And If You Don't Know, Now You Know...

SO I'm not totally sure why, but ever since I saw Notorious I have been obsessed with all things Biggie, particularly his relationships. First I should say, the movie was OK. Definitely better than I expected it to be, but there were some cop-outs for sure. Obviously the guy did a lot of bad things in his life, and in trying to keep his personal life in line with the successes of his professional one, I think he was depicted a bit less consistently than he should have been.

That being said, I move on to my main point of concern: the backlash the film got from key people in Christopher Wallace's life, particularly 'Lil Kim. For anyone who knows anything about the women in his life, it goes without saying that his mom, his wife (Faith Evans), and his mistess/ close friend ('Lil Kim) are pretty volatile when thrown into the same mix. The comments made by each of them in regard to distaste toward portrayals, missrepresented facts, etc, etc. is reminiscent of a bunch of hens (chickenheads?) clucking away over nonsense. Exhibit A: 'Lil Kim has made complaints that the actress cast as her, Naturi Naughton, was "too dark" and would have preferred being depicted by an Asian or Hispanic woman. Wow. I reiterate: Wow. First of all, the actress chosen not only draws a very close resemblence but, in my opinion, gave one of the best performances of the lot. She had 'Lil Kim down to a tee, and should be celebrated, not racially slandered. To make such an insensitive, ignorant, and plainly idiotic statement was a terrible call on Kim's part and makes her look like nothing less than a bitter, superficial....I don't know....wench!

And the responses from Faith Evans and Voletta Wallace were nearly as bad. One would expect his mother and widow to respond with poise and candor, but they've reduced themselves to the same level by speaking equally irately. It's one thing to be disturbed by one person's ignorance, and another to reduce yourself to that level.

It is so frustrating to see people acting like that, especially in the memory of a man that was a true creative genius. A man who clearly meant a lot to a lot of people. I wish everyone could learn from Biggie's story that life is precious and we must treat it as such since I got the impression that a general theme of the film was one of overcoming transgressions and focusing on what really matters. So much of his time was spent getting involved in stupid squabbles, and it is disheartening to know that his death wasn't even enough to drive that point home for those closest to him.