Lauren Kolsum
Talk to Me is one of the best movies based out of the 60's that I have had the pleasure of viewing. One of the things I liked about it was how Petey stayed true to himself no matter what. He had a voice, a voice of the people, his people, and no one could change that or take it away from him. His audience hung on to his every word and held a deep respect for Petey Green. In the end Dewey booked a slot on the Tonight Show for Petey, a show directed at a completely different audience then with whom Petey associated with. The people who followed the Tonight Show were typically old, conservative, white folks who Mr. Petey Green had nothing to say to. The moment of truth came when Petey looked around at all the waiting white faces, the live audience, and realized that they were obviously not interested in anything he had to say. He would have had to lie to make them happy. He would have lied to both himself and to everyone else who had admired him before. Petey was a black power activist and was not about to preach to a crowd of sneering white people who were a pretty good representation of the show's national audience.
Petey tried for the sake of Dewey, he really did, but his reputation and respect were at stake and he couldn't throw that away. Dewey worshipped The Tonight Show and never stopped to think what Petey wanted and how the show would affect him. It was obvious that Petey never was excited about the show, only to make Dewey happy. Dewey was an altogether different person then Petey, he greatly associated himself with the white race. He was also was also power hungry, wanting to make Petey bigger and bigger while Petey was happy where he was. "Quite trying to change me Dewey." What Petey meant was to stop trying to change him into a world leader activist. All he wanted after all was to "keep it real" as a local disc Jockey. The voice of Petey was personal, it was something that he did not want to share with Johnny Carson and the like. At one point he said "I don't think the world is ready for a nigga like me." The world was not ready to hear what he had to say, the truth about how unjust our society was. The world could not handle the truth, especially the followers of Johnny Carson's show.