A shout-out to BLINDSPOTTING

If you know anything about 21st century American pop culture, then you know there isn't any one centralized, universally acknowledged "mainstream American" culture anymore (if there ever was). That's not necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot of high quality entertainment - or "content," as we now call it - out there for all dispositions and predilections. (There's also a lot of dreck, but that's always been the case.) The flip side is we're not all watching or listening to, or even aware of, the same content, a trend that's only intensified with the seemingly endless proliferation of social media and streaming platforms. Hell, with rare exception - maybe Marvel movies, "Game of Thrones," Beyoncé, or maybe not even any of those - there aren't really entertainers or products that a cross-demographic majority of Americans have even heard of, let alone mark with any interest.

So it goes. It may be enough for most people that some subset of their friends, associates, and go-to cultural arbiters are excited about the same movies, shows, books, and/or musical artists that they are. Most of the time it's enough for me, even if it does reinforce the sense that each of us lives in a cultural bubble, contiguous if not perfectly coterminous with every other kind of social or political bubble we occupy. Occasionally, however, I come across something that I think is truly special and original, and that I suspect isn't on the radar of anyone else I know. And that makes me want to trumpet it to the world, even though I realize I'm just broadcasting to my own bubble.

Blindspotting is one of those things - both the 2018 film and the TV series that recently concluded its first (possibly only) season on Starz. I'm already on record singing the praises of the movie, which tracks the close but problematic friendship between two Oakland natives, one black (Daveed Diggs) and one white (Rafael Casal). The movie ended with Diggs' Collin and Casal's Miles parting ways, at least for the time being. The series, created and co-produced by Diggs and Casal, picks up with Miles getting arrested for possession and his long-term girlfriend Ashley (Jasmine Cephas-Jones) and their 5-ish year-old son Sean moving in with Miles' mother Rainey (Helen Hunt) and half-sister Trish (Jaylen Barron). Frictions both comic and serious quickly arise between Ashley and her in-laws (Rainey's a hippie, Trish a stripper who aspires to run her own strip club from their house), and in Ashley's own internal conflicts between her loyalty to Miles, concern for little Sean's psychological well-being, and desire to keep her job as concierge at a high-end hotel even as she rages at the injustice of a system that cossets the Haves while throwing the Have-Nots to the curb. Similar themes of social (in)justice wrapped in wry humor underpin the companion storyline of nextdoor neighbor Earl (Benjamin Earl Turner), gentlest, chillest parolee ever and new tenant of Collin's mom, and Collin's sister (and Ashley's BFF) Janelle (Candace Nicholas-Lippman), who just moved back to the neighborhood as well for mysterious reasons. (Diggs doesn't appear in person, at least not in season 1, though there's reason to hope he may make an appearance in season 2...if there is a season 2.)

That description may make the show sound heavier than it is. Rest assured it's also quite funny; for every sobering, thought-provoking moment there's a gag that provokes a belly-laugh, and the tonal shifts never feel awkward. Similarly, the quirkiness of the characters is tempered by the well-tuned performances and chemistry of the actors, with Cephas-Jones, Turner, and Hunt the standouts of an excellent cast. (Casal, too, is very good as the incarcerated Miles and imaginary companion/projection in Ashley's solo musings, and much less aggravating than he was in the movie, suggesting Miles has learned something since then.) The show isn't afraid to take its time developing the characters and letting their narratives breathe, or to incorporate artistically risky devices like fourth-wall-breaking freestyle rapping and outbreaks of slow-motion dancing, which some viewers might find off-putting but which I found a novel and effective way of expressing the characters' emotional states. And while much of the series was shot in L.A., it still evokes a loving and lovely, but not idealized, portrait of Oakland and the Bay area.

As of this post, it's unclear whether Blindspotting is getting a second season. The first concludes with one of the main narrative lines ending on a hopeful note, while the other just about broke my heart. Neither, however, provided any real closure. I truly hope the series gets renewed, though I'm not optimistic given how low-profile and unconventional it is. But if it does end here, that in a way is an all too appropriate reflection of our current social and cultural reality. We haven't earned a satisfying ending, or indeed any ending at all, as long as stories like these get buried under our collective radar. May we all learn to pay better attention, and to deserve more movies and series like Blindspotting.