These last few episodes of The Get Down have been exciting, and some of the best of the show. I really liked the ideas explored in Episode 8 in particular. The exploration of how Zeke begins to navigate the elite academic world of Yale works well to examine some of the larger structures at play in the series, and in life. The party that Zeke attends at Yale really reminds me of a similar scene in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The idea of a party being used as an excuse to parade minority “charity cases” around hits really close to home for me, and I would assume the same is true for a lot of minorities. The feeling of wanting to be a part of a world which has been intentionally kept from you for generations is enticing, and the Yale community exploiting that desire and vulnerability for their own amusement is really insidious. But, it is a theme we see repeated all throughout the history of black and brown people in this country. 

The reading also made me think of a particular scene in this episode. It is the scene at the end, between Shao and Mylene, where Shao tells Mylene that she’ll never be a disco star because she isn’t sexy and has “nothing between her legs”. This is directly echoed in the reading through a quote by Gwendolyn Brooks which reads: “Messages in the music tell us what we should do to be desired and in some cases respected.” Shao’s message to Mylene is that her value as an artist is directly tied to her sexual desirability, an idea which is of course very obviously sexist and demeaning. This same idea is explored in episode 9 with Roy, the record executive, getting Mylene to record herself making sex noises for a song after convincing her that she isn’t motivated enough to really make it in the music industry. He exploits her desire to be a musician in order to perpetuate a sexist image with which she is uncomfortable.