The Washington Post - USA (2020-09-14

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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

BY SONIA RAO

To a populace desperate for even a

bit of normalcy, reopened movie

theaters can be tempting. They’ve

long granted a reprieve from harsh

realities, the sort staring us in the

face as the coronavirus pandemic

exposes every crack in the American

way of life. Fifteen dollars can buy

you a few hours of cars doing somer-

saults in the air and stern looks from

a hero who doesn’t actually seem to

understand the plot, either. We long

to care about whether he will none-

theless complete his time-bending

mission to save the world from its

doom.

But our current reality has become

a disaster movie of its own, the

world’s harshness intruding upon

even our most beloved spaces.

Though theaters of all sizes have

announced new safety measures to

prevent the spread of the novel

coronavirus, many hesitate to burst

through those double doors. Several

film critics, for instance, cited health

risks as the reason they wouldn’t

review “The New Mutants” or “Ten-

et,” the Christopher Nolan thriller

driving most of the conversation over

whether it’s a good idea to sit in an

indoor space with strangers for an

extended period of time. (For what

it’s worth, epidemiologists have said

it probably isn’t.)

And so, the conversation goes:

Would you risk your life to go to the

movies?

SEE THEATERS ON C2

‘They really are putting money

above people’s lives’

As movie theaters reopen nationwide, some employees are reluctant to return

JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

An employee cleans seats before the reopening at a Regal movie theater in Irvine, Calif., on Sept. 8. Even if the

general public doesn’t pack the theaters at normal levels, staff members still must report to work.

BY PEGGY MCGLONE

This month, almost 60 cultur-

al institutions around the coun-

try are helping their patrons get

into some good trouble.

Performing arts centers, thea-

ters and museums from coast to

coast — including the Kennedy

Center — are participating in a

nationwide watch party of “John

Lewis: Good Trouble,” a recently

released documentary that ex-

amines the life and accomplish-

ments of the Georgia congress-

man and civil rights leader, who

died of cancer July 20.

In addition to the documen-

tary, patrons will get access to

videos of Oprah Winfrey inter-

viewing Lewis shortly before his

death and of director Dawn Por-

ter with two of the original

Freedom Riders — activists, in-

cluding Lewis, who rode buses

throughout the South in 1961 to

challenge segregation.

The program concludes with a

live virtual discussion Sept. 21 at

7 p.m. with Porter, Smithsonian

Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III,

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, pro-

fessor of history, race and public

policy at Harvard University.

“I’m struck b y how w e’ve never

done this before,” Bunch said,

“not brought the collective pow-

er of the arts together. This is an

example of reaching across the

country and making sure we’re

all talking from the same point,

all speaking from the same hym-

nal, as it were. Cultural institu-

tions have to use this time to do

everything they can to help a

country in crisis.”

Released this summer, the

documentary features archival

SEE LEWIS ON C8

Cultural

centers join

to celebrate

John Lewis

BY BETHONIE BUTLER

When MTV introduced its

long-running documentary se-

ries “True Life” in 1998, the first

installment offered a grim look at

heroin addiction. Reporting from

the affluent Dallas suburb of

Plano, Te x. — where a spate of

teen overdose deaths had caused

nationwide alarm — Serena

Altschul interviewed young adult

subjects as they used intravenous

drugs. Director Wilson Van Law

told the Houston Chronicle he

was so unsettled by what he’d

documented in “True Life: Fatal

Dose” that he temporarily quit

smoking and drinking. “It cer-

tainly depressed me,” he told the

newspaper. “It was the most diffi-

cult story I’ve worked on, and I’ve

done some pretty dark stuff.”

Though groundbreaking in its

own way — the broadcast was

followed by a number for Narcot-

ics Anonymous and a roundtable

on addiction — “True Life: Fatal

Dose” stands in stark contrast to

a new MTV series about teens

struggling with addiction. “16

and Recovering,” which pre-

miered Sept. 1, follows students

at Northshore Recovery High

School in Beverly, Mass., a Boston

suburb hit hard by the opioid

epidemic.

As principal and founder Mi-

chelle Lipinski says in the first

episode, relapses are a reality at

Northshore. But viewers never

see the students using substanc-

es. While there are serious mo-

ments — one episode revolves

around the overdose death of a

beloved student — the overarch-

ing theme of “16 and Recovering”

is one of hope, as Lipinski doles

out hugs (and surprise drug t ests)

SEE MTV ON C4

MTV tries a

better tack

on mental

health

BY CHRIS RICHARDS

During “Funky Kingston” —
that golden-hot sunbeam of a
song that Toots and the Maytals
first dropped in 1973 — the word
“reggae” becomes a sort of hyper-
noun: a person, a place and a
thing.
The person is Frederick “Toots”
Hibbert, singing in a handsome
growl that originates in the heart
more than the throat. The place is
Kingston, Jamaica, reggae’s capi-
tal and spiritual power spot. And
the thing is the sound of reggae
itself, a durable, dynamic music
that both tightens and loosens —
and a word that Hibbert claimed
to have coined in an earlier song,
“Do the Reggay” from 1968.
“The music was in Jamaica
playing, but no one knew really
what to call it,” Hibbert told a
reporter from Vogue just last
month. “I took the word from a
slang word we have in Jamaica
called ‘streggae’— that was just a
nickname for people who don’t
dress properly.” Back in 1968,
Hibbert was already singing from

a place deep within himself, and

in the decade that followed, the

heft of his voice would help el-

evate a style of music named after

the neighborhood outsiders to

international eminence.

Hibbert — who died in Kings-

ton on Friday at 77 — grew up in

the Jamaican countryside, raised

by Seventh-day Adventist preach-

ers, but moved to Kingston as a

teenager, where he would even-

tually channel the supple ele-

gance of the hymns he learned in

church into a new Black music

that spoke for Jamaica’s under-

class. His voice could be a rough

and graceful thing, and it helped

the Maytals’ songs about struggle

and uplift resonate across the

country and beyond.

“Bam Bam,” from 1966, earned

the top prize in a major national

song contest, Hibbert’s opening

lines establishing his moral foot-

ing over the band’s spiraling

groove: “I want you to know that I

am the man who fights for the

right, not for the wrong.” On

“54-46 (That’s My N umber),” from

SEE TOOTS ON C3

APPRECIATION

Toots Hibbert’s reggae resonated across Jamaica and beyond

SUHAIMI ABDULLAH/GETTY IMAGES

Toots Hibbert, seen in 2019, sang in a growl that originated in the heart more than the throat.

CAROLYN HAX

A new father faces tough decisions

after his girlfriend, probably suffering

from postpartum depression, leaves

him and the baby. C2

BOOK WORLD

Emma Cline follows her best-selling

novel “The Girls” with “Daddy,” a

collection of short stories with a dim

view of the male protagonists. C5

KIDSPOST

A new Netflix series follows Izzy

Bee, who has a talent of caring for

Australia’s iconic, cuddly marsupial.

You can say she is well-koalified. C8