Dinosaurs in the Hood by Danez Smith (Explicit Language)
Dinosaurs in the Hood
by: Danez Smith
Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.
Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops
& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene
where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene
where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let
the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit
about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.
This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —
children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town
from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive
Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding
black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith
& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors
with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,
screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.
I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick
through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be
a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed
because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor
for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.
This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.
This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.
This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie
who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.
No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills
the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason
I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless
his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.
I love this poem for the simple, evocative beauty of the words. I love how they flow when they're spoken, and I love the idea--no the ideas, expressed in those words. There is something exciting whenever we add dinosaurs into the mix of anything. Dinosaurs...at Tea! Dinosaurs...Take Over the Museum! Already that title tells me that there's something exciting going to happen here.
But the exciting things aren't those dinosaurs. The real exciting thing is:
...the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless
his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.
This poem is a vision of a different world--a better world, in which black people save the day. It depicts them as heroes--but not because of some big blockbuster names, but because of the ordinary people--the people whose names you might recognize, but aren't the "beautiful, black person" stereotype that Hollywood is so intent on feeding us. It's the Cecily Tysons and Viola Davises--the black grandmas living in the hood pulling out their shotguns from wherever they keep them hidden. The police don't come to save the day, and there's no Asian martial arts badassery brought to bear. There's no Hispanic or Latin people sharing in the glory of these moments. It's the black community that saves the day from dinosaurs.
And for once something black shouldn't have to be about some larger narrative or grander themes. And the story shouldn't be about the black people--it's about the black people fighting the dinosaurs--and about the wonder that a little black boy sees when he looks up from his toy dinosaur to see the real thing right outside his window--sees his people overcoming the dangers. Sees his neighbors banding together to stop the chaos created. And sees real, live freaking dinosaurs!
There is a passion embedded in these words that comes from black experiences and black lives--that began with the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. and echoes down all these years later to this dream of a black poet dreaming about what that moment might be like--where a movie can be a dinosaur movie and not somehow less because it's got an entirely black cast. But instead, it's this cool movie about a kid and some dinosaurs--as fundamental and great a movie as Jurasic Park, and Friday, and The Pursuit of Happiness. And it doesn't get panned because it's "black." But instead revels in that dream of a young, black boy on a bus seeing a real dinosaur roaming through his hood.
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