‘Queen & Slim’ Is a Much-Needed Celebration of Black Love, Rage, and Liberation
Melina Matsoukas and Lena Waithe’s new film reminds us that even in the face of brutality, there’s always beauty in our resistance
Warning: This piece contains spoilers from the film Queen & Slim.
If we know anything about Queen & Slim, it’s that it’s got to be bold, beautiful, and unapologetic AF. Looking at the duo behind the anticipated film, how could it not? Director Melina Matsoukas has helmed some of this decade’s most transformative videos, including Beyoncé’s “Formation.” Meanwhile, screenwriter Lena Waithe is the mastermind behind the Emmy-winning Master of None “Thanksgiving” episode, The Chi, and BET’s Boomerang reboot.
With these two behind the wheel, the film is destined to be a “love letter to Blackness.”
Even knowing all that, in the second shot of the film, there’s this tiny blink-and-miss-it moment where that sentiment truly hit me. The camera holds still on a Black waitress, with shellacked curly-Q sculpted edges and bamboo earrings, picking up plates of hot food to deliver to her tables in a tiny Black-owned Cleveland diner. The moment I saw her, I grinned, and thought, “Oh yeah, this is for us.”
