Time International - 30.03.2020

49

Moreno:

88 years

young

At the time of her death, Walker (Spencer) employed some 25,000 sales agents

Sarah Breedlove, the woman

known to posterity as Madam C.J.

Walker, lived a remarkable life. Born in

1867 to formerly enslaved sharecrop-

pers, she married at 14 to escape an abu-

sive brother-in-law and was a widowed

mother by 20. Her second husband

turned out to be a bad egg. She started

losing her hair. And only then did she

discover Annie Turnbo Malone’s hair-

growing cream, meet C.J. Walker—the ad

salesman who would become her third

spouse—and start building her own

black women’s hair-care empire. She

died, in 1919, one of the nation’s wealthi-

est female entrepreneurs.

Of all the unfortunate choices in the

four-part drama Self Made: Inspired

by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, out

March 20 on Netflix, the decision to

focus on the last decade of her life is the

most confusing. Instead of taking view-

ers through Walker’s extraordinary for-

mative experiences, Octavia Spencer’s

Sarah summarizes that story Wikipedia-

style over flashbacks that open the first

episode. What’s left is the business of

building a business—which would be

hard to dramatize under any circum-

stances but in this case suffers particu-

larly from clumsy, cliché-ridden scripts.

TELEVISION

Making a mess of Madam C.J. Walker

By Judy Berman

Though “inspired by” a biog-

raphy from Walker’s great-great-

granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles, Self

Made plays like a soap opera. Emascu-

lated by his wife’s independence, C.J.

(Blair Underwood) strays. As Sarah’s

daughter Lelia, a woefully miscast

Tiffany Haddish (who is only seven

years Spencer’s junior) chafes in an un-

happy marriage, her character’s quirki-

ness evidently meant to foreshadow the

revelation that she’s gay. The villain is

Sarah’s light-skinned savior turned rival

( Carmen Ejogo), a fictionalized Malone

who’s always scheming. The talented cast

can’t overcome dialogue that can be pain-

fully stiff (“Your impeccable reputation

precedes you”) or anachronistic (“on

the regular,” “lying-ass liar”) but is uni-

formly painful. Kasi Lemmons, of Harriet

and the great Eve’s Bayou, directed two

episodes, her camera lingering inexplica-

bly on exaggerated reaction shots.

Normally, a show this bad would

at least be amusing to watch. But

when you consider the richness of the

subject and the larger issues it raises—

the politics of black hair, Walker’s

anti-lynching work, sexism and

colorism in the black community—its

incompetence is just depressing. •

TELEVISION

One (more)

day at a time

Legendary TV creator Norman
Lear, now 97, stepped back
into the spotlight a few years
back to shepherd a Netflix
reboot of his 1975 sitcom
One Day at a Time. New
showrunners Gloria Calderón
Kellett and Mike Royce kept the
setup—a divorced mom and
her two kids live in a building
with an overly friendly super—
but recast the family as Cuban
American, made mother
Penelope (Justina Machado)
a veteran and added a spry
grandma played by the divine
Rita Moreno. In three seasons,
the show combined nostalgic
multicam comedy with
current issues: immigration,
PTSD, sexuality. Then Netflix
canceled it.
The show’s small but
enthusiastic fan base
rejoiced when it was revived
by Pop TV. Season 4 opens
with a bang, as teenage
Alex (Marcel Ruiz) lands a
shot at a certain streamer—
“It’s like there’s nothing good
on Netflix anymore”—and
a Census taker (guest star
Ray Romano) stops by
with questions that make
Penelope panic about her
single status. For cable
loyalists who missed
the series on its original
platform, the episode makes a
perfect starting point. —J.B.

ONE DAY AT A TIME premieres
March 24 on Pop TV