[Last fall, I
spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore
Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the
exploits of Timothy
Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s
Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to
hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]
On the potent
lessons of the show’s most surprising community, and their limits.
As all of my
posts this week have hopefully highlighted, I learned a great deal from Justified about many aspects of Harlan County
and its histories and communities. But no history or community stood out and
surprised me more than Noble’s Holler, the multi-generational African American
community (it dates
back to the immediate aftermath of Emancipation, we’re told) led by Mykleti Williamson’s
all-knowing yet tight-lipped, congenial yet dangerous butcher, restauranteur,
and under-the-table banker and businessman Ellstin Limehouse. Based
on an
actual Harlan community, and introduced as a central setting and plot element
in the show’s third season (with a recurring role in the fourth and sixth
seasons as well), Noble’s is dominated by Limehouse and his agenda, relationships,
and machinations, just as the show’s other season-long villain like Mags and
the Bennett clan become focal points of their community and world. But because
Limehouse and the people of Noble’s are the only residents of color we meet in
Harlan, just about every scene with Williamson—even if he’s ostensibly just
advancing aspects of the plot or aiding or hindering another character’s
efforts—also has a great deal to tell us about this historic and isolated
African American community and its presence and role in Harlan.
One of the most interesting
aspects of that latter communal role is Noble’s long (and again apparently historically
authentic) legacy of providing shelter to abused women of all races looking
to escape from their significant others. That legacy is deeply relevant to both
Ava Crowder (who utilized those services multiple times during her marriage to
the abusive Bowman) and Raylan Givens (whose mother often sought refuge from
Raylan’s abusive father Arlo in Noble’s), and thus echoes into the show’s
present and plot in numerous ways as well. But it’s certainly one of those
aspects of the show that extends beyond specific plotlines and episodes, and
helps us think about how oppressed and endangered minority communities (a
description that in Harlan fits both African Americans and abused women looking
to escape the confines of marriage, I would argue) find ways to survive and
even thrive through both codependence and independence. That is, Noble’s has clearly
benefited in various ways from its relationship with (especially) white women—we
see Limehouse take both money and information in exchange for providing shelter,
and of course having allies in the larger white community doesn’t hurt either—but
it is able to perform that role precisely because it is self-sufficient, a
quality that Limehouse is consistently determined to preserve and strengthen.
At the same
time, Limehouse and Noble’s are still limited by the show’s emphasis on genre
and plot. Although (unlike many of the season-long villains) Limehouse survives
past the end of his focal (third) season and indeed through the end of the
show, he and Noble’s are featured in the later seasons only if and when a
particular character needs one of the things that Limehouse can offer (shelter,
money, information, aid). That’s probably inevitable, and certainly
understandable, but it also frustratingly replicates in artistic terms the segregation
and isolation that Noble’s and its African American community have faced throughout
their Harlan existence. That is, we the viewers of Justified can go long stretches of time—such as the entirety of the
5th season, I believe—without seeing and thus (perhaps) without thinking
about Noble’s, and only remember its presence in Harlan when we (through one of
the show’s main characters) need something from it. You could say the same
about many aspects of Justified’s
community and world, to be sure (many critics have noted that both of Raylan’s
fellow Deputy Marshals came in and out of the show, left out of many
plotlines entirely); but there’s nonetheless something particularly frustrating
about this absence and elision when it comes to the show’s and Harlan’s one
overtly minority community. Yet I suppose it’s a sign of how much I love Justified that I desperately wish we had
more stories involving one of its characters and communities!
Last Justified Valentine tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other loves you’d share?
No comments:
Post a Comment