Week 44: Resistance Mixtape

In which the podcaster reanimates dialog, disobeys much, and proffers ingredients for an albatross stew. 

LINKS & INFO

Network, dir. Sidney Lumet (1976).  
Speech 1
Peter Finch as Howard Beale  
Speech 2
Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen

Joy Harjo, “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” from She Had Some Horses. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983 

Victor Hernandez Cruz, “tu no eres” recorded by Christopher Funkhouser at Naropa Institute, 1991.  Rough translation in the episode transcript. 

Barbie, dir. Greta Gerwig (2023)
America Ferrera as Gloria (main speech) 
Voices in response:
Alexandra Shipp as Writer Barbie  
Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie 
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie  
Ariana Greenblatt as Sasha, Gloria's daughter  

Hidden Figures, dir. Theodore Melfi (2016)
Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Goble Johnson (speech) 
Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, director of the Space Task Group 

Stonewall Forever, dir. Ro Haber, is a documentary from NYC’s LGBT Community Center. You can watch it in its entirety at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRv7dJTync, and PLEASE DO. The voices that you hear in the excerpts are, in this order, Chella Man, Jay Toole, Martin Boyce, Agosto Machado, Wallace Sanders, Judy Bowen, Sylvia Rivera, Karla Jay, Bianey Garcia, and Zackary Drucker.

Janice Mirikitani, excerpt from the film Why Is Preparing Fish a Political Act?, dir. Russell Leong (1990)   

Jane Fonda, excerpt from her acceptance speech for a SAG Life Achievement Award, Feb 23, 2025. 

Tongo Eisen-Martin, “The Course of Meal”, recorded for the Create Justice project in 2017.  

Monolog from Episode 1 of The Newsroom, dir. Greg Mottola and written by Aaron Sorkin
Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy (main speech) 
Other voices (in order):
David Cromer as Debate Moderator 
Riley Voelkel as Jennifer Johnson 
Elizabeth Marvel as Sharon  
Jason Butler Harner as Lewis 

Senator Cory Booker on the Senate floor, 2:45 pm Eastern Daylight Time on April 1, 2025, 19 hours 45 minutes into a filibuster that went on until 8:05 pm, breaking the record at 25 hours 5 minutes. .  

The Great Dictator, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin (1940).

THE NEXT POD WILL BE CAST ON SATURDAY, APRIL 19. 

Chapters

• 2:52 Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network
• 7:59 Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen in Network
• 13:42 Joy Harjo
• 19:38 Victor Hernandez Cruz
• 24:23 America Ferrera in Barbie
• 28:19 Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures
• 31:57 Excerpts from Stonewall Forever
• 42:23 Janice Mirikitani
• 46:12 Jane Fonda
• 49:19 Tongo Eisen-Martin
• 55:19 Jeff Daniels' rant in Ep 1 of The Newsroom
• 1:01:47 Senator Cory Booker
• 1:07:54 Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator

Transcript

MY 12-MONTH VIDEO FAST 

EPISODE 29 – WEEK 44: Resistance Mixtape

This is Richard Loranger and welcome to Episode 29, covering Week 44 of “My 12-Month Video Fast”. 

It seems like just last week that I posted one of these – oh wait, I did! That’s because last month had five Saturdays, and I post on Odd Saturdays whenever I can. Now we’ve made it to the first one in April 2025, which also means that we’re pretty much in the homestretch of this goshdarn podcast, with only four episodes to go after this one. Does that mean the video fast will be over as well, as I’ve asked before? I still don’t know!

I do have to say that I’m fairly resentful that the last few episodes – the last five, actually – have been hijacked by the unpleasant politics of the day. And since when has “unpleasant” been a synonym for “sickening,” “egregious,” and “sociopathic”? Whereas I may be sick of having to get up and face it every day, I know I can’t not, but I’m also tired of having it take up so much of my airtime, especially when I’ve got so little of it left (at least on this pod), and so many things I’d still like to chat about. So this episode marks the mini-finale of that theme in this series (at least I hope so), and I’m planning to take it out with a cleansing fire of the human spirit (and if you think that’s corny, that’s your albatross to stew). And another thing I bet you’re tired of at this point is listening to my mellifluous yakking for hours on end, so I’m giving you a break from that too. What a boon, eh?

So welcome to my Resistance Mixtape, where I’ve compiled a bunch of human utterings – utterances – utters! in which many throats let loose a sound and adamant NO! to the assholery of our civilization (whatever that is). And if that’s as obtuse as it sounds to me, suffice to say that I’ve grabbed some choice samples and excerpts from films, poetry and other verbal discourse that I’m hoping will jazz you right up with their ingenuous defiance in the face of malice and corruption – at least if you manage to give this a listen before it gets yanked for all that grabbing. So let’s dive right in before that happens.

(Oh, quick note that I’ve included Chapter Markers for each audio sample, so if you have issues or disagree with one – though I can’t imagine how you could disagree with me [giggle] – you can easily skip to the next.)

First up I’ve got two terrific monologs from Network, one of my fave films of all time. If you’ve been listening all along, you might recall another speech from the same film that I featured at the end of Episode 4, “Book Report on Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”, because soooo good – which makes if feel even more fitting to start off with here. The 1976 film, directed by Sidney Lumet, follows veteran newscaster and anchorman Howard Beale as he goes through an extended breakdown (or perhaps enlightenment) on the air. After he threatens to commit suicide during an evening broadcast, the underdog network UBS (haha) finds their ratings soaring, so they decide to leave him on every night to rant. Eventually this rather famous diatribe comes out of him. I’ve included a minute of the aftermath as well, since it throws the film into overdrive and is so damn fun. And yes that’s Faye Dunaway whooping it up in the background. So here’s the great Peter Finch, who was awarded the first posthumous (and well-deserved) Oscar for this role, as Howard Beale.

[PLAY “MAD AS HELL” MONOLOG]

Howard’s show attracts a lot of attention, all right, including that of the Communications Corporation of America (CCA), which has just acquired UBS, after Howard manages to stop a major business deal. Their Chairman, Arthur Jensen (played by a supercharged Ned Beatty), invites Howard by for a chat and ushers him cordially into a palatial board room, vast and darkened, so that they can speak alone. Jensen, representing oligarchy, patriarchy, privilege, White power structure, and just plain icky masculinity, confronts Howard in this less-than-gentlemanly manner. You might want to hold on to something for this one. Here’s Ned Beatty’s Oscar-nominated four-minute harangue.

[PLAY JENSEN’S MONOLOG]

This is the only time in this episode that I’ll be presenting the ugly side of the coin, the face of Medusa itself, because it illustrates the tension and toxicity of old White cannibal culture so well – and besides, it’s one of the great fucking monologs ever. Good show, Ned!

So how does one respond to that, which is really everything that’s wrong with everything? How does one keep one’s heart and soul intact, as it were? Turns out there are so many ways, far more than I’ll present here, to say, “I remain.”

I’d like to start those responses with this wonderful recitation by Joy Harjo of her poem “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window”. Amazing title, right? Wait till you hear it. Hailing from the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, Harjo was the first indigenous person to serve as the U.S. Poet Laureate (from 2019-22). She writes from the Native American perspective, often delving into their oppression along with that of women, and “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” is no exception. It’s one of her more well-known poems – you’re about to see why – and I was very happy to find a recording of her reading it.

[PLAY JOY HARJO]

Almost in answer – or echo – to that woman’s dilemma is this piece by Puerto Rican / Nuyorican poet Victor Hernandez Cruz. It’s entirely in Spanish, which I don’t know super well, and while I’ve only heard it aloud – I was at the reading when it was recorded at Naropa Institute in 1991 – I could never get the main, repeated, maybe chanted phrase out of my head. That is: “Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres,” meaning, “You are not what they say you are.” And I love that. Cruz talked more about what the poem addressed at the time, but I don’t recall all the details and have never been able to find it (or a translation) in print. The scholar who recorded the piece, Christopher Funkhouser, hasn’t either, and speculates that it might in fact have been improvised, which Cruz was known for. A friend of mine is working on a translation which I hope to put in the Episode Notes when it’s ready. In the meantime, Spanish speakers enjoy!

[HERE IN FACT IS A TRANSCRIPTION DONE RECENTLY BY TANEESH KAUR, FOLLOWED BY A ROUGH TRANSLATION (from Google) IN ENGLISH. SINCE WE DONN’T KNOW THE LINE BREAKS, IT’S SEPARATED INTO TWO PROSE SECTIONS TO MAKE IT EASIER TO READ]

• Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Tú no eres el que dicen el por qué no saber de tanta humanidad. Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Tú eres ese que tú explicas qué eres. No eres esos ruidos, ni esos nervios, ni esos miedos. Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Tú no eres el que dicen que tú eres. Eres lo que tú eres. Lo que sabes está por dentro. Tú eres eso lo que eres y no lo que dicen las tantas lenguas que también lo oyeron de otros seres que no son esos seres que dicen que son, que no son estos seres que dicen que son. Tú no eres malacia de malicia ni gasto del universo. Tú no eres lo que dicen que tú eres. Los que dicen que tú eres, que tú eres tú el sueño, que el tú eres el sueño realizando en ti de lo que sabes que eres y quieres ser lo que eres, porque es lo que tú eres, que eres. Tú eres el suave paso del viento por la serranía. Tú, tú mismo lo que tú eres. Tú no eres lo que ellos dicen que tú eres, por las razones que lo eres, tú eres. Tú no eres lo que ellos dicen que tú eres. Tú no eres el que se esconde con miedo detrás las rejas de las casas. No, eres tú. Eres lo que dicen que eres. No eres tú lo que ellos dicen que eres.
  
  
• Eres eso que sabes que tú muy bien eres. Esto que somos. No somos. Sabemos que no es él. Porque eso eres. El amanecer y firme en lo que eres sin caso a la bruma salvaje de los que dicen que no somos lo que somos lo que eres. Tú no eres lo que dicen lo que eres. Eres eso que eres. Eres, eres. Eres eso. Somos esos. Somos esos levantando este pedacito de tierra herida. Somos las plantas llenas de tóxicos, tosiendo de noche. Somos canción de limpieza sobre la destrucción quimicosa del Sur. Somos quienes somos. Somos quienes somos. Como un altar en el interior como fuego prendido en el centro del alma. Somos de este sitio donde el silencio es el alboroto más inmenso del universo. Aquí el silencio cae del cielo como cemento. Es lo más que dice, es lo más que dice. El silencio es lo más que dice. Porque cuando hablan siempre dicen que somos lo que no somos, qué son y no son, pero son. Y tú y aquel ya sabemos que no somos lo que ellos dicen que somos. Tú no eres lo que ellos dicen que tú eres, no el que dicen que eres. Eres el que es. Ese mismo eres tú. Eres tú. Tú eres. Eres. Tú. Ese tú saca allí, ese es. Ese es el que dice que somos estos. Eres, es, porque no es el que es. Eres tú. Y tú sabes quién tú eres. Tú eres. Eres. Eres. Eres. Eres.

• You are not who they say you are. You are not who they say you are. You are not the one they say why not know about so much humanity. You are not who they say you are. You are not who they say you are. You are the one who explains what you are. You are not those noises, nor those nerves, nor those fears. You are not who they say you are. You are not who they say you are. You are what you are. What you know is inside. You are what you are and not what the many languages say that have also heard it from other beings that are not those beings that they say they are, that are not these beings that they say they are. You are not a malaise of malice nor an expense of the universe. You are not what they say you are. Those who say that you are, that you are the dream, that you are the dream realizing in you what you know you are and want to be what you are, because it is what you are, that you are. You are the gentle passage of the wind through the mountains. You, yourself what you are. You are not what they say you are, for the reasons you are, you are. You are not what they say you are. You are not the one who hides in fear behind the bars of the houses. No, it's you. You are what they say you are. You are not what they say you are.
  
  
• You are that which you know that you very well are. This what we are. We are not. We know it's not him. Because that's what you are. The dawn and firm in what you are without case to the wild mist of those who say that we are not what we are what you are. You are not what they say you are. You are what you are. You are, you are. You are that. We are those. We are those lifting up this little piece of wounded land. We are the plants full of toxins, coughing at night. We are a cleanup song about the chemical destruction of the South. We are who we are. We are who we are. Like an altar inside like a fire lit in the center of the soul. We are from this place where silence is the most immense uproar in the universe. Here silence falls from the sky like cement. It's the most he says, it's the most he says. Silence is the most that says. Because when they speak they always say that we are what we are not, what they are and are not, but they are. And you and that one already know that we are not what they say we are. You are not what they say you are, not who they say you are. You are who it is. That's you too. It's you. You are. Are you. You. That you take out there, that's it. That's the one who says we are these. You are, it is, because it is not what it is. It's you. And you know who you are. You are. You are. You are. You are. You are.

And he’s right, by the way. You are not what they say you are.

Here’s a more recent but quite similar perspective on being boxed in by (and busting out of) social views and expectations from the 2023 Greta Gerwig movie Barbie. That’s right, I’m going full pom-pom on America Ferrera’s monolog about the tribulations of being a woman in contemporary culture, which she somehow manages to make both spirit-crushing and uplifting at the same time. I have no idea how the fuck she did that. I’ve also included 30 seconds of response from the other characters to show how pivotal this speech is to the plotline. So you’ll also hear Alexandra Shipp as Writer Barbie, Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie, Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie (the main character), and Ariana Greenblatt as real-world mom America’s real-world daughter. Go America!

[PLAY AMERICA FERRERA’S MONOLOG]

Sometimes, I think, all it takes to open the eyes of those who’ve been unknowingly supporting a noxious power structure is saying just the right thing at just the right time. (Note: that doesn’t work as well with people who are knowingly supporting it.) That last speech is a case in point, as is the next, from the 2016 film Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi. It’s a biographical drama about three brilliant black woman mathematicians who worked at NASA in the 1960s and played a seminal role in the Space Race. Talk about breaking through the granite white-guy and nerd ceilings at the same time. In this terrific scene, one of the women, played by Taraji P. Henson, is confronted by her boss, Kevin Costner doing his stern but somehow circumspect thing – whereupon she confronts him and a roomful of, yes, white guy nerds right the fuck back.

[PLAY TARAJI P. HENSON’S MONOLOG]

And here’s a brief clip of Costner’s manly good-guy response, in which he picks up a crowbar and bashes down all the restroom signs.

[PLAY COSTNER WITH CROWBAR]

Now you might say, and perhaps with good cause, particularly in regard to my previous intro about saying the right thing at the right time, that we’re talking about movies here. And you’d be partially correct, because we’re looking at films to illustrate a phenomenon that I’m suggesting might also happen in the real (non-movie) world. And yes, we should always keep in mind, as you already know (or I hope you do) that films and other media are representations and not reality itself (whatever that is). I know I’ll never make a perfect off-the-cuff speech in decisive rhetoric like any of these characters do. But they are in many cases meant to reflect the world we live in, despite being amplified or idealized or satirized, etc. That said, let’s take a look at some real-world events that happened decades ago and made a statement that opened many, many, many eyes pretty much across the spectrum of those supporting (or not) the power structure in which it made incursions and continues to do so to this day. And like those crafted monologs of film, it was also unintended and unexpected and had to be said right then and there.

I’m talking about the Stonewall Riots (or Uprising), which occurred in and around the eponymous gay bar in the West Village in Manhattan in June of 1969, and resulted in the Gay Liberation Movement and the global phenomenon known as Gay or Queer Pride. I’m going to play for you just a few excerpts from the marvelous 2018 film Stonewall Forever, directed by Ro Haber. There are a number of films about Stonewall, both documentary and fictionalized; this one, being so recent, brackets the narrative with the current struggles of trans and intersex people, which I find to be essential and at the forefront, especially this year. I’m taking a chance including this, since it’s clearly a labor of love by all involved and produced by the NYC LGBTQ+ Community Center, and I don’t want to dishonor their work (or get the episode shut down). So please find the link in the Episode Notes and watch it in its entirely. It’s just under 22 minutes, beautifully done, and chronicles a great deal more than the core narrative that I’m presenting here. 

The film begins with Chella Man, a trans activist, making a few remarks. Here are just a few moments from those to lead us in.

[PLAY CHELLA MAN 1]

The film features interviews with a lot of folks from the era. Rather than interrupting their very brief statements with verbal IDs, I’ve listed them all in the Episode Notes and urge you again to watch the film, in which they’re listed visually. Here some of the participants and witnesses of the uprising recount what gay and queer life was like in New York before that.

[PLAY STONEWALL SECTION 2]

They go on to describe the conflict itself and its unexpected aftermath.

[PLAY STONEWALL SECTION 3]

There’s really quite a bit more about the early struggles of the movement, leading to today – but I think these excerpts nicely cull an historical moment of speaking (or kicking or marching) truth to power. The film ends with a few more remarks by trans activists Chella Man, Bianey Garcia, and Zackary Drucker.

[PLAY CHELLA MAN 2]

Of course there are also those who are not built for marching or dismantling hierarchies or power structures in the public arena, or who are silenced or isolated before they can do or even learn to do something about it. Here’s an entry by Japanese-American poet Janice Mirikitani. Born in Northern California, she was two years old when her family was relocated during World War II to a Japanese internment camp in Arkansas. She returned to California later in childhood, and spent most of her adult years in San Francisco as an activist working at Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin, known for its community outreach and social services. Mirikitani served as Poet Laureate of San Francisco from 2000-2002. Here’s a brief recording of her talking and reading a poem about her family’s internment, taken from a 1990 video by Russell Leong titled Why Is Preparing Fish a Political Act?.

[PLAY JANICE MIRIKITANI]

And now we all face the prospect of being devoured, humbled, broken. To some of us that may seem more of a distant threat, to other alarmingly near. And so we band together, we turn to community, we call for it. In fact you don’t have to listen very hard to hear a multitude of voices doing just that right now from many sectors of our culture. I was pleased to hear among them actress and activist Jane Fonda, who in late February used her acceptance speech for a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award to make some very pointed (and pointy) remarks, among other things mentioning that “’woke’ just means you give a damn about other people.” Pithy. She also used the occasion to say this to an audience of glitterati, and to a somewhat less glittery America.

[PLAY JANE FONDA]

Thanks, Jane. I appreciate hearing that come from a person with power. Also an excellent Barbarella moment.

[CRITICAL VOICE: What’s that?]

[MOI: Huh?]

[CRITICAL VOICE: What’s a Barbarella?]

[MOI: Take a class.]

[CRITICAL VOICE: Jane Fonda is really cute.]

[MOI: I’m trying to DJ here.]

Next up, a very different style of call from a man whose every deconstructed sentence is a call to action. I’m talking about social justice poet and activist Tongo Eisen-Martin, who is one of the most kickass readers I’ve known in decades. The most curious thing about Tongo’s work is that you’d think the way he re-twines language and imagery would confuse people, and it does some, but it also sets them on fire. It’s partially his delivery, as you’ll hear in a moment, but he leaves the page smoking as well. His syntax can come across as absurdist and occasionally humorous – he’s even known to chuckle through some pieces – but at the same time you know he’s dead fucking serious, laying out the bewildering tiger-traps and landmines of contemporary “culture” in the street for all to see. Here he is reading a piece titled “The Course of Meal”.

[PLAY TONGO EISEN-MARTIN]

Now compare that rhetoric with this of yet another call-out which sounds like it’s from a different universe (and it might be), though they’re both aimed in vaguely the same direction. I have to say it feels absurd to compare the writing of Tongo Eisen-Martin with that of Aaron Sorkin, but I’m also fairly tickled to do so. This monolog circles around on the internet, which is really the only reason I know about it. I’m including it because when I stumbled on it a couple months ago, it put a big smile on my face, but also as a sort of bookend to Howard Beale’s monolog from Network (even though there are till two clips to follow). This is from Episode 1 of Sorkin’s dramatic TV series The Newsroom, which debuted in 2012. In it a popular national news anchor played by Jeff Daniels has a mini-breakdown, or some kind of snap, at a well-attended university Q&A, and tells everyone what he really thinks about America. It’s meant as a catalyst for the series, and you can see that in the construction of the scene, but is also a nice bit of truthtelling, if a smidge idealistic. If you haven’t heard it before, or even if you have, perhaps it’ll spell you a smile as well. Dog knows we could use one. I’ve kept most of the short scene intact, which includes a moderator, two other panelists, and a student (asking the question), and there are a couple of pregnant pauses that I’m sure you’ll live through. 

[PLAY JEFF DANIEL’S MONOLOG]

For our penultimate clip, here’s an interesting contrast to that scripted call-out of America with one that I’m not sure can qualify as scripted, however prepared for it might have been, and might even be considered improvisationally challenged. What am I babbling about? Senator Cory Booker, of course. I’ve got a few minutes for you captured from his record-breaking (25 hour and 5 minute) filibuster earlier this week in protest of Dusk and Mump’s unconscionable and inhumane policies. At this point Senator Booker had been standing and talking without a break (beyond being asked questions) for 19 hours and 45 minutes or so. Adam Schiff had just asked him what we could possibly do to stop the infidels (my word not theirs). Booker doesn’t have a specific plan or answer (or at least not one he mentions), but he does say this. I’ve caught a few more captures online, and he said some pretty great shit over all that time – and this is not a bad example of what I’d call American passion.

[PLAY CORY BOOKER]

Speaking of demagogues, I’ve got one to take you out with. What?! Well sort of, and in any case I’ve been saving this lovely speech for last since I came up with the episode. It’s from The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin, which was the first sound film that he made (in 1940!), specifically so he could make this speech at the end. The film satirizes and condemns Hitler and Mussolini, and has Chaplin playing both Adenoid Hynkel (Hitler) and a Jewish soldier cum barber suffering from amnesia. Chaplin said later that he’d have never made the film if he’d known at the time what was really going on in the concentration camps, and kudos for that, but what an enduring statement he did make. No more about the film – just see it – except this little setup: toward the end the two characters, who are basically identical, are switched in a mix-up, and the barber, whom everyone believes is Hynkel, finds himself on a great stage with a chance to make a speech in the dictator’s stead as all the world listens. This is that speech, and like I say, a perfect ending for this mixtape.

[PLAY CHAPLIN]

Feel free to continue with that applause if you’re so inclined.

And that’s it for the episode, or prett’ darn near. The next one will drop two weeks from today on Saturday, April 19, in which I’m thinking maybe I should finally introduce myself. And don’t forget, just four episodes left until the podcast finale on May 31.

This has been Episode 29, covering Week 44 of My 12-Month Video Fast.

Thanks for listening (and for sitting there) so patiently. I do hope you enjoyed the Resistance Mixtape. Now as a little bonus for making it this far, and maybe even a little help with your circulation, here’s a chance to jump up and dance.