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Moderated by Dr. Finnie Coleman,
University of New Mexico<\/h2>\n
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This talk explores Regina King\u2019s performance as Angela Abar in the HBO\u2019s series Watchmen <\/em>(Oct. 20\u2014Dec. 15, 2019). Brown coins the phrase \u201csubversive masking\u201d in order to analyze the complexity of Abar\u2019s alter-ego, Sister Night. Subversive masking is a derivative of Paul Laurence Dunbar\u2019s depiction of the \u201cmask\u201d as a strategy of subterfuge employed by blacks to combat or circumvent racism as articulated in his 1896 poem, \u201cWe Wear the Mask.\u201d Brown addresses the show\u2019s use of masks (i.e. those worn by the Watchmen, the Rorschach organization, Hooded Justice, etc.) as a way to demonstrate the easy slippage between police and vigilante justice and to explore the dynamics of race and power in regards to issues of surveillance and policing. Sister Night functions to illuminate the interstitial paradox of the black cop: is her allegiance to the state or her race? Brown argues that Abar\u2019s Sister Night persona is born out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Massacre in 1921 in which white terrorist violence against blacks and the subsequent inability of blacks to receive proper recompense through the courts displays two very different and racially coded ideas and rationales of vigilante justice. Ultimately, Brown contends that this new version of the Watchmen <\/em>aligns with sentiments of Black Lives Matter as it makes a case for generational racial trauma and the need for reparations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n