{"id":304,"date":"2016-02-16T21:41:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T21:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/?p=304"},"modified":"2022-07-24T07:39:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T07:39:31","slug":"what-john-ridley-did-rightbut-it-doesnt-mean-i-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/2016\/02\/16\/what-john-ridley-did-rightbut-it-doesnt-mean-i-like-it\/","title":{"rendered":"What John Ridley did right\u2026but it doesn\u2019t mean I like it."},"content":{"rendered":"
Ok\u2026 so I wasn\u2019t like a super fan of\u00a0American Crime<\/em> like the rest of the world was. I actually didn\u2019t watch it until a few weeks ago. I know, I know. How can I be a TV fanatic and not be up to date on what\u2019s trending\u2026crucify me later. Anywho, I only took the time out to watch for three reasons: 1. John Ridley extending his deal with ABC (must\u2019ve impressed someone) 2. Regina King winning an Emmy for her guest star role (which should\u2019ve been a supporting role because she was on EVERY episode once introduced. Lol) 3. A friend of mine has a small role in the first episode of Season 2 and I felt like I had to watch Season 1 first (yep, I\u2019m that kind of TV person).<\/div>\n
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Once I started watching, I wrote a Facebook post midway through the season saying something like\u2026 I\u2019m not sure if I like this but I\u2019ve started so I’ll finish. How could I not like this award-winning program dealing with current issues? It just felt sooo on the nose. Like does everyone in your family deal with a racial issue every damn day? But I digress.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about what I did like, the direction and cinematography. The filming was just so interesting to watch. Did you notice how we never saw the faces of some characters? How a person could be talking and we\u2019d be looking at someone else who may or may not be reacting to what\u2019s being said? As viewers, we\u2019re used to the back and forth camera-angles during a conversation. John Ridley said, \u201cNah, who cares what the other person is doing. Let\u2019s just watch this guy for a few minutes.\u201d It\u2019s the same tactic used in 12 Years a Slave<\/em>\u00a0but in far more gruesome scenes.<\/p>\n

Ok. Let me get to what I didn\u2019t like but made the show very appealing to me at the same damn time. Nothing was ever certain. It left the audience in such a grey area. Who did what? Was the right person punished? Is it ok to help people who are wrong? I\u2019m the kind of person who wants answers. I live in black and white. BUT, the world, especially America, especially our judicial system lives in pure, hazy grey. Lawyers are just guessing at a point to prove with evidence that is or isn\u2019t real. Families are just looking for justice in seeing someone be given consequences for their families\u2019 wrongdoing, whether that person is guilty or not. People just want to love even if it\u2019s the worst thing for them. That\u2019s life. That\u2019s reality. Well, done, John Ridley. Well, done\u2026but you can tell me (just me and not my readers) who did it?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Written by: Shannan E. Johnson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok\u2026 so I wasn\u2019t like a super fan of American Crime like the rest of the world was. I actually didn\u2019t watch it until a few weeks ago. I know, I know. How can I be a TV fanatic and not be up to date on what\u2019s trending\u2026crucify me later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,156,149,1],"tags":[153,170,160,164,165,142,171,138,172,92,13],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diversity-inclusion","category-screenwriting","category-tv-reviews","category-uncategorized","tag-abc","tag-american-crime","tag-diversity","tag-entertainment-business","tag-entertainment-industry","tag-hollywood","tag-john-ridley","tag-racism","tag-regina-king","tag-screenwriting","tag-the-professional-pen","entry"],"acf":{"featured_image":{"ID":172,"id":172,"title":"TPP logo - transparent","filename":"TPP-logo-transparent.png","filesize":68521,"url":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent.png","link":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/2021\/09\/26\/off-to-the-races-how-to-create-an-effective-inciting-incident\/tpp-logo-transparent\/","alt":"","author":"2","description":"","caption":"","name":"tpp-logo-transparent","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":24,"date":"2021-12-31 03:32:17","modified":"2021-12-31 03:48:46","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1080,"height":1080,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent-300x300.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent-768x768.png","medium_large-width":750,"medium_large-height":750,"large":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent-1024x1024.png","large-width":750,"large-height":750,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent.png","1536x1536-width":1080,"1536x1536-height":1080,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent.png","2048x2048-width":1080,"2048x2048-height":1080,"post-thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/TPP-logo-transparent.png","post-thumbnail-width":1080,"post-thumbnail-height":1080}},"show_featured_content":true,"post_image":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.orgosco.com\/theprofessionalpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}