Reppin’

Sylvie’s Love. Black love in cinematic technicolor. I am here for it.
It was released on Amazon just before Christmas 2020. The trailer and pictures had me pining for the Sunday matinee movie dates I used to have with my mother. I was busy with actual Christmas and closing out the year so only got around to viewing it this week. It was gorgeous, mom would have loved it. It’s a classic love story told simply and beautifully, with beautiful Black leads.
The action spans 1957 to 1962. There is a lot happening in the world outside the frame but the only conflicts on screen are pride and ego. It’s not about the struggle of being Black. Characters talk about music without it being political, friends have a day at the beach without being harassed, there’s a big party without a raid. We see the slick city streets of Harlem and not a single cop. It might almost be a more magical and romantic New York than Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I said what I said.
It’s a romantic drama but not oblivious to reality. There is a hint of the greater systemic racism that seeps into the hierarchy of the film’s world, but we see Black business owners thriving without the foil of a shifty landlord or rent struggles. There are Black women succeeding without a White competitor challenging their capacity to do the job.
It’s the lack of racial trauma that makes Sylvie’s Love so revolutionary. It’s just a classic Hollywood romance. The most profound thing about it might be the stunning visual impact. My eyes had been starved for this. Hashtag representation matters.

It also stirred an old LA memory.
In Los Angeles Halloween is almost a civic holiday. The reverence for dressing up is strong and the costumes can be extraordinary. I wasn’t in the mood this year, but it was my agency’s party. At the last minute I improvised a costume that remains my favorite to this day. It started with a gown languishing in the back of the closet in need of an occasion, why not Halloween? As I put my hair up I realized what I was creating. I dug around for vintage gloves I could never bear to purge. I didn’t have a tiara but I had a gorgeous necklace to evoke a little Tiffany’s. I grabbed my reusable coffee cup and picked up a pastry bag at a 7-11 en route to the party. In a low key genius touch I used the pastry bag to hold my keys and ID. Oh and I wore a classic trench coat just like Audrey’s. Voilà, Huie Golightly was born.

Not one single person guessed my costume correctly. Even with verbal clues.
Truman Capote heroine? Ok, maybe too literary for the celluloid crowd.
I’d have a cigarette but I forgot my holder, haha <strikes pose> Crickets and quizzical looks.
I’m from an iconic Audrey Hepburn movie…? Heads would cock to the side and they’d squint with visible strain before shaking their head in defeat.

This was a Hollywood crowd. There was a John Wayne à la True Grit, with the eye patch as the crowning detail. An Elizabeth Taylor-era Cleopatra had concocted a golden asp headdress from tinfoil and spray paint. Clues were in the minutiae, but I don’t think it was the lack of a tiara throwing folks off.

You look so elegant! Are you Michelle Obama?

That was the guess that put it all into context. The penny dropped with a shattering clang. She saw my Blackness first, the elegant costume was secondary. Limited references had reduced her guess to what made sense to this young white woman in 2010 America. I’ll give a point for First Lady Michelle Obama topping her stunted database of elegant Black women.
I suspect that the Audrey Hepburn clue confused more than it clarified. On the drive home I thought about her slowly dawning aha when I revealed the answer. There was a telling little stutter as the gears shifted, she hadn’t been searching for an Audrey Hepburn character, she’d been searching for a black character in an Audrey Hepburn film.

Ten years later, the scope of Black female characters has broadened to include everyone from Olivia Pope in her white hat to Bow Johnson in her many styles. And thanks to Shondaland, we have dreadlocks and afros in the 19th Century Royal Court of Bridgerton. We even have an entire country in the super hero universe. And now we have iconic 1960s glamor and style.
It’s not just the images, it’s the context. Beautiful period representations exist, but trauma is always the accessory. Yes the struggle is real, but so is the love… and joy, ingenuity and triumph.

I’m resurrected the Huie Golightly moniker for my adventures in New York and beyond, but what will the guesses be if I resurrect the costume now? Can you name five iconic Black female characters to dress up as this Halloween? I could have said ten but I really want you to play 😉