Black and White Film

Photo courtesy of David Trotman "Feets! Don’t Fail Me Now," a
new film being broadcast on the Internet, uses stereotypes to raise
questions about racial identities in America.

By Sandy Yang
Daily Bruin Contributor

At first glance, David Trotman’s multimedia production
“Feets! Don’t Fail Me Now” seems intent on
attracting an audience using shock tactics.

Set in 1862, the fictional story, which is presented via the Web
at www.home.earthlink.net/~feets,
personifies Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food icon Colonel Sanders
as a slave owner who employs Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima as his
servants. While watching Confederate Public Television one night,
the Colonel donates one of his slaves, Jacques, to the network.
Jacques, however, escapes to avoid being given away.

What ensues is a story in which the Colonel hires
“Slavecatchers Inc.,” modeled after the Ghostbusters,
to find Jacques, who is being helped by a Native American
dominatrix and a European immigrant.

The story, however, goes into a time warp and takes its
characters to the year 2001, where they create a theme park called
“Slave Land.” The park’s attractions are based on
antebellum plantation life and, according to Trotman, incorporate
physical cruelty, sexual exploitation and the implicit threat of
violence.

The situations eventually move beyond being just politically
incorrect and become outrageous, but for Trotman, such antics are
meant to shock and act as a tool to make the audience question
racial stereotypes that are largely accepted today.

“(“˜Feets!’) is meant to question why these
figures of our culture linger from the past,” Trotman said in
a phone interview.

“Why is Colonel Sanders attractive as a corporate symbol?
Why is Aunt Jemima attractive to corporations who want to sell
their products?” he continued. “What’s the
underlying message? What are these figures really telling us about
ourselves?”

For Trotman, a former professor of African American history at
the University of Washington, “Feets!” provides food
for thought on every level. Included in the story are questions
about historical depictions from the Civil War to today, as well as
the politics that have affected African Americans in the last 150
years and today’s media portrayal of antebellum figures.

Included in the production are references to the 1860’s
era of Reconstruction when a presidential election resulted in a
new low for African American civil rights.

Trotman also includes on his site an addendum that lists recent
apologies for slavery from the U.S. government and corporations
that dealt with the inhuman bondage 150 years ago. According to
Trotman, the deliberate mix of the past and present settings in his
production comments on the politics that still affect civil rights
today.

Such serious topics get filtered through snappy Southern dialect
which harks back to the Mark Twain era.

“You aren’t beaten over the head with issues, but
hopefully, a couple of thoughts can drift in and stir some
late-night discussions,” Trotman said.

Because Trotman, now a computer executive, is not teaching
students in a classroom anymore, he said the Internet is the
perfect medium to reach a much bigger audience ““ potentially
anyone who wants to log on and challenge themselves.

Back in 1993, however, when Trotman first wrote
“Feets!,” which is based on Ishmael Reed’s novel
“Flight to Canada,” the opportunities were slimmer.
Trotman envisioned the story for the stage or on screen, but the
stakes were high for a film or television studio to gamble on an
unknown writer, according to Ronald Perry, who worked on
“Feets!” in its nascent stages.

Perry believes that today the Web could very well give
“Feets!” the exposure to revitalize those goals.

“He’s still looking for a venue, and making
“˜Feets’ available for all to see is to pop it on the
Internet and get exposure,” Perry said.

The Web also allows for a freedom of expression that film
studios and theater companies may shy away from.

For example, a rap song in “Feets” entitled
“The Slavecatcher’s Rap” includes potentially
offensive lyrics like “When you track slaves / They can run
they can hide / But you’ve got all the dogs / And a gun at
your side.” The story line also walks on a very thin line,
especially when the Colonel justifies his antebellum ideals.

“I’m the one who pays taxes,” the Colonel says
in the story. “If civilized men like me hadn’t imported
you, you savages would still be back in the jungle slaughtering
each other.”

Though the use of stereotypical images and ideas could provoke
the debate and analysis that Trotman hoped to spark for his
students 10 years ago, “Feets!” still begs the
question: won’t the site perpetuate the very stereotypes it
hopes to dispel?

“Individuals will come at this site from all different
backgrounds,” Trotman said. “To a person who is very
knowledgeable, this site won’t come across as racist ““
that’s the knee-jerk interpretation.”

“If you’re going to be Jonathan Swift with “˜A
Modest Proposal,’ you’re going to have people who are
yelling and screaming, but society catches up with the individual
and it becomes an issue they can come to understand,” he
continued.

Already, “Feets!” has been featured in The San
Francisco Chronicle and newspapers from several major universities,
through which Trotman hopes he can reach more college students. In
just the few months since the site has gone up in its completed
form, worldwide responses have poured in, ranging from outrage to
praise for the dialogue and ideas presented.

Trotman, however, welcomes the controversy and differing
opinions “Feets!” generates.

“No one told me they were bored by it, that’s the
critical thing,” Trotman said. “You haven’t got
anything if you get a uniform response.”

INTERNET: “Feets! Don’t Fail Me
Now” can be viewed at www.home.earthlink.net/~feets.