Memphis

My wife and I went to see Memphis last night. Memphis is a Broadway musical that won a number of 2010 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Both the lead actor and actress were nominated for Tony Awards for their respective Best Acting categories. As a stand alone entity, I loved the show. Also, surprisingly, I liked the music. I liked the music a lot. I liked the music enough that my wife and I purchased the CD after the show was over. However, Memphis has some serious issues. Boy, does it have some issues.

The tagline used in advertisements for the musical was, "His Vision, Her Voice. The Birth of Rock & Roll." He is Huey Calhoun, a poor White man in Memphis who falls in love with Black music and a Black singer named Felicia in the 1950s. She is Felicia, the woman with the voice that Huey believes will carry Black music to the center of the radio dial, that is, to the hearts of White people. This musical is the story of Black music exploding into mainstream American (i.e., White) society. Instead of being told from the perspective of the Black musicians, Memphis parallels the music industry, itself. It is the story of the White man who "made it all happen." Right away, the show was set up as a Dances with Wolves or Avatar type of production. In the end, Memphis turned out to be a little bit different, but not at all better.

According to a New York Times article dated June 27, 2010, the original tagline was simply, "The Birth of Rock & Roll." According to that same article, a focus group of Black women saw the original tagline and assumed the show was about Elvis. After seeing pictures of Felicia and being told about her romance with Huey, the women grew much more interested in the show. That is the point the producers came up with the new tagline.



I must give the writer of Memphis a lot of credit for the way Huey was written. What makes Huey different, and as a result, much better, than the lead characters in Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and Avatar is that Huey never had to be convinced or taught to ally himself with the oppressed people of the story. At no point were Huey’s actions political in nature. No, Huey was unique in that he was only driven by his love for the music. And his love of the music was true. It did not spawn from infatuation with a woman or for any reason other than that he felt it from the moment he first heard it. Huey’s love of the music may be the purest love of music I have ever seen in fiction.

While the plots of these types of stories usually revolve around the White protagonist learning to take up for the disadvantaged, Huey Calhoun was always on their side. More specifically, he was on the side of the music. He was willing to do whatever he needed to do to support and promote the music. At least at the beginning, Huey was not involved for any personal gain.

Given the time, place, and setting of Memphis, there is nothing I’d say was historically inaccurate. One could view that as an indictment of our nation’s history, but there’s no point in doing that here. The problem is that Huey was the protagonist. It should have been Felicia. Her story was more interesting, more powerful, and, ultimately, more important. The writing of Huey as the protagonist diminishes and undermines Felicia’s—and Black Memphis’—story. This was not Huey’s struggle. He was an ally, a supporter. But it was not his story.

Truth be told, Memphis is a show and a story for White people. Despite a plot that involves one of the important moments of the years immediately preceding the Civil Rights movement, there is nothing empowering in the musical’s plot for Black people. There is an enough of an illusion of empowerment, though, that those who do not think too hard about it will believe that Memphis is an uplifting tale about Black people. When they walk out, though, the most intricate details they remember will all be about Huey. Felicia is almost an afterthought.

Felicia’s first line is in song. “My brother runs my life,” are the first words we hear from her mouth. The secondary tale of Memphis is Felicia’s growing up and taking control of her own life. Whereas Huey entered her life and later attempted to exert control over her, Felicia stands firm and refuses to be controlled. As she matured, she developed into an independent woman who makes her own decisions. The Felicia at the end of the musical would not utter the words with which we were introduced to her. She claimed her independence and did not let anyone take it from her.

The shame of Felicia’s story is that it could have also been the story of the Black people. Unfortunately, it was not. There was no Black independence in Memphis. There was no movement toward independence. There was not even a mention of a desire for it. Instead, all of the Black people were happy to just sing and dance their way into White people’s hearts. As written, Memphis is a story about Black people trying to make White people happy with and accepting of them.

At the same time, Memphis trivializes Black culture and the struggles of Black people. The one time Felicia’s struggle is given center stage is when she sings Colored Woman, which is an ironic title. The song is about how Felicia’s mother had always told her the world is not kind to a dark-skinned girl, but how she now believes in this White man who said he can give her everything she ever dreamed of. One of the show’s other big numbers was a song named Everybody Wants to be Black on Saturday Night. The racism and oppression that segregated the Black community have, in this show, been reduced to an escapist and fun activity for the privileged oppressors.

One of the big numbers toward the end of the show includes the lyrics, "…prove that we belong." Why did or does anyone need to prove that he/she/they belong? The need to prove that one belongs carries with it the notion that someone has the right to accept or deny that belonging. Black people have been fighting for that acceptance of belonging for centuries in this country. The fact of the matter is, though, that we can never truly achieve it as long as we are looking for it. No one should be trying to prove something that is inherent in being. No one should be asking for it. Asking for it and trying to prove it are acts of diminishing one's self. It is an act of self disrespect. What I saw in Memphis was Black people begging for White people to like them. This is a show they are promoting to help bring Black people to the theater? The saddest thing is that it’s working.

The combined effect of the White acceptance of Black music was threefold. First, it made White people see how much money could be made off of Black people. Sure, a lot of Black people have grown rich from the entertainment industry, but so much more money went into the hands of White people because of it. Second, the performance Negro went mainstream. Singing and dancing still remain the fastest way for a Black person to gain acceptance into American society. Lastly, but most importantly, we now live in an illusory culture wherein every "advance" made by Black people is countered by the knowledge that White people "gave" it to us. As every intelligent person knows, independence can never be given.

All in all, though, my biggest problem with Memphis is that it was written in a way to make White people feel good about themselves. According the New York Times article, the producers are trying to attract larger quantities of Black theater patrons. Still, the stories are primarily about White people. The hidden effect of works like this—Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and To Kill a Mockingbird certainly fall into this category as well—is that they make White people more acceptable to Black people while at the same time undermining the struggle of oppression. The true effects of oppression on the oppressed cannot be seen through the eyes of those who are not oppressed. The story of any form of Black oppression as told from the point of view of a White person can never be anything more than a Cliffs Notes version of the actual. In Memphis, we see everything from Huey's eyes.

The argument for this is a true one. If not told from a White person's perspective, White people will not watch a show like this. Just as White girls seldom have Black dolls and Black girls usually White ones, White people don't often watch Black shows about Black people, Black people are often stuck watching Black shows about White people. In Memphis, we have a Black show about Huey Calhoun.

While the plot of does not play Huey as a honorable figure, it does portray him as a sympathetic one. He is a man who came from nothing, but managed to make himself into a star. He faced true hatred and refused to back down from it. Huey was a man who exemplified living a life of personal racial harmony. And in the end, Huey is left a broken, hurt man without a place. He and his place in history have been all but forgotten. After working so hard to move Black music from the edge of the radio dial to the center, he winds up as far away from the mainstream as is possible. We saw what he did, and we cannot deny the role he played. By the end of Memphis, the audience has no choice but to feel sorry for him.

Isn’t that the cliché, though? The White man has gone too far in allying himself with the brown people, and now he is no longer accepted by his own community. It happened to Kevin Costner’s character. It happened to Tom Cruise’s. It happened to Huey Calhoun. He can never go back. He is a permanent outcast from White people. That is his punishment. Why does he need to be punished? Did there need to be a message that White people shouldn’t help brown people? I fail to understand why the plot had to written that way. Even at the end, it is the White protagonist who is set up to receive the audience’s care and concern. At no point is Felicia’s story treated as important.

Huey was far from perfect. Man, did he act like he had ownership over Felicia. He discovered her (we know this because he said so about twenty times). No, she could not, in his mind, leave Memphis without him. When he thought he was going to get a TV job in New York, it was fine for Felicia to want to travel there to become a national star. Once the TV thing failed to work out for Huey, he refused to let Felicia go to New York. To the writer's credit, Felicia left anyway. Still, there was a strong element of I did this for you and gave you this thing you wanted, so now all your decisions are up to me and I'm in charge.

"I discovered her." "I discovered you." Huey's oft repeated statements triggered an epiphany in both my wife and me. Independently, yet simultaneously, we both came to realize the significance of Huey's feelings as well as those of the local Memphis radio and television producer and the network television executive. Those men had the power to put Black music onto the radio and the television. They did so to line their pockets with money, but, still, they did it. Even though profits were their primary—only?—motivation for doing so, they did commit the act. And it made them feel good about themselves. The White consumers loved the Black music. That made them feel proud of themselves. The sum of this is that being involved in Black music in any fashion made White people feel good about themselves. A lot of them, as a result, feel as if they deserve the credit.

Still, I like the way Huey was written. His treatment of Felicia did not go unrecognized. She called him on it. In a literary sense, that’s really all I can ask for. The protagonist does not need to be perfect. I loved Huey’s main two songs. Both The Music of My Soul and Memphis Lives in Me were superb. Those songs’ lyrics and mood tell the character’s feelings about the music and the city. They are, in effect, Huey’s testimony, his defense against claims of exploitation and racism. In my mind, Huey’s character is fine. He is, I believe, a hero. Huey is loyal, even to his personal detriment. It was he who lost out on the network television show because he refused to replace Black dancers with White ones. Even when Felicia and her brother Delray told him that he should have known that would be the network’s demand, Huey refused to cave. “When did I get Blacker than you?” he asked Felicia. It was an inappropriate and misguided question, but its sentiment is meaningful. Huey was not a sellout.

Felicia and Delray are a different story. I would not call them sellouts; they did what Black people had to do back then in order to make it. The plot could have focused on the struggle of their decision to go to New York. It did not. In fact, it did not even portray it as a struggle. That moment was written in such a way as to portray nothing but Huey’s naivety. The most important decision of Delray and Felicia’s lives—the moment that should have been the climactic moment of Memphis—never happened. Maybe that would have been impactful had it been written better. As Felicia was never the focus, however, there was no reason for anyone to notice it. It just simply passed by.

All that said, I did like the show. In fact, I loved it. The music was great. It was energetic and engaging. Even if you were not a fan of early Rock & Roll, you could see and feel how Huey could fall in love with it. The passion of the actors and actresses’ really came through. From the seventh row, I could see the intensity and emotion in their faces.

One of the things my wife and I discuss anytime we go to the theater is that we are both waiting for the point when we are no longer consciously aware that we are watching a play. We don’t always get that moment. Memphis, though, took little more than five minutes to reach that point. From the moment Huey first walked into Delray’s club, I was engrossed. I cared about that goofy little kid. I felt for Delray, who just wanted to help his little sister become the star he believed she could be. And I rooted hard for Felicia.

I don’t like musicals. I’ve seen several; I’ve walked out of one. As a stand-alone entity, I would have loved Memphis. I cannot, however, escape the fact that it is but another of the same old White man leads the brown people stories. As it is, it still gets four stars out of five from me.