Now, I’m late, but I’m here. As you should know, I just finished watching this with my best friend on her couch, and after a drive home, I have some deep thoughts to share about this fantastic film! But as you all also know, I have to get a few things out of the way first.
The cast was phenomenal, per usual in a film of this nature. The message of your movie has to be finessed the right way and a perfect cast can do that and more with your film. I love how these characters evolve over time in the film from kind of just playing their every day role in this hood to being hood superheroes. I love the rollercoaster of tone from regular hood movie to comedy to suspense and mystery to conspiracy theory. I want to give a extra special shoutout to J. Alphonse Nicholson. Since seeing him for the first time in P Valley to seeing him in interviews and on social media, where I got to know the man a little better, I can say that I am so proud to see him more and more. He deserves the world. My second shoutout goes to John Boyega because he’s fine and he loves Black women. Ok, now to the deep thoughts I had in the car.
They Cloned Tyrone, like I said, started as a classic hood movie. We follow Fontaine, the neighborhood drug dealer, as he lives his life in the hood. He wakes up, makes sure his mom is straight, gets the other dealers off his corners, collects his paper, and keeps the neighborhood kids from making the same mistakes he did. To be honest, I was a little thrown off because I expected there to be more mystery to start. Up until Fontaine died, the first time, it seemed pretty standard. Also, did not peg the relationship between Yo-Yo, Slick Charles, and Fontaine being the way it started. The trailers made it seem like they were all friends, but that wasn’t quite right. Moving on. Fontaine gets shot but somehow, the next day, is back at Slick Charles’ motel room asking for money he took the day before. The adventure and mystery begins.
The trio accidentally uncover the underground secrets of The Glen. Scientists have been experimenting on and cloning residents of The Glen community. Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, let me drop a few gems. When i started at Virginia Commonwealth University, we were given summer reading. That reading was “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skoot. Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman from Roanoke, Virginia who suffered from cervical cancer. At the time, Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland, was the only hospital that treated Black people in the 1950’s. Unbeknownst to her, the doctor who did her biopsy harvested her cells and created medical miracles, at the time, that basically saved millions of lives and cured or solved millions of medical problems. Remember polio? Of course you don’t because HeLa cells were used to help develop the polio vaccine and much more. When the HeLa cells were contaminated, the family started to get calls for their blood samples so scientists could continue their work. This is when Skoot and the family started to ask questions. Remember the Tuskegee Experiment? This was where the government injected over 400 Black men with syphilis to test the effects the disease had on humans. Mind you, treatment was never offered to these men and they never really knew what they were being injected with. These are just two examples of documented experimentation on Black people in the United States.
In addition to the experiments, Fontaine and the crew find that the scientists have kidnapped, cloned, and altered every day things that the people of the community come in contact with. Let’s break each of these down.
Kidnapping and disappearances have become more prevalent in the Black community. It seems like almost every week I see a post about a Black person who’s gone missing. Furthermore, we’ve seen series like Dahmer where it’s been suggested that officials do not care when those deemed something like society’s throw-aways go missing. We’ve heard the stories of officers saying a Black boy may have ran away when they go missing versus a White child going missing and a nationwide search ensues.
The things that added the powder to in this community: chicken, grape drank, and perm. Chicken is the stereotypical Black food. How many times have you been somewhere and someone has made a chicken and watermelon joke? Or you’ve been chastised about not being able to fry chicken? In all honesty, Black people have had to make due with the scraps given since slavery days. I know we all don’t want to talk about it, but masters did give the unsavory parts of the chicken and pig to their slaves. And guess what? Slaves made that food slap with some fatback, herbs, and spices!
Grape drank took us to church, and it’s perfect since we’re on the topic of slavery. When the slaves came from the West coast of Africa, Christianity was not their native religion. Each tribe practiced their own religion, but when transported to America, masters didn’t allow many of their slaves to keep their identity. They changed their names, how they dressed, how they spoke, and who they praised. While they couldn’t attend their churches, masters made sure their slaves were assimilated to Christianity to keep the slaves obedient and under control. If they didn’t fear their master, maybe they would fear a higher being which would be Jesus and God. Now, I want to pause here and say that I am a Baptist and the Lord has been good to me. Amen? Amen! But I do know what this religion was originally used for and I won’t shy from that. But the Baptism I practice is not that of fear and exclusion. It is of love and acceptance.
Good ol’ perm. I remember those days of perming my hair. I don’t miss them. Well, yes I do sometimes, but that’s because their are two reasons Black women, and men at times, permed their hair. The main reason for relaxing one’s Black roots is convenience. It is cheaper and easier to manage relaxed hair, unless it is 100 degrees outside or you’re at a water park. But relaxing your hair is so damaging to your hair that in the long run, it’s just not worth the convenience. The next reason is advertising. Advertising, Amber? Advertising. Hear me out. What do you remember seeing as a kid in all the advertising for toys or food or clothes? Usually, blond White women with long straight hair. Rarely did you see curls, brunettes, or anything outside of that mold. It became a popular style, and so things were created to achieve that desired style. Simple as that, honestly. It’s been that way for years. Now we are in the phase where we have to beg society to view our natural locs, kinks, and curls as professional.
Old Fontaine…While the Fontaine we’ve been watching is test subject A001, Old Fontaine is the original, and his motivations make sense but they don’t. I was going to start to talk about him here but I think I need to make a “Hear Me Out” for that. I have A LOT more to say about him and his motivations.
The ending is one of the best endings that I have ever seen and I will tell you why. We say a lot about the hood, but one thing remains constant, the hood will rally for the hood! When Slick Charles rides down the street with all the street dudes with him, a smile spread wide across my face. We know the hood is hard place to live, place, and survive in but they will take care of their own. From the outside looking in, it doesn’t always seem that way but I have heard right many stories where people like Kendrick Lamar and the like have said that the dope dealers kept him from around them and off the streets. Some of the baddest, most ruthless, and meanest people in the hood protected the elders, the children, and the women in their neighborhood. Honestly, most times I feel safest in the worst parts of my city. Maybe that’s because I was always everywhere with grandma and nobody bothered her or maybe because I was exposed to it at such a young age, that it just feels like home to me.
Also, I am about 10 kids’ play auntie and I fit the role perfectly because I knew every one of these old songs they plays from the 70’s and 80’s. They are all on my liked songs on Spotify because I am an old person on the inside.
They Cloned Tyrone is streaming right now on Netflix. You can wait to see the Barbie movie. I promise you, it will be streaming soon. Go watch this now!
