Quote of the Day

Unfortunately, I don't get HBO so I haven't had a chance to see any of Spike Lee's If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise yet. I am very much looking forward to it, however. What most impressed me about Lee's When the Levees Broke was its scope. Lee's greatest success there was gathering and transmitting the wide and rich variety of perspectives on the flood from all sorts of New Orleanians (and St. Bernardians) from all neighborhoods and from all social and economic categories. More than any other outside media project of its time, Levees captured the enormous complexity of the flood and its impact on all of us.

I hope that Creek can replicate at least some of this. Last night I followed the tweets of people who were watching and I noted strong reactions. Some were favorable and others not so much. But because I can remember many viewers being less enthusiastic about Levees than I was I don't think I can gauge the success of Creek from these reactions. Nobody seemed bored, though, which is a good sign.

One Tweeted criticism that I noticed popping up a lot was Lee's over-reliance on celebrities like Brad Pitt and Sean Penn whose opinions and faces we already see too much of. I can see how that might be a problem but, again, I'll reserve judgment until I see the movie. On the other hand, I do think that Jarvis DeBerry's reaction to the presence of another somewhat lesser celebrity I'm not too fond of is worth noting as is the entirety of this morning's column.

Lee’s documentary reminded me of just how tired I am of former Tulane historian Doug Brinkley, who’s been an unreliable source on life in New Orleans for quite some time now. Dismissing our civic pride, our love of place, as mindless and knee-jerk boosterism, Brinkley diagnoses us all as having an inferiority complex. We celebrate ourselves, to hear him tell it, because deep down we hate ourselves.

That’s psychobabble of the highest order. New Orleans has problems now and had problems before the storm. That’s indisputable. But our high regard for ourselves, our traditions and our city is hardly a facade. Our love for this city is not a pathology and does not deserve to be treated as such.