Silver Screenings—The Black Pantheon: I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988)

My parents disallowed my brother and me from watching R-rated movies when we were growing up. I remember watching movies like Rambo: First Blood, Terminator, Terminator 2, Predator, and Predator 2 on television, with the worst of the violence and profanity edited out, and with commercial breaks. I implemented this rule while raising children of my own, anticipating that we would consume R-rated content together as a family when our kids became of age that they could be critical of their media consumption. 

Gen Z is built different, or at least our kids. Despite having access near-infinite information, ours do not seem to be tempted to explore inappropriate things. Our sixteen year-old cringes at the mention of sex even though we discuss the subject openly; our now nineteen and eighteen year-olds cringe at gratuitous violence. So sessions of watching horror films like the Scream and Final Destination franchises with their mother, they are not afraid, but incredulous. 

Watching the Black Pantheon—that is, every notable Black movie since 1983—is on my bucket list. Again, because I could not watch R-rated movies growing up, the gaps in Black movies that I have not seen are…embarrassing. As for our kids, in order them to stay in touch with their culture, we watched modern movies like Get Out, Us, Nope, Candyman (1992, 2021), and of course, the Black Panther films. After some family conversations about the cultural capital concerning must-watch Black movies, we watched Friday, Coming to America, Malcolm X, and The Color Purple. 

Our nineteen year-old attends Tuskegee; there, her friends make fun of her for not knowing enough Black movie references. Meanwhile, our eighteen year-old questions why we have never watched XYZ. My wife decides that this summer we are going to watch one Black movie per weekend. 

Because most of the movies we had watched prior were heavy, we decided to watch a comedy. 

When I watched I’m Gonna Git You Sucka as a child, I was unfamiliar with the Blaxploitation genre. I did not think of the film as a parody, but simply what to expect from Black comedy. Of course, the Wayans family’s brand of comedy is extraordinarily unique—in Keenan Ivory Wayans’ directorial debut one can already detect the alpha phases of what would become the best comedy show EVER, In Living Color. 

For example, I laughed heartily at the Youth Gang Competition scene: 

The intentionally un-edited stunt double beating up thugs in the cafe:

And probably the funniest gag, Chris Rock’s cameo:

Chris Rock is a whole clown.  

I was waiting for the cringe inappropriate joke moment for a movie in made in the 1980’s where I would have to explain to the kids that I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is a product of its times, but to my relief, it never came! The worst the movie gets in terms of political incorrectness is when Keenen Ivory Wayans’ character, Jack Spade, says that the only thing he is afraid of are “midgets,” because he used to get jumped by some when he was in school—little people intimidate this “war hero” and military veteran. He returns to this gag when his band would-be heroes hit up a nightclub where the theme is outrageously enormous hats. Those hats serve as a disguise for a gang of little people, featuring Tony Cox as their ringleader, who is almost always associated with comedy that requires a little person (see: Friday). 

I haven’t seen I’m Gonna Git You Sucka in so long, that I had forgotten the movie almost entirely. The scene where Cherry (Anne-Marie Johnson) disassembles herself did not hit the way I thought it would, nor did Cheryl’s (Dawnn Lewis) Thriller-like metamorphoses into the cramp monster. However, I am eternally a fan of Slammer (Jim Brown) getting shot in his bunion; the heartbeat-like “thump-thump, thump-thump” as his toe pulsating is an all-timer in comedy. It persists as a key moment in the formation of my goofball sense of humor, and affinity for slapstick comedy. 

Still, as an adult, Chris Rock’s “One Rib!” scene had me ROLLING!!!