“When, on Saturday, November 7, 2020, all of the major news networks finally called the presidential election in favor of now-President Joe Biden, it was easy, in the moment, to celebrate what felt like the impending end of a terrible era: a presidency that had trafficked in fear-mongering, racism, and nationalism to lay bare America's long-standing social inequities and divide the country even further than it already was. But of course, Donald Trump wasn't about to go down without a fight, thus paving the way for the riot in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, when a large crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to overturn free and fair election results that were in the process of being certified that day. If his recent appearance at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference is any indication, we're all going to be dealing with the fallout from Trump's disastrous presidency for much longer than many of us would prefer.
“So while it's perhaps now easy, maybe even desirable, to dismiss David Byrne's American Utopia—Spike Lee's filmed version of David Byrne's hit Broadway concert—as an instant relic of a particularly tormented period in American history, as long as the social and political forces that allowed a Trump presidency to flourish in the first place remain, David Byrne's idiosyncratic yet wonderfully inclusive vision will continue to resonate. Certainly, nothing will bring back Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other black lives lost to police violence, as Lee highlights during Byrne & company's stirring rendition of Janelle Monáe's ‘Hell You Talmbout.’ And as many majority-Republican states continue to try introduce ‘election reforms’ that are basically just fancy attempts at voter suppression, even Byrne's awkward interstitial lecture about America's right to vote will remain relevant.
“And of course, David Byrne's American Utopia will always be just a fireball of joy. Surely that is an experience that will never grow old, whatever period in history we're all in.”
Kenji Fujishima is a writer and editor based in New York City. He has previously written about film for publications including Village Voice, Slant Magazine, and Paste, and about theater for TheaterMania.
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