So, on May 25, Oprah ended and it has left a gap in my life. Specifically, a gap at four in the afternoon. In her final season, Oprah did a series of reunion shows for the casts of movies that I've never seen. I meant to watch them before Oprah ended, but I didn't and it's probably due to all the other reasons I've given for being inconsistent before. This is the first one of those movies that I've managed to watch.
Mahogany stars Diana Ross as Tracy, a young woman living on the south side of Chicago, intent on following her dreams in the fashion industry. I know I just started, but a little non sequitur on Diana Ross, I am totally envious of her being comfortable with the giant hair thing, at least how she had it on Oprah. See, my mom has black hair and thus I have biracial hair that I have no idea what to do with and is out control most of the time, hence why my picture is a Mad Men avatar. I wish I could take my similarly large hair and just be like, "Yes, I meant to have it like this." I tried it once, it didn't work. so, Tracy meets Brian played by Billy Dee Williams, a local politician trying to make things better. This is the central conflict of the film: success for self or success for the sake of a cause. Tracy gets sidetracked when she meets fashion photographer, Sean, who figures out yes, Diana Ross is better looking than all of the other models in this movie, which my mom noted as we watched the film commenting that the models of the 1970s were good looking... by 1970s standards. Anyway, Sean whisks Tracy away to Rome where she finds fame and success as a model with the pseudonym, Mahogany. Tracy is frustrated by the inability to get her own designs out and the increasing weirdness of Sean, who I think is somehow closeted and sexually frustrated. I hope I got that right.
Anyway, Brian visits Tracy in Rome and finds the whole thing too weird and also can't escape the notion of his duty to make things better. As Tracy succumbs more to the temptations of life on Rome's fashion scene, she and Brian break up. Then things get weirder with Sean as he attempts to take pictures and drive what I think is a Ferrari Daytona. Yes, I watch too much Top Gear. It doesn't go well, I think you should have your hands on the steering wheel while you drive a Ferrari Daytona. Anyway, car crash, Sean's dead, Tracy's horribly injured and taken in by an Italian millionaire. This never happens to me when I get in a car crash, but then again he wants something else in exchange for making Tracy's dreams come true. Bad news is, though that living simply for herself has made Tracy into a major bitch and when she finally gets her success, she finds it hollow and returns back to Chicago and Brian and a finale that I'll grant you was pretty good even though I didn't find a lot of the film very moving. I'm so off put by 1970s cinema, the style just seems so foreign and this film is no different, with weird camera angles and these striking close ups that are just too intense for my tastes. Every time I watch a film from the 1970s, it's like people are telling me you had to be there to appreciate it. Okay, okay, fine.
And there's the song, which my mom decided to perform along with the movie. It was apparently performed by every middle school choir in the 1970s in addition to being Oscar nominated.
Anyway, what do you think? Did I have to be in the 1970s to appreciate it? What did you think of Mahogany? Does becoming a famous model automatically make you a bitch? What are you doing at four in the afternoon without Oprah?
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