Marty Supreme is about Kanye West, and Me, and maybe You

Sam Bodrojan already did an excellent piece for the LA Review of Books on why this is some generational shit. Go read that, it is much more thorough and nuanced, and well worth your time. My piece on the movie, though, is about Kanye West.

This movie is about Kanye West.

Not literally, of course, but metaphorically, spiritually, positionally, it is about the greatest musician to ever live. About greatness itself. About what it means to be so singleminded in success that you block out every possible impulse to hold back, think of failure, or have the tiniest bit of self-doubt. Because why not. Why not take control of the one life you live, not on some corny Tony Robbins shit but on everything because you’re talented and sexy enough to make it? What do you have to lose except your sanity and dignity and everyone you’ve ever loved and your sense of self and basic needs and maybe even your own life?

I think about being online and being accused of ragebaiting or being a contrarian or having too many takes and shit, yeah maybe you’re right. Maybe the way we interact online flattens all nuance and forces us to be glib motherfuckers with no tact and makes ultimately worse with no room for discourse or discussion or critical thinking. And? We’re pigs in shit bro. I’m no better than you, and vice versa. Live a little! Marty has the right idea!

Every day motherfuckers love to complain and kvetch and act like niggas is OUTRAGEOUS for getting a correct take off or being assured of my own correctness. And look at the parallels—Kanye is a black man in a racist country, I’m a black man in a racist country and shit, Niggathee Chalomet whole chosen family in that movie black. Doesn’t make him black but he sure as shit gets constantly otherized by those who don’t respect where he’s from and what he acts like. How many better scenes exist than the paddling one that so perfectly describes how capitalism forces you to prostrate yourself for a check? It’s as if Kanye himself wrote it.

And furthermore, Kanye was an athlete (was being the operative word cause he sure ain’t working now). Music is sports, sports are theatre, you’re already in the shit, so why not be the best at it. The mask is the performance until the performance is the mask until there are no mirrors. In Kanye, and in Marty, simulacra exists as a way to survive, to perform kayfabe until the kayfabe is actualized. You make your game your life, no matter the cost, until niggas understand: THIS SHIT IS REAL. And it’s not a fucking game.

My hating isn’t a persona, it’s love. It’s loving greatness so fucking much that you get angry when mediocrity and sterility is rewarded. It is actively dissuading the prevailing context that makes people settle, makes art soulless, makes the game gone. I don’t suffer fools, I hate the pretense, if there’s no authenticity I’m going home. If you got me fucked up I will make it your problem. You can talk shit about Icarus but he did get up there, even for that one brief moment.

So go ahead, be reddit, talk like Sephiroth, be the lolcow. You’re too afraid to be genuine? With these ugly fascists running the show? Get real. Embrace your inner Kanye, your inner Marty, your inner Eli, your inner Icarus. Swing for the fucking fences, be brash, fuck, stay fly. Smugness and glibness are dying baby, we’re gonna rule the world.