Talk to Me - MONICA WEIR
For having not heard of the movie, "Speak to Me" before class on Wednesday I really enjoyed it. I thought that the character development was phenomenal and that the plot was very well laid out. You couldn’t help but fall in love with Don Cheadle’s character, Petey Greene from the very beginning. When Dewey’s boss comes into the room shouting, “What in blue blazes is going on here?” and instead of giving an answer, Petey asks, “Did he just say ‘blue blazes?’” I was hooked.
I thought the film did a great job of integrating humor into a serious story line. My favorite serious part was probably when Petey is supposed to be on the Late Night Show and he has no desire to do it. He believes that the audience watching the television show is not the audience whom he speaks to. In her article “The Forgotten Fifteen Million: Black Radio, ‘The Negro Market’ and the Civil Rights Movement,” Kathy Newman describes that “most African Americans owned radios rather than owned televisions or subscribed to newspapers and magazines.” I really liked that Petey remained true to himself and his values throughout the film rather than ever cave to what others thought he should be. This was only one instance of that.