Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

I found this movie to be highly enlightening because it went far more in depth than our student presenters had time to do. I found his rise to fame interesting in that it wasn't what you would typically see in America today. Usually today people begin their fame by being related to somebody famous and then moving from there. Jean-Michel on the other hand did not have that advantage and yet still became famous. This would go against what loewen talks about because although we see economic stratification, it seems that there is more possibility for upward mobility than what Loewen believed. On the other hand, Jean-Michel could very well be an exception. Although he began his art career from the streets, his life was not always like that. The movie explains how he had grown up in a middle-class household because his father had a good job and how he was also multi-lingual because he learned his parents native languages as well as english; this to me is a sign that perhaps he did not really go up at all in terms of economic level but rather went down and then back up? I also found the outright racism shown toward Jean-Michel Basquiat interesting because although I know that racism is shown all the time, it seemed a lot more drastic and sad when shown blatantly towards people that we can see. For example, Jean-Michel tried to get cabs to get back to his loft even after he became famous but because he was black, many cabs would keep going and he would have to wait an inordinate ammount of time for something that white people take foregranted. Crt 1 was also shown during a television interview that Jean-Michel gave because the interviewer mentioned Jean-Michel's work as being primitive and representing black people's art in this way. Jean-Michel knew right away the racist ideas that ths implied and even called him out on it. "You mean ape? Like my work is primitive like that?" (or said somethinglike this) Jean-Michel expected this kind of racism even though he did not like it and stood against it but, after all, he saw that racism is ordinary and you are going to have to expect it in life regardless of whether it is wrong or not. This made me very sad because it called into question why all of these rich white people were buying all of his paintings at all. Is it because they had some sort of wierd fascination with the 'black primitive's art?' Because they thought it represented the black people whom they did not understand? I wanted and want them to like his painting for the paintings not because of some false ideal that they think he represents. Like they think that having a painting from a black artist will make their status go up. Why even bother then? Jean-Michel recognized this and wished that people from the lower class could afford his paintings because then they would be appreciated by far more people and seemingly for better reasons. That is why he envied Madonna, because her music could reach anyone. Thus, I respect Jean-Michel Basquiat and I wish that he could have been appreciated as much when he was alive as he is now.