Vincent Bertolini-Felice / 5.14.24 / "I don't have a message. You already have all these people telling you how to live, who to be, what to wear, what to drive, what drugs to do - I just want people to see what I see."
-Vince Staples
It’s been over a year and a half since Atlanta concluded. Donald Glover’s Magnus Opus and ode to the Surrealism that dictates life for Americans, and especially African Americans.
Atlanta at its core, told a story through the lens of evolution. The characters, the community, the themes, all evolve from a sense of hyperbolic relatability. A lot of people can relate to going on dates despite having less than sixty dollars in their bank account or growing jealous of someone gaining more attention than them for being reckless and vapid. Less people can relate to performing in front of a crowd of over ten-thousand fans in Amsterdam all wearing blackface.
Yet, in a concept so foreign to reality, most people can find a sense of personal understanding. Many people are used to their race, their personhood, their identity being a glamorized show that is often illuminated right back into their stunned faces yet forced to push on as if it’s a joy to act as such.
This evolution from grounded conceptions of race relations, rising to fame, managing complex interpersonal relationships to trips on hallucinogenic drugs that lead you across changing dimensions of reality never fails to lose its key component, relatability.
What were to happen if you were to lose this evolution? If Atlanta started with one of the key characters attempting to buy a piano from the high-pitched brother of a former Blues musician covered head-to-toe in bandages, only to be the only witness to a murder-suicide, the show would’ve lost a key part of its progression.
This is an approach to surrealist-relatability approached by artist Vince Staples in his limited-series The Vince Staples Show.
The Netflix exclusive, five-episode series is an incredibly loose-structured fictional story about the life of Vince Staples juxtaposed with the broader community of Long Beach, and the blending of troubled upbringings and new wealth.
The opening scene of episode one frames a woman walking into work early in the morning, greeted by a shootout occurring within near earshot. Despite this, the woman is unphased, walking into a Donut Shop to prepare for the morning.
The opening scenes of donuts being cooked, flipped, and fried is played with a corporate sounding song about Long Beach being played in the background.
“Sunny, Southern California. Sunken city by the sea. The concrete and the waves. The mansions and the gangs, make me wonder.... will I ever be free?!”
The tones, oddly vibrant, yet dulcet tones of the song outline the juxtaposing themes that dictate the story, or lack thereof.
The progression of the series sees Vince narrowly escape being shanked in a holding cell, survive a hectic family reunion in which he is nearly stripped for cash, assist a group of bank robbers out of spite for a racist banking company, get jumped by several theme park mascots, wander into the upside down for expensive chicken, and kill an elementary school rival in self-defense.
While having little to no correlation or evident progression in detachment from reality, The Vince Staples Show’s approach to absurdity is one that, while being incredibly unique, still conveys a detailed and relatable message about collective struggle.
While I binged the series, I found myself living through Vince’s character. Despite being a white, teenage male from the opposite side of the nation, I found myself connected to Vince in more than perspective. His cynicism of flawed institutions, failure to understand illogical thoughts, and lack of care felt realer than what could be displayed through a screen. While all this was done through stories in which are neither grounded in reality nor inherently relatable, the emotion felt incredibly human.
This forced me to ponder the fundamental question subliminally posed by the show, why does such an absurd depiction of reality feel the most real?
French philosopher Albert Camus posited that we are all heroes in our own lives. Whether we are objective heroes in the traditional definition is entirely up to us, but the human mentality is incapable of viewing itself as anything but the hero, yet that definition becomes distorted by our perception of reality and how we choose to interact with it as such.
Through the lens of Sisyphus, Camus dictates that the purpose of reality is to embrace the absurdity behind it and use it not only to empower us in our life, but to embrace freewill.
One way in which we attempt to address the absurdity that dictates reality is through artistic depictions of the material world. When language, philosophy, or personal conceptions of realism in nature fail, we often are forced to rely on the lesser understood absurdity that is more apparent in our life than expected.
One of the most pressing questions that encapsulates this school of thought provides insight into how the absurd can form a more accurate picture of reality. How would you describe an illogical injustice to a small child? How is one to approach explaining racial prejudices, sexist biases, or disparages in wealth despite effort applied to work?
In Ta-Nehisi Coates article in The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations, he outlines the historical biases in America that are often seldom understood or rarely talked about. He details the stories of redlining that had prevented a key component of economic identity in ownership from African American communities. He illuminates a passionate and sound argument that details how the black community in America was and still is oppressed beyond the ability of anyone to mend.
While the argument is fascinating and should be recommended reading for anyone looking to explore the history of racism in America, it simply could not be understood by a child or someone with a lack of understanding for biases.
One can stare at the painting, “Long Live Freedom” by Nicky Nodjoumi, and immediately understand the pain and suffering inflicted. The scene of a scared black face, pressed against a wall, mouth bonded and eyes glassy and frail, faced with a blade being pressed tighter against his scratched visage. Blood dripping from an unseen gash and onto the white confines of a cell.
While this piece was made as a protest against the unlawful beatings and arrests of the Shah of Iran, its transcendent message of unlawful prejudices is one easily understood.
The beauty in this piece comes in taking a raw and unfiltered, yet absurd approach to a real issue, and in the end conveying a deeper message that feels truer than any realistic depiction of suffering.
While not its intent, it causes sympathy in making the viewer relate to the vague confines and raw pain felt in the image and is left no option other than to relate to it. This is not done with a faux sense of empathy equal to that of a white savior, or attention seeking opportunity activism. It is done with a real sense of hurt and understanding.
This depiction of real pain through an absurd lens is something that can be done in every facet of life and poses an answer to the basic question of why absurd depictions of reality feel so real; they force us to make them real. In viewing something absurd, the human desire to seek equilibrium will force us to sense the broader themes driving the question posed by the author of the absurdity and explains both our personal finding of relatability in absurdity and understanding the root of the absurd better.
What lies in that absurdity may never be known or adequately understood, but The Vince Staples Show and other absurd depictions of reality lie the closest to unveiling both the absurdity in the material world, but the absurdity beyond it.
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