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| February 2012 |
| Billie Silvey |
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| New Orleans in Popular Culture |
| It's great to visit different places with different cultures, but sometimes that's impossible. You may not be able to travel as much as you'd like, or the place may no longer exist in the same way. This is especially true of the past, which had a different culture from the same place in the present. It can also be true of catastrophic events that you wouldn't want to experience. Popular culture can give you a more realistic sense of another time and place than would be possible any other way. Reading a good book or watching a good movie or TV show can put you in that place, introducing you to the sorts of people who lived and walked there at the time. |
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| An example is a series of books I've been reading about New Orleans in the 1830s. They're by author Barbara Hambly and feature the detective Benjamin January. The first book in the series, A Free Man of Color, opens doors to Creole society in the era of gaslight and horses and buggies. It takes you around a New Orleans that no longer exists, giving you a picture of the life that formed the basis of cultural traditions that continue today. |
| Benjamin January is a man of mixed blood working as a musician even though he trained as a doctor in Paris. He investigates the murder of a young woman at a Mardi Gras ball, working with the rough and crude white policeman Abishag Shaw against the background of New Orleans nightlife and social conventions, and the plantations just outside its borders. In the second book in the series, Fever Season, January is able to use his medical training to help fight a devastating epidemic of yellow fever, caring for the dying at Charity Hospital while working as a music teacher during the day and helping a schoolmistress dedicated to teach young girls of color in a time and place when neither knowledge nor people of color were valued. The third, Graveyard Dust, examines the mysterious world of voodoo and its relationship to New Orleans' dominant Catholicism. January's sister Olympe, a voodoo practitioner and follower of Voodoo Queen Marie Leveau, has been accused of murder. His own life is threatened when January finds graveyard dust, a voodoo death curse, sprinkled at his door. There are several other books in the series that I haven't yet read, but I'm eager to. |
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| Another example of popular culture opening a door to New Orleans is the incredible first season of David Simon's HBO series, Treme, set in New Orleans three months after Katrina. Pronounced Tre-may, the title refers to America's oldest black neighborhood. The major character in Treme is the varied music of New Orleans--rhythm and blues, zydeco, and especially jazz. Beginning with the theme song written by John Boutte, it imbues the entire series with life and depth. But the visuals are almost as important as the sounds, including the rushing water, the high water marks, the codes on houses showing how many bodies were found inside and the mold, so prevalent you can almost smell it. Antoine Batiste (above), played by Wendell Pierce, is perhaps the most representative of the many music-makers and styles showcased in the series. I especially loved the plot line that began with his losing his horn after being rousted by the police and continued through the gift of a new one by a Japanese jazz enthusiast. Through numerous twists and turns, Batiste bridges the past, present and future of New Orleans jazz. |
| My second favorite character is LaDonna Batiste-Williams (left), Antoine's former wife and friend, played by Khandi Alexander. She makes the screen glow whether she's yelling at lazy construction workers on the bar she inherited from her father or marching with heart-rending dignity at a jazz funeral. |
| Her relationship with Antoinette 'Toni' Bernette, played by Melissa Leo, rivals Thelma and Louise and shows the bond that can be forged between differing cultures as Leo's character works to help locate Alexander's brother, who is missing after the storm. It spoke to me of close friendships I've enjoyed over the years with people of other cultures, though in my experience, who's on the giving and on the receiving end swings back and forth more than theirs indicated. |
| Leo plays the wife of John Goodman's college professor Creighton Bernette (shown left berating a news crew covering the disaster). Creighton starts out strong supporting his city, but gradually disintegrates before our eyes. |
| A second season of Treme has aired to critical approval. |
| My favorite character is Big Chief Albert Lambreaux, played by Clarke Peters (left). He returns to New Orleans determined to continue the tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians. A small wiry man of incredible strength, he reminds me of my Granny. |