PLAY IT SAFE Film Review — Acting Gone Wrong

Posted on by Breanna Henry

They are in drama class, and as is common in drama classes, they play games to warm up those acting chops. This game they are about to play is a bit of role-playing; each student has to pick an animal from the top hat, and whatever animal they pick, they have to act like that animal in front of the class, and the teacher will critique how well they did.

One by one, the students pick their animals. One gets a squirrel, and Jonathan gets an ape. That normally wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just an ape, no big deal, right? Well, Jonathan is Black. To make matters more complicated, he is the only Black person in this drama class. With the history of how Black people have been characterized as monkeys in the past, this is a huge problem.

He sees the picture and stares off into space, in disbelief of what’s happening right now. Before he knows it, it’s his turn to perform for his White counterparts and he snaps out of it. He stalks slowly to the front, and once everyone sees the picture he got, there’s silence. The teacher attempts to get him a different card, but Jonathan insists on playing the part. He’ll show them.

He gets into character and crawls on the ground menacingly. He stalks in between each student, dangerously close to them. He picks their hair and breathes heavily on their necks as an ape would. He then screeches sporadically, startling his classmates. This role-play goes on for what seems like ages, until he finally crawls back to the front of the room, gets up from the floor, and stares intensely in his drama teacher’s eyes, awaiting her score.

PLAY IT SAFE Meets Microaggressions Face To Face

“Take up more space.” That was the advice from the drama teacher. However, she had no idea just how much space Jonathan would take up. In this 11-minute film, Mitch Kalisa exhibits prejudice in a not-so-subtle way. He doesn’t shy away from making us shift in our seats; the scene of Jonathan acting like an ape was uncomfortably long. This viewer could barely sit through the whole thing and skipped past it multiple times due to second-hand embarrassment before finally being brave enough to watch it all the way through. Maybe that’s the point; Kalisa wants us to push past that discomfort to ponder the message behind it.

Play It Safe will leave you a bit confused; it ends with no real resolution, and you’ll see that Jonathan plays the role of the ape well, but is that a good thing? Why did he insist on playing the degrading part instead of choosing a different animal?

If you like watching short films about race, microaggressions, and discrimination, Play It Safe is for you. If, however, you are tired of seeing depictions of Black people in a race-driven plot, this film is not for you. Although important, this reviewer, a Black writer seeking diverse representations of Black people on film, asks -- When will Black people being discriminated against on-screen ever end?

 

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CAST:

Jonathan Ajayi as Jonathan
Heather Alexander as Tori
Kate Ovendon as Olivia
Charlie O’Connor as Christian
Louis Richards as Henry
Grace Daly as Emma
Lauren Raisbeck as Diane
Emily Seale Jones as Rosie

CREATIVE TEAM:

Director/Writer: Mitch Kalisa
Producer: Chris Toumazou
Cinematographer: Jaime Ackroyd

 

Author’s Note: PLAY IT SAFE won the Audience Award for Narrative Short at SXSW and is screening on-demand at SXSW until April 18

You can also find out more about the film on the Compulsory Film website

Images courtesy of PLAY IT SAFE

 

Breanna Henry

About the Author: Breanna Henry

Almost 10 years ago Breanna sat in her tiny room she shared with her younger sister in Houston, Texas writing songs, stories, and poems on the rough carpet. She mimicked songs she heard on the radio and imitated books she's read from the Scholastic Book Fair. By fifth grade, she knew creative writing would soon be her passion. Now a sophomore at Loyola University New Orleans, she has published works on her university's newspaper, literary journal, and on her own blog. When she's not writing and working towards her Mass Communication and English Writing degree, she's watching Criminal Minds re-runs, doing photoshoots with friends, and dancing wildly in her dorm room while music blasts through her speakers.

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