Strange Days

Prior to deciding on my film choice for our essay earlier in the semester I watched 'Strange Days' which had been on the suggested film list. Realizing it was a 90s, sci-fi, cyber-punk film I was surprised I hadn't seen it –thought I'd already watched all of the good ones in that narrow genre. I highly enjoyed it, I love pre-Hurtlocker Kathryn Bigelow –and Strange Days had her unique aesthetic all over it. However, Strange Days will have to be relegated to my guilty pleasure trove of awesome but highly problematic films. On the outset it looks like it has the potential to be incredibly progressive, with Angela Basset at its helm and a narrative which at face value seems to condemn institutional racism in the police system. Yet it falls very short of what I hoped it could be.

Set on the eve of the Millennium in a dystopic Los Angeles, Ralph Fiennes as Lenny becomes intwined in a police cover-up. Angela Basset as Mace stars alongside Fiennes. As always Basset is entirely badass in her role. Mace works as a bodyguard and driver for rich clients but helps Lenny as she harbors unrequited feelings of love for him. One of the big ways Strange Days falls apart for me is in how they handle this relationship between Lenny and Mace. Interracial relationships are unfortunately rarely depicted on-screen and when they are often are shown in ways which reinforce racist hierarchies. Strange Days is just the same. Mace acts as a crutch and self-less supporter to Lenny –who gives very little back and instead, he repeatedly risks Mace's life and his own all for the grand purpose of getting his ex-girlfriend back. However Lenny's selfishness and poor treatment of Mace is swept under the rug as the filmmakers try and convince us that Mace is acting under her own volition, it is her choice they tell us. I think this plays into the repeated themes of African American servitude we see in film, as Mammy in Gone With The Wind, dominant media tries to tell us that black folk are content as sidelined supporters of white characters.

In its climatic ending the filmmakers seemingly through Mace a bone. After spending a good hour and a half trying to keep Lenny from getting shot as he trapes around after the waspy Faith (played by Juliette Lewis), the film ends with Lenny seemingly realizing that Mace is amazing and an epic slo-mo make-out scene ensues. So after getting treated like shit for the whole film it is fine now because Mace gets what she wanted apparently. This is all very annoying on many levels, though it is nice to see an interracial couple celebrated in film, the film couldn't just treat it like any other romantic relationship. Instead it seemed like Mace was “rewarded” with the love of a white-dude only after she had gave everything to him. It was also completely on Lenny's terms, it was him who got to decide and choose her. Autonomy was vastly stripped from Mace and though she was so strong and capable the film treated her repeatedly as a pawn.

Aside from what I have already mentioned the film also was ridiculously problematic in a multitude of other ways. Such as the depiction of protestors being radical, extremists who were just as bad as the racist cops. Oh and then there were the racist cops –turned out there was just two of them, they were total nut jobs but the rest of the police force was shown as being all good. No institutional racism here, just move along. However despite all of this there was still a saving grace to the film which was Angela Bassett as Mace. Though obviously her character went through some shit, she was still awesome and stole the show in my opinion. Mace can be an example on how even through the muck empowering images can come-forth. No thanks to Kathryn Bigelow but entirely thanks to Angela Bassett and her ability as an actress and performer.