Keanu

And Misplaced Trust

It’s funny how socially isolated one can be in prison. We all knew that Jordan Peele had become a culturally-relevant horror filmmaker, having watched “Get Out” and “Us” several times. But we all still knew Peele as half of Key and Peele, the sketch comic duo behind the series of the same name. While “Us” was playing to packed audiences, we were watching “Key And Peele” marathons where he did funny voices, yelled and stomped, and shared moments of mirth with Keegan Michael-Key. And while Peele was collecting Oscar nominations, we were in prison watching him do funny voices with his pal “Keegan” during another re-running of their only movie as a duo, “Keanu”.

Key and Peele are Clarence and Rell, two friends who have each others’ back when Rell struggles in the wake of a bad breakup. Fortunately, Rell is paid a fortuitous visit by a small four-legged friend, a tiny whiskered feline recently liberated from a Mexican cartel. There is no gestation period – the brokenhearted Rell immediately takes the kitten into his arms and names him Keanu. Suddenly, heartbreak has been soothed by the furry, tiny beast.

Through a contrived series of events, Rell and Clarence soon find themselves kitty-less. The movie utilizes sketch comedy tropes to get the two in front of a failed gangster (Will Forte) and Anna Faris (Anna Faris) – the latter is one of those stunt cameos where someone parodies their true self. I do happen to think Anna Faris is a national treasure we’ve yet to properly utilize (she’s a legend in Gregg Araki’s underseen “Smiley Face”). But her sequences drag on, as they’re getting a laugh out of a perceived public reputation that Faris doesn’t necessarily have. Given that she’s appearing here as a psycho, you could have just let her run wild as an original character, one who seems to love violence and especially swords.

The information gathered leads Rell and Clarence to the doorstep of Method Man, here as the leader of the “Blips” – a gang of castoff Bloods and Crips that may have been too hardcore, or perhaps they simply weren’t admitted. To fit in with the gang, Clarence and Rell become Shark Tank and Tech-Tonic, engaging in ‘hood cosplay to get into the inner circle, where Keanu resides.

The movie is ultimately a soft-handed critique of Black cultural identity, a joke that served as the basis for dozens of Key And Peele sketches over the years. For decades, liberal white academics became obsessed with the idea of passing, of minorities assimilating and being accepted in white spaces while systematically seeing their identities subsumed. They’re less familiar with the aggressive conflict that exists between those that do or do not conform to certain racial standards within primarily-minority environments. The theft of Keanu is a violation in that the two men feel that an intrinsic element of their identity – masculinity, in some readings (flattered by the deceptively-complex performance of Tiffany Haddish) – has been taken from them, repurposed for someone more appropriate. Consider that the Bloods and the Crips have long been Black signifiers to certain swaths of the audience, and how menaced our leads are by the existence of a club that represents the aggression and danger of those groups without ever being a part of them. Shark Tank and Tech-Tonic are names and identities serving as two-way cultural criticism – theoretically the type of “Black names” that wouldn’t draw scrutiny, but also abstract symbols of capitalism deemed acceptable in a low-income environment.

Rell and Clarence are, like many characters on “Key And Peele”, achingly suburban. More than once, Clarence shakes when his love of George Michael music is discovered, but his undying appreciation of Michael’s songs lead to him integrating the love of this mainstream hitmaker into his “gangsta persona”, a risky attempt to quietly build a cultural bridge with the men he’s trying to rob. This push and pull is largely left unresolved – it’s funny when most of the helpful exposition is provided by a white character (Forte) in dreadlocks and a grille. But because Key and Peele are ultimately MadTV veterans, they can’t resist an opportunity to over-explain a joke, and Clarence and Rell eventually find themselves facing two dopplegangers who exaggerate the false identities of Clarence and Rell.

Those characters are more about plot function, and the film falters when it has to advance the narrative. The movie putters along amiably when the two have to bounce off each other, the duo a well-oiled machine where both parties are unafraid to share attention. “Keanu” at times runs into the same problems as several movies based around sketch talents and personalities, and unquestionably this is a 100 minute movie that could have clocked out twenty minutes earlier. But sometimes, there are simpler pleasures worth remarking on. And, as the characters suggest, yes little Keanu is an adorable character to put in a movie. Thematically, the presence of a small animal is a demarcation between the identity of a “thug” and someone like Clarence or Rell, creating the comic juxtaposition that the little guy exists in both worlds. But sometimes it’s just a delight to see this little ball of fur making easy friends onscreen.

One of the reasons I operate this Substack is to remind them that criminal justice is one of many monoliths holding America up. And I think it’s the disconnection of the younger generation that has called into attention the viability and functionality of a system that has only been in place for a handful of decades. Too many people think there are good guys, there are bad guys, and then the good guys put the bad guys away because it’s a moral decision rooted in systems that supposedly work on their own to protect society. When we are involved with the world of arrests and prosecutions, it’s important to remember that these are based in decisions made by men and women, decisions sometimes based on structural, and not empathetic thought. And then they’re executed by different people who also have their primary interests unrelated to the concept of justice. We’re all here to make the world a better place. And then we all get distracted, because we are just human.

I’ve spoken to people who have been unmoved by the raft of stories about ICE imprisonment. They do not believe them, it is just rampant rumor, and so what if prison has a couple of innocent people if it’s also being used to incarcerate killers and thieves? And this stems from a belief stretching back decades, the idea that the jailing of people is often justified, and there is an implicit trust we place in a badge, a gun and a uniform. Sociologically, this makes sense, given the prior decades not only of law enforcement catching terrorists and murderers, but of the constant flow of propaganda coming from the media we consume, from cop shows of various content to the crime-ridden six o’clock news, from the complete lack of proper reporting of people in custody who are mistreated, abused and sometimes killed by craven institutional neglect.

Our society is, ultimately, built on trust. We drive cars on the streets in the assumption everyone will follow proper traffic etiquette. We send our children to schools all day, where they are watched by people we will never meet, forced into a schedule that may actively disrupt their growth. We have libraries. So much of what we do every day is based on the idea that our neighbors won’t turn around and hurt us. Currently, it’s important to understand that this trust is being abused by the justice system. It is unquestionable from stories like these that American citizens are being detained unlawfully, and despite the lies you hear from the Supreme Court (not so much lies, to be fair, as more unearned, blind faith), they are not being treated lawfully. What must be told is not that ICE’s methods are cruel (they know, and love, this) but that they are a lie. The inhumane eradication of illegal aliens has nothing to do with the illegal detainment and mistreatment of American citizens. And yet, here we are.