The Trials of Dune: Looking Back at the Series

*There are spoilers ahead.*

I just finished Sandworms of Dune, the eighth and final book in the Dune series as envisioned by Frank Herbert and finished by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, so it seems like a good time to take a look back at the series and offer a review of sorts.

I started reading the series about 15 years ago, but my first encounter with Dune goes back nearly 30 years to 1984, when I had just turned 11 and my dad took me to the Hardacre Theater in Tipton, Iowa to see the movie Dune. I had a Mr. Pibb from the vending machine because that was the Golden Age, but we both went home feeling sick and spent much of the night throwing up. Bad popcorn, I guess.

Based on the first novel by Frank Herbert, Dune is about power struggles surrounding the desert planet Arrakis, home of giant worms that produce a mind-enhancing substance known as the spice melange, the most precious commodity in the universe.

 

 

The movie was too dark and weird for my dad, but even as an adolescent, dark and weird was my thing. In the years ahead, I would often rent Dune on VHS, exploring the intricacies of the plot, memorizing the lines, falling into Sean Young’s eyes, and eventually coming to appreciate the hand of David Lynch--quirky but effective casting, surreal dream sequences and rich atmospheres.

When I began reading the novels, I could clearly imagine Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, Everett McGill’s deep voice saying Stilgar’s dialogue, and the sandworms rising up and swallowing swaths of desert. Dune is one of the most distinctive sci-fi creations that I know of and one rich with analogies to the political, military, religious, economic and environmental complexities of our own world. Many were not as excited about the film as I was, but few who bother to read the book come away disappointed.

However, the book was not a total success with me. While the first half is a plunge into a strange world with wonderful beasts, rich characters, foreign cultures, battles, love affairs and a strange mechanics of power, the second half is talky, with little happening for chapter after chapter until the final battle. The climax is big and changes the Dune universe epically, but I got the sense Herbert knew where he wanted to go, just not how to get there.

Thus, filler.

I read Books 2 through 5 back-to-back sometime around 2000, and unfortunately, more of the first book’s weaknesses than strengths pervaded the series. I sensed that Herbert had a big idea around which to base each book but no idea how to portray the events leading up to and stemming from that idea. Instead, you get entire conversations of cryptic philosophical statements that a Zen master somewhere might understand and chapter upon chapter of internal monologue hinting at the wheels within wheels of the characters’ political machinations.

When an actual event happens, it’s often between books or off-screen, as it were, so you don’t get to read it. I believe it was Heretics of Dune (Book 5) that spent hundreds of pages working up to a major battle, and just when I thought it could be forestalled no longer, I turned the page to find the characters reminiscing about the big battle. Yes, it had occurred in between chapters.

I put Heretics of Dune down in disgust.

Roughly a decade later, I decided I should at least finish the original series. I read most of Chapterhouse: Dune (Book 6) while waiting for my wife at the hospital while she had tests done in the last month of pregnancy with our son. By that time, a lot more had gone wrong with the series. Dead was the rich cast of characters, cold was the human interaction, disappeared were the sandworms and the planet Dune itself! (First, it was terraformed into a green planet and then it was cooked to a cinder by weapons called Obliterators.)

Instead, we have an author grasping for new ideas that turn out to be all too like the old ones, only kitschy recreations. When Miles Teg suddenly gains the ability to move really, really fast, it just doesn’t impress like Paul’s god-like prescience. When we’ve had Bene Gesserits in their forbidding black robes and ability to mentally control their own biological processes on a cellular level, Honored Matres who wear red leotards and kill people with really, really intense sex are just tacky.

And yet, the original idea of Dune is so good that it’s hard to stay away.

When I heard that Frank Herbert’s son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson were writing new Dune books, I was skeptical but intrigued. So far, they have written two sequels, two trilogies of prequels, and a number of interquels that appears to be growing even as I type these words. There’s an online ticker and every few minutes a bell rings indicating the addition of a new volume to the series. I’ve only read the two sequels, and thankfully, I can say they do a fair job of reclaiming the series from its worst moments.

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson don’t have Frank Herbert’s bold ideas or the literary style of his better passages, but they are capable and dedicated. When I saw Dean Koontz speak at the International Comic-Con in San Diego a few years back, he mentioned co-authoring his first Frankenstein book with Anderson. He said he had to rewrite the whole thing, but at least Anderson was “professional.” Not the highest of praise, but Anderson does have an ability to turn out books that readers enjoy (my review of Clockwork Angels).

In many ways, the sequels were a relief from Frank Herbert’s often impenetrable prose. They're intelligible, if a bit staid, and events happen right there on the page! The two authors, working from Frank Herbert’s outlines, deftly weave together plots and characters stretching back thousands of years in the Dune universe, through Franks’s original sextology and their own prequels. The inspiration and raw vision of the early books may not be present--they never hum--but enough is sustained to provide a satisfying conclusion.

I’ll be taking a hiatus from the Dune books for a while, but the interquels have piqued my interest. That copy of Paul of Dune autographed by Brian Herbert won’t stay unread forever. Falling as it does between Books 1 and 2, my favorites, I’m likely to enjoy it.

Sex, Chairs and Photographs: A Kaleidoscope of Controversy

I’ve been thinking a lot about issues that spark culture quarrels, so I was interested in the recent controversy surrounding the photo of Russian socialite and art patron Dasha Zhukova sitting on a chair fashioned by Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard to look like a half-nude, bound, black woman on her back with her feet up in the air. The photo and chair immediately drew cries of racism. What I find so fascinating about these types of issues is the absolute certainty on all sides despite the lack of any definitive interpretation of the offending work.

 

The first reaction of many everyday people I know is to scoff at outrage such as appears in this case. Understandably, they are tired of controversy and wish the complainers would just give it a rest. Are we really to believe that Melgaard, the photographer and Zhukova (who apologized) are racists making a blatant racist statement? Can’t a photograph just be a photo and a weird chair a weird chair?

Or should we join with the critics in saying that it doesn’t matter what those involved intended (the death of the author in poststructuralism), their products speak for themselves and they speak the language of centuries of degradation, sexualization and commodification of black women. A photograph of a white woman perched glamorously atop a subjugated black woman exhibits, even if unintentionally, reprehensible symbolism.

The possible angles to take are kaleidoscopic: The chair is a shameless attempt to shock. Melgaard is just seeking attention. It’s just more modern-art nonsense. He’s talentless anyway. Who cares about these artists and socialites anyway? Why do we focus on race when Melgaard’s treatment of the whole female sex is suspect? And surely it is significant that the context of the chair is a similar work by Allen Jones, a British pop artist of the 1960s (article). Wouldn’t that mean that Chair is actually an insightful look at perceptions of race and gender, as Zhukova’s spokeman has claimed? Ah, but that doesn’t excuse the photo, does it?

And so on.

 

You may have your favorite angle among these, or a new one for the list, but I don’t see one that stands apart as the right one or even what source we may turn to in order to determine the right one. As far as I can tell, there is no bottom line to this issue, at least as a whole.

This is really just a restatement of what I wrote in another post about the 2013 Miley Cyrus VMAs performance. A work of art speaks, but not in crystal clear terms, so we must interpret it, and that is all we have: various interpretations. Some may be simple, some may be highfalutin, some may be better grounded or in better faith than others, but none can claim to have the last word.

The Joys of Father-Son Gastroenteritis (Seriously)

The norovirus strikes suddenly and without mercy. Nausea, vomiting, chills, shaking, diarrhea, headaches and exhaustion. Usually, that wouldn’t make for a good time, but as I found out recently, it isn’t all bad.

 

 

After the first horrible night, the perks began to appear. The sickness had taken me out of the game--away from my Major Life Activity--more effectively than anything else could. Over the next few days, in brief bouts of lucidity, I was almost able to relax. I read a handful of chapters in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Sandworms of Dune and finally got to watch Thor, the first one, from 2011. It’s always moving to watch Natalie Portman fall in love, especially in genre fare.

When my son came down with the virus a couple days later, it got even better. Of course, at first it was my worst nightmare come true--someone needs to be held accountable for doing that to my child--but once my wife and I realized he would be okay, the panic subsided and the beautiful moments began popping up. Even after a vomiting session, his brave face when he looked up and proclaimed “All finished!” was worth more than anything anyone except he will ever give me. And then, as he recovered, came those times when he would just sleep in my arms or watch Disney Junior while I rubbed his back.

These are magical moments because they come at us from outside the usual sphere of incessant thoughts and activities that make up our mundane world. At times like these, I always think of the John Updike story “The City” in Trust Me. It’s about a man on a business trip who suddenly finds himself in the hospital in a strange city for an emergency appendectomy. Like me, he finds himself out of the game, everything except getting well put on hold, and reflecting on life:

“When Carson awoke again, it was twilight, and he was in yet another room, a private room, alone, with a sore abdomen and a clearer head. A quarter-moon leaned small and cold in the sky above the glowing square windows of another wing of the hospital, and his position in the world and the universe seemed clear enough.”

By the time my wife came down sick a couple days later, however, everyone had had more than enough of the norovirus and was ready to drive that curse away, but despite all the physical discomfort of those days, I’ll always have my memories of those beautiful moments with my son.

Is It Okay for a Socially Conscious Person to Enjoy Machete?

Outrage has become a staple of public dialogue and American consciousness. If Katy Perry gives a geisha-ish performance mixing elements of various traditional Asian cultures, this is labeled “cultural appropriation” and racist. As also illustrated by the furor over Miley Cyrus’s VMAs performance last year, nothing--neither a pop music performance nor the goofy costumes worn by its performers--is above a public grilling by cultural critics.

Personally, I’m fond of this kind of critique, although outrage isn’t my response to every offense (blog). Like many feminists, I thought the scene in Star Trek: Into Darkness featuring Dr. Carol Marcus in her skivvies was gratuitous (article), but the most I could work up was a chuckle at such a naked attempt to inject eye-candy into the movie.

I’m not, however, above turning away from something in disappointment. I recently started reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novel The Windup Girl. The first chapter was about Anderson Lake, a Western businessman running a factory in Thailand. The second was about the Chinese immigrant Hock Seng, a factory manager who aims to steal important designs from Lake. The third was about Emiko, a Japanese girl who was created through genetic engineering and works at a sex club.

At this point, I began to get a sinking feeling.

 

The stereotypes could not be any clearer: the dominant, straight-talking, brook-no-bullshit Westerner; the passive, sneaky, subservient Asian; and the sexpot Asian. In the case of Emiko, we must sit through a description of her rape by her employer and the club’s patrons--at some level, an enactment of a sadistic fantasy shared by the author and many in his audience. I kept reading, but when the big white Westerner rescued the helpless little Japanese girl, thereby winning her gratitude and setting the stage for eventually gaining her love and conquering her body, I decided I had better things to read.

Which brings me to Machete. In this age of active, sometimes overactive (blog), social and cultural sensitivity, what are we to make of a movie that blatantly breaks so many of the rules and is openly acknowledged by director Robert Rodriquez to be an homage to the exploitation flicks of less enlightened decades?

 

The text on the Japanese DVD case calls Machete the “complete filmization of a man’s dream,” and that it is--at least for many men. About a brawny, ugly Mexican who’s good at killing in grisly ways, it spills gallons of blood and shows miles of skin. Scenes of bodily fluids flying from gunshots, impalements and even weed-whackers are interspersed with scenes featuring svelte young women nude, topless, or in kinky costumes--sexy nurse outfits, a nun’s habit, black leather, and so on. While the plot deals with social justice--specifically illegal immigration--racial slurs and stereotypes abound.

Why is this okay, if it is indeed okay? Because it’s fiction? Because it’s all in fun? Because it’s a parody of exploitation flicks and not exactly one itself? Because the sexualized women are strong women? Because the epithets aren’t meant spitefully? Because all of these infringements actually serve to turn themselves on their head in order to make a point that is the opposite of what they might suggest on the surface?

No doubt the answer is all of the above, but at least some of the infractions are simply enjoyable without any need for an excuse. The racial aspects demand separate treatment, but with regard to the portrayal of women, which might in another film provoke cries of sexism or misogyny, perhaps we can say that sometimes it’s all right to put feminist narratives aside and just enjoy a ridiculous fantasy.

Sometimes it’s okay to just be a man or woman who thinks Michelle Rodriquez looks hot as Hell in black leather with matching eyepatch.

 

More on Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson: Vindictive Theology, Weak Bible Literacy (Issues 2013)

⁹ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

--1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (RSV)

To return to Phil Robertson of A&E's reality series Duck Dynasty (previous blog), I’m surprised at how easily the media and many discussing the star's GQ interview, even if only on Facebook, have accepted the idea that he is merely expressing the Christian point of view. Is it really the Christian point of view that God views homosexuality as sinful and will "sort out" its practitioners on Judgment Day?

While I am now an atheist, I spent a great deal of my life growing up in small, Midwestern, largely Protestant and socially conservative communities, and I believed in the Gospel along with most everyone else. The dominant official opinion was always that homosexuality is indeed a sin, but hate the sin and love the sinner, we all sin, judgment is God’s business anyway, and God loves everyone. I do remember gay jokes being passed around, which isn’t good, but I have absolutely no recollection of any bullying or rancor whatsoever. I believe anyone suspected of being gay or openly gay would have been welcome at any of the churches I attended, and I know for certain there was no shortage of faithful who didn't believe it was a sin at all to be gay or who believed it was, along with all other sins, forgiven by the ultimate sacrifice Christ paid on the cross.

This softer approach by Christians toward the issue has not been entirely absent from the debate. I’m glad to see dogmatism and hate are not the norm for many Christian communities. I must point out, however, that underneath all the talk of forgiveness and love, there often still lurks the condemnation of a perceived sin and the threat of eternal damnation. No matter how nicely you tell people they’re going to Hell, you’re still telling them they’re going to Hell.

What I learned when I studied religion at a Methodist-affiliated college, however, was that the Bible doesn’t clearly say that homosexuality is a sin--contrary to popular belief. When the Bible verses cited as condemning homosexuality are studied, they are either obvious myth, do not specifically mention homosexuality at all, or take place within a context that throws their application today into serious question. Jesus himself said not one word about homosexuality, and some scholars posit that Paul himself may have been in the closet. In fact, nothing in the Bible suggests that two people of the same sex in a loving relationship ever crossed the minds of the dramatis personae themselves, the writers, or the editors of the Bible.

The research for this was done by Bible and theology scholars, many of them ministers, from a broad array of mainstream denominations. It’s too bad that more of their work doesn’t make it into the hands of the rank and file believers in the pews and those overzealous to condemn others.

I learned all that a long time ago, and my textbooks are buried halfway around the world in my parents’ basement, so I decided to go back and check some of the Bible verses commonly cited by those of Phil Robertson’s persuasion and found that much of what I remembered held up well.

While working on this blog, I stumbled across an article on CNN that examines First Corinthians 6:9-10, Duck Robertson’s own verses of choice. In typical CNN style, it asks a bold question, “Does Phil Robertson get the Bible wrong?” and then works its way down the field to punt, but along the way, it provides a fairly decent introduction to the types of translation and cultural issues that arise when trying to interpret what the Bible says about homosexuality.

The takeaway is that it’s anything but clear--which is okay for those of us Christian and otherwise who don’t see God (or wouldn't if we believed he existed) as the DMV and the Bible as the Rules of the Road, but bad news for those who do--because they’re the ones saying it’s right there as plain as day, and it just ain’t.

 

Take for example, the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the version I grew up with attending Methodist churches, the version in the pews, the version I was awarded on various occasions such as Confirmation, the version I quote at the top of this blog. Reading it, First Corinthians 6:9-10 wouldn't appear a likely candidate for supporting anti-gay views at all! 

The next time you hear condemnation of gay lifestyles as simply part and parcel of Christianity, don’t you believe it. This is a point we should not cede, a battle in the culture wars from which we should not retreat.

Another Brouhaha in the House of Cultural Warfare: Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson (Issues 2013)

Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s comments to GQ sparked another one of those controversies that a lot of people wish would just go away, but as with the Miley Cyrus VMA performance (blog), I find it to be a fascinating issue because of the cultural dogfight that resulted.

A few quotes from the interview (here):

“It seems like, to me, a vagina--as a man--would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus--whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

And this on the South in the days of Jim Crow:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’--not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

It is not surprising that many were not pleased with his comments, which they saw as bigoted and ignorant, and the A&E network immediately suspended him from Duck Dynasty. The reality show has a lot of fans, however, and they took to Facebook to express their disapproval of A&E’s decision.

I think it helps to think about issues like these by breaking them down into sub-issues. In the case of Phil Robertson, the broader issue is whether it is okay to be gay, including sub-issues like whether it should be okay before the law and whether it is okay before God. Then there is the issue of whether he has a right to his opinion and religion. And whether he has the right to freedom of speech, in his home, on television, in magazines, etc. Whether a company that employs him has the right to fire him and would be right to do so. And what kinds of response are the rest of us permitted when faced by his views?

Unfortunately, public debate has a tendency to glob all the sub-issues together, with everyone joining a For camp or an Against camp. Sure we have all heard the various aspects of the issue raised, but always within the context of a battle between broad For and Against opinions. Rarely do you hear anyone speak as if they understand there are multiple issues at play and on some of them they may stand with Robertson and on others they may stand against him.

This is what I call the What-It-All-Boils-Down-To Syndrome. Take any issue, no matter how multifaceted, and there’s never any shortage of people reducing it to one facet that is most likely to support their globular For or Against position. Sometimes a complex problem can be reduced to a basic principle that undercuts the other arguments--identifying how concepts relate is a key tool of reasoning--but most of the issues of the day cannot. When people say “What it all boils down to is…” you can usually be sure it doesn’t.

But they sure wish it did, because then they win.

It is possible, however, to work through the problem, addressing each sub-issue to construct a nuanced opinion. For example, my own opinion is that Robertson’s condemnation of gay lifestyles is wrong and that God (if such a being worthy of the name existed) would disagree with him, too; that Robertson does indeed have the right to his personal opinion and brand of faith; that he has the right to speak his opinion wherever and whenever he pleases; but that he should not have immunity from certain consequences: his employer, A&E, has the right to remove him from the show and would be right to do so, and everyday people--especially those he maligns--have the right to express their criticism in non-violent ways.

Someone else might say that it is a sin to be gay, so Robertson was right in his personal religious belief, but God loves and forgives everyone, so Robertson was wrong to publicly judge and condemn. Nonetheless, A&E shouldn’t fire him because it sets a questionable precedent if corporations can fire employees for publicly uttering their personal views--like those CEOs who decreed they would fire any employees who didn’t vote for Romney in 2012. Best for all of us to keep private opinions private.

Countless variations on these themes are possible.

But instead of discussing these matters with our full powers of discernment--of sifting and sorting--the public participates in this strange phenomenon in which the following type of scenario is not uncommon: Person A who is For says, “Duck has a right to his personal opinion,” and Person B who is Against responds, “But his employer has the right to fire him,” and the two never appear to notice, much less admit, that they may actually agree on both of these points. In fact, it isn’t hard to imagine two people bitterly clashing over this issue when they actually agree on nearly all of the involved sub-issues.

That’s because in their minds, first and foremost, they stylize themselves as For or Against within the issue as one undifferentiated whole. So here’s another syndrome: High School Debate Syndrome. Remember how high school teachers would declare a class debate and assign every student to one side or the other? Inevitably, some students would protest that they didn’t believe in the side they were assigned, to which the teacher would always reply, “That doesn’t matter. Come up with reasons for your side and don’t budge an inch.”

It’s as if now that we’re adults, we do this to ourselves. We pick a side, then come up with reasons (which is backwards if philosophy and psychology have taught us anything) and begin digging trenches, even when, in our calmer and more rational moments, we aren’t fully on our own side.

But it’s okay to see issues in their complexity. When it comes to Robertson, it’s okay to be both for and against (little first letters now to keep them in their place), depending on the specific aspects of the larger issue and to find points of agreement in dialogue with others. This way, some actual progress can be made in, and some clarity brought to, the issue--even if only so that opponents can later butt heads all the more vigorously about what really separates them.

---

Postscript in light of recent news (here):

How do I feel now that A&E has restored Robertson to the program? I am opposed to it because I would have preferred to see a company take a firm moral stand even at the expense of a cash cow. But I’m also fine with it, because the public dialogue has played itself out, with certain forces winning the day. Those forces have been put on notice, they’ve won the battle, but they’re losing the war, and the day will come when they won’t even be able to get away with these little victories.

 

The Miley Cyrus Affair (Issues 2013)

Perhaps I can continue a run of blogs with a brief series on the issues that captivated me most in 2013, beginning with one that everyone probably feels they have already heard way too much about: The Miley Cyrus Affair.

During the controversy following the infamous Video Music Awards performance, many kept pointing out “There’s a war on in Syria!” Indeed, there were more apparently weighty stories in 2013, but I found this one to be among the most fascinating.

I first caught the performance in a series of GIFs I can't find right now. Soon after, the prudes attacked it as raunchy on a par with porn, feminists attacked it for the way it succumbs to the music industry's aesthetic of selling female flesh, other feminists defended it by attacking the first feminists for slut-shaming, then a series of professional bloggers attacked it as racist.

Say what you will, the performance initiated one hell of a dogfight in the culture wars, and this makes it worth some consideration.

I think it helps to think of the performance as a text--and therefore somewhat ambiguous and open to interpretation. I’m no expert, but as I understand the basic premises of post-structuralism, the meaning of a text, as a work of language, gains meaning from factors outside the author’s intentions, from an infinite web of cultural connotations, infinitely involuted or expanding, however you want to think of it. In this case, the text is a live performance composed of images and gestures as well as lyrics, delivered by performers and technicians, but taking up meaning within the context of America today, including its historical heritage. Like an onion, you may peel away one layer to see another, but you never reach a core that is the meaning of the text. You may turn it like a diamond to see some facets instead of others, but you never see the one angle that counts.

Many of the attacks on the performance come from writers who appear to be well-versed in this kind of critique. They are eager to begin stripping away those layers, to reveal the hidden significance, usually connected to civil rights, behind every sign however innocuous at first glance--every turn of phrase, every gesture, every giant teddy bear, every extended tongue. Miley Cyrus was treated to a big helping of this, with some writers tying her to the history of slavery (recounted at great length) and calling her performance a "minstrel show" (Vulture).

Watching the performance, I myself noticed that the designers of the performance had clearly chosen black women to be the background dancers, so I don’t mean to say that these writers have no point, only that beyond the obvious fact of the race of the dancers, the rest isn’t immediately clear. And if it takes that much intellectual labor to show how bigoted something is, then one thing it isn’t is blatant. It appears to me that in the application of their interpretive techniques these authors are fueled from the start by their favorite moralizing on civil rights issues and have no inclination to apply the brakes on corners as the uncertainty of textual interpretation should encourage. It's all adamant outrage, with each writer seeming to try to find worse terms of condemnation than the last. 

 

Perhaps then, this blog is a post-structuralist critique of post-structuralist critiques.

Having said that, it is too lenient to suggest that Miley Cyrus and/or whoever designed the performance, bears no responsibility for whatever sexist or racist effluvium culture and history have deposited, through them, as knowing or unknowing actors, into their performance. In the post-modern world, most of us are aware that words and images speak more than they appear to at first glance, and this is doubly true for anyone marketing to the masses. Backup dancers are not just backup dancers--how they dance, how they are treated, how they are dressed, their race, their physique, and so on all speak an infinity of meanings, as the performance's critics point out knowledgeably if also somewhat overwroughtly. When I saw the performance, I thought, “Someone should have known better.”

However, they frequently don’t.

In short, while I wish that the teams of people designing the performance had been more color blind, I also wish the professional bloggers who took up the fight against its latent and manifest racial stereotyping had rejected the urge to jump to hyperbole and had instead made the same strokes with more restraint and fidelity to the philosophical foundations of their trade.