Crowdcast – Registration Required); $17 - includes paperback copy of The Nickel Boys)

Thursday – 6pm
Rafiq Bhatia
National Sawdust
"In this layered live performance, Bhatia employs vanguard, sculptural approaches to guitar in an aural funeral ceremony commemorating the staggering human cost of the COVID-19 crisis. Rendered through a hallucinatory, audio-reactive video treatment, the performance channels the risk and uncertainty of a live show while suggesting other possibilities for expression, communion, and catharsis in our isolated present." (Live@National Sawdust, 6pm)

Through Saturday
The Grinning Man
Bristol Old Vic
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs is adapted for the stage in a puppet-filled musical production from the storied UK theatre. (Youtube, 2.5 hours, free)

Sunday – 4pm
Cass McCombs
Pickathon
For three months now the Oregon music festival Pickathon has been streaming daily sets from its archives. This week's lineup includes Julia Holter, Kevin Morby, and Lucius, though I'm most excited for singer-songwriter Cass McCombs on Sunday (Youtube/Facebook/Twitch, free)

                        
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