The Happening (2008)

 

We are afraid… because we have guilty consciences. We know that White folks have reaped some ill-gotten gains… And so privately, quietly, as a result of our own complicated guilt, we believe that we deserve to be hated, to be hurt, and to be KILLED.

Eula Biss, Notes From No Man’s Land

I tremble for [White people] when I reflect that God is Just.

Thomas Jefferson (Rapist)

White people deserve genocide. It would be just for the arc of the universe to return to them what they have given. Many White people may publicly disagree, but films like The Happening (2008) project White fears of their inevitable – justified  - extermination.

White people know the answer to the long-standing negro greeting: What’s Happenin’? White Terrorism. They witness their husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, colleagues and best friends molesting and murdering non-white people. It’s a sacred White Army tradition to convict, confine and castrate black people like Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam. The five were convicted of raping a White woman in Central Park. DNA evidence later exonerated all five males. Emmett Till. The Scottsboro Boys. Herman Cain. OJ Simpson. Tiger Woods. Jack Johnson. Marcus Dixon. The honor of the barren, pale damsel has slaughtered thousands of black people. It's fitting that the carnage in this film begins with a White woman being impaled in Central Park.

A component of genocide typically involves turning the Victim's Self-Preservation Button off (listen to that audio). Each living organism possesses the will to exist, to do everything possible to live and thrive. Racist Woman and Racist Man inflict maximum, generational trauma on black people. We exist with chronic suffering and search for ways to dull the pain and our lives. Ways to shorten our suffering and our lives. Failure to detect and combat a persistent threat to one's existence is mental illness, evidence of a Self-Preservation Button in the off position. Racist success. This film portrays a phantom toxin that produces mass White suicide in ever more imaginative ways. As White people dedicate a substantial amount of their economy to keeping us "turned off," self-destructive, The Happening must have a unique resonance with Whites.

“Gus, are you saying this film illustrates White people’s phobias of an excruciating demise in return for their eons of Racism?

Nail on the head, cousins. That’s precisely what Gus is saying.

If you listen to The C.O.W.S., you’ve heard Gus discuss the significance of Racist Jokes. These are treasure chests of information about the psyche and methodology of our oppressors. Here’s one from the first 6 minutes of The Happening:

Tattoeed Penis:
This fellow was so deeply in love that just before he was married, he had his bride's name tattooed on his love muscle. Normally, only the first and last letters were visible, although when he was aroused, the tattoo spelled out W-E-N-D-Y. Now they're on their honeymoon at a resort in Montego Bay. One night, in the men's room, this fellow finds himself standing next to a tall Jamaican at the urinal. To his amazement, he notices that this man, too, has the letters W-Y tattooed on his penis. "Excuse me," he says, "but I couldn't help noticing your tattoo. Do you have a girlfriend named Wendy?" "No way, mon, I work for the Tourist board. Mine reads, 'Welcome to Jamaica, mon, have a nice day.'"

Dr. Welsing moment! White Women And White Men spend a lot of time thinking about black genitals. The film comes in on the last sentence of this gag. If you’re unaware that this is the punch line to a wide spread Racist Joke, you’re missing an important cue/code as to what this flick and everything else is all about. White Supremacy. White people are so slick; they’ve got a black actor reciting the joke. Can’t be Racist because a black guy is telling the story. It’s just a joke. 

… But the cackles are smothered by bodies crashing from the heavens. White people have swapped Nigger Jokes by the thousands. Eight-generation-old ditties and rhymes capture the ecstasy of butchering niggers. It’s poetic to see Racist humor produce busted, bloodied White carcasses.

The Happening continually divulges the White Supremacist Conscience. On the surface, a lethal bio-toxin poisons the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. White people blame niggers/”terrorists”. But White people are the Master Terrorists of the known Universe. Centuries of White Entertainment and White family fun are marinated in the blood of mocked and maimed black people. Whites have held hundreds of town meetings to commemorate the lynching of a nigger. Suspected White Supremacist Eula Biss researched telephone pole construction in the 20^th century United States. Her exploration uncovered the deeds of White Terrorists of yesterday. Often, telephone poles worked just as well as trees for a hanging. Gus submits that when The Happening reveals Princeton, Pennsylvania to be a town of trees ripe with strung-up White bodies, this represents the trembling Racist. God will do unto us, as we have done onto others.

Sex is at the core of White Supremacy/Racism. Students of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing should easily connect the dots in this film. Mark Walberg (Planet of the Apes 2001) and Zooey Deschanel are a White married couple without children [fertility]. The lethal bio-toxin interrupts a major dispute between these Racists. Alma (Deschanel) doesn’t believe Elliot (Walberg) is man enough for her. Separation seems possible as Alma’s begun lying and dating her non-white co-worker. In the middle of scurrying for their lives – bio-toxin in the breeze… a highly melanated child asks Elliot if his love muscle is weak.

Take a second. Digest. Film begins with a “joke” about a big, Jamaican black male. [The C.O.W.S. listeners should recall Big Black Dick’s Rum.] White woman doubts her White husbands masculinity, only to be seconded by a black child with similar suspicions. Gus contends that for White people, abusing black people is a fertility drug, and he’ll submit The Happening as evidence. In less then 5 minutes – count ‘em – from the time the black child hints at White erectile dysfunction, his brains are spattered across the screen. Poison didn’t kill him. It was the usual suspect. A White person with a long, black cannon.

White people adore mutilating and accusing melanated hue-mans – often in that order. Therefore, it’s especially traumatic that there’s no Bin Laden or Hussein [Barack or Saddam] to blame for the unrelenting biohazard. As the film unfolds, White people not only admit there are no terrorists. They take it a step further; we don’t know what’s causing this. Until a “crazy” botanist announces his theory:

It’s the plants. They can release chemicals. [Begins speaking to the plants.] Plants react to human stimulus.

Gus is ignorant. But a mediocre White Supremacist or black studies scholar should recognize an homage to George Washington Carver. The greenhouse owner’s expertise is immediately dismissed; White people increase their ridicule as he converses with the chlorophyll/melanin rich plants. The White world view can not conceive of hue-man communication that extends beyond people. Carver’s wisdom was/is subjected to the same trifling scorn; even though he too saved White people from a nature driven catastrophe (boll weevil).  

As White people continue self-terminating – death by lawn mower, death by lions den, Elliot and Alma accept that it could indeed be plant-sponsored genocide. All the more alarming because the prospect of lynching daffodils and chrysanthemums is a lot more challenging - and less enjoyable. With no one to counter-strike, our panicked White couple is left cowering in the slave quarters.

Cowering in the slave quarters?

Cowering in the mother f*#%!ng slave quarters!

Anyone who asserts that this film has nothing to do with the System of White Supremacy/Racism, will have to employ buckets upon buckets of words to excuse The Happening’s climax. Elliot and Alma are hunted and separated, stalked like slave chasers hounding escaped property. Unable to comfort or protect one another, White Man and White Woman under submission to an overpowering terrorist force. White people left quivering in a Civil War outhouse designed for runaway slaves. It would have been historically accurate if Elliot was mauled by rabid hounds and forced to watch as brutes sodomized his wife.

However, The Happening is merciful. White lives are spared. Elliot and Alma escape, and without explanation the bio-toxin ceases. White people return to their Racist routine. The sacrificial slaughter of a black child has indeed resuscitated Elliot’s love muscle. Alma’s pregnant. Hollywood conclusions can’t be more jubilant than a plump-belly White woman. Next generation of White Terrorists on the way.

But… The Happening doesn’t end with the mother to be. Before the credits, the scene shifts to Paris. Eifel Tower (phallic symbol). The biohazard begins a campaign against a new population of pale folks. Fin.

White people are a contamination that threatens all life.  They’ve infected chlorophyll/melanin dominant life on a cellular level. But… this will be remedied. The Happening illustrates a world where a substantial number of organisms begin to correctly evaluate White People as The Problem and focus on a final resolution. Black and non-white people can and should make this movie come to fruition. We might even get some help from the plants – White people ain’t done right by them either.