Product: Space Is the Place [VHS] (1974)
Rating: 3.0
Space is Not the place
Appropriately named a blaxploitation film, Space is the Place does more harm than good in promoting "blackness", in spite of its attempts to weave in sophisticated technological and mythic themes. It is an arduous task finding positive representations and ideas amidst the white noise of drugs, bitches, pimps, and, well, noise. Ironically, part of the process is not understanding, as finally clarified in Sun Ra's concert approaching the end of the film.The good versus evil, religious, and Egyptian themes are relatively transparent, and the exclusive application to blacks (though strangely only to American blacks), is a reaction to the same monopolization on the part of whites. There is a mythical garden, an Eden-like place, an ark in the form of a space ship, and immortality in space/heaven, all reserved for blacks. Rather than promoting equality and peaceful coexistence, the message is one of segregation and near mutual annihilation. This could be because the divide between blacks and whites seems wide and hopelessly irreparable, or because blacks themselves are unable to rise up out of their oppressed state without outside or divine assistance. In all these cases thus far, the militant pro-black attitude actually agrees a great deal with white racism, promoting segregation and stating that blacks bear a great responsibility for their own plight, and cannot get their acts together.This negative presentation of disenfranchised groups continues in the hyper-sexualization of black women (and white women), seen in the whores, stories of abused women, told by their men and pimps, nurses, and numerous silent women riding in cars. Another notable phenomenon is the use of exploiting women to elevate one's status, especially if the woman is white. This implies not only that the assignment of female is even more subjugating than blackness, and that white women are a greater prize than black ones: the overseer's choice woman is white, and he first shows sexual interest in the white nurse, who happens to bring her black friend. Lines like "...do what your daddy says, and everything will be fine--it's better than shooting up on the stoop, isn't it?" both deprive women of the ability to make choices, and imply their predisposition to drugs and catering to their carnal instincts; this resembles the antiquated, racist, white perceptions of blacks, this time transferred to women. The line spoken by the pimp, who defends the fact that he beat his woman to the point of hospitalization, says "bitches need it". Somehow this man receives salvation in the end, but why, we never know.The alternating predatory or impotent black male persists throughout Space is the Place. The best example of this is in the devil-like Overseer, and his pathetic (half-white?) assistant. It could be, however, that the impotent part of him comes from that inner whiteness in his personality, since the two NASA men are unable to perform in the same brothel on the same day.The concert is the moment where Sun Ra explains his philosophy. Throughout the film, he establishes music as a balancing, mathematical, sophisticated force that can power anything from spaceships to an entire race. It can cause chaos, revolution, and salvation, so the fact that Sun Ra uses his unusual form of jazz to spread his message is expected. He asks, at the end of the film, for blind trust, for understanding that blacks are "the pattern and spirit of man", he asks them to not be afraid and to embrace their ignorance as their salvation. It is an ambiguous ending resulting in the salvation of whores, teenage hoodlums who save Sun Ra from the NASA men, a pimp who abuses women, and the black half of Jimmy Fey, helper of the Overseer.If nothing else, this film may be good for a laugh as some charmingly dated things can be, but whether in its own context of the time or now, it is offensive to the mind and ear. Best seen with a group of drunk friends, I would imagine.