Cloak & Dagger, 'Stained Glass' - June 15

The third episode of ‘Cloak & Dagger’, ‘Stained Glass’, was aired earlier this week. And-?

And judging by the numbers from the first two episodes, the series’ – and the season’s – premiere, the response was underwhelming. Why?

Again, let us talk about what ‘Cloak & Dagger’ are doing – they are tackling those pesky social issues; for example, Tyrone the Cloak is an angry young Afro-American man who’s got the weight on his shoulders – wait. Did we hear this before?

More precisely, we might have read it before – in ‘The Kane Chronicles’ by Rick Riordan, who has already appeared in our previous discussions. There, one of the main protagonists is Carter Kane, who is also a ‘young black man’, who always needs to be at his best because the world will always be ready to judge him, as it does Tyrone. Carter may be younger than Tyrone is, at the beginning of the chronicles he is just about 12 years of age or so, while Tyrone is closer to 17 or 18, but there is another difference too: Carter’s mother, the late Ms. Kane, was white. British too, but that makes Carter half-and-half, (or whatever politically correct term there is), and he has a sister, Sadie, who does not look like him, (or their father, Julius), but more like their mother – i.e., a true daughter of England. Thus, ‘the Kane Chronicles’ don’t tackle interracial relationships right away, or in the manner of ‘Cloak & Dagger’, but tackle them it does, or rather – it did, since ‘The Burning Maze’, Riordan appears to have toned down the politically progressive elements in his novels by a lot, and this brings us back to ‘Cloak & Dagger’ and its issues.

Or rather – America’s issues. In RF, the Kremlin government’s treatment of the Mausoleum mummy is something of a running joke these days: they should rather put up and bury him, or shut up and leave him be forever. The previous president, Boris Yeltsin, did attempt to bury him, but failed, and got buried instead, becoming, perhaps, Russia’s first leader to literally drink himself to death. These days, he’s mostly forgotten, but many of Russia’s current problems, including its’ leader, stem from Yeltsin’s reign – but he did attempt to bury the past, while his successor, Vladimir Putin, does not. Neither he does attempt to properly resurrect it, especially officially, but that is okay, that is all a part of his plan to turn RF into some sort of a variant banana republic, because of ideology – or rather, the lack of it. U.S.S.R. had ideology, the Old Russian Empire had ideology – sort of, but still, and the current RF – not so much. These days, the mummy embodies it, this confusion and lack of direction as to where to go – to the past, to U.S.S.R. and the old glory, or to future, to the West and the new glories. Until this is decided, until a statement is made one way or another, RF is stuck in a sociopolitical limbo, at the metaphorical crossroads, and is going nowhere, which is the worst choice of all.

Back in U.S.A., something similar is going with the issues of ‘slavery’ (mostly in the past) and ‘racism’, (which is much more current). Let us be honest here – slavery was one of the worst social inventions of humanity, it belongs in history’s refuse and whoever tries to reanimate it must be lynched. But-?

But on the other hand, slavery is firmly in the American past, as is the American Confederacy: nobody is trying to resurrect it either; none of the states are trying to get themselves out of the Union – at least not yet. Whatever issues are going on in the U.S. right now, slavery isn’t one of them; and racial inequality?

Racial inequality rises from slavery, that is true. Only…if the American society buries the slavery for good, (just as the Russian society should bury Lenin), then the issue of racial inequality also diminishes and the American society can solve it finally, though with rather radical measures, such as corporal punishment for those who use it, the racial slurs, etc. Some problems do not need a carrot to fix it, only a stick.

Only…that would be an intrusion into the private lives of the American citizens and would go against the American philosophy of the rights of the individual trumping the rights of the state, (pun intended). In the past, in the 1970s, when the racial integration only began, the American government in D.C. had to use the military to ensure that the individual states would obey them…which they did, but with reluctance, and plenty of it. The Americans have long memories, odds are that if D.C. tried something like this now, it would backfire badly upon them instead – things have changed that much from the 1970s, it seems…

So where does it put ‘Cloak & Dagger’? Why, nowhere, it seems. Not unlike how Kremlin avoids the issue of Lenin’s post-mortem existence, so does D.C. not interfere directly in the matters of race and racism – free will and free speech are wonderful, but this means that any sort of federal propaganda, official and especially unofficial, is inefficient. The audience members either are already pro- and don’t need such shows as ‘Cloak & Dagger’ to drive the point home, or are contra- and won’t be convinced by such shows; in fact, they are more likely to be annoyed, and as ‘Solo’ and related issues showed, the backlash can be bad. In the case of ‘Cloak & Dagger’ though, this just resulted in some bad numbers, the end. Hopefully, things will get better in the future, but let us not get too optimistic at the moment…

Well, for now, this is it – see you all soon instead.