'Big Trouble in Little China' and post-election recovery mode

There are people who think we're overreacting. That we need to simply accepted what happened in the presidential election last week and move on. I am not one of those people.

As a person of color, and simply as an American, I am not feeling safe or comfortable about what's going on in my country's name. And while there are those urging unity with people who voted for someone who has denigrated and demeaned my culture and many others, my heart is with the millions of people who feel like they have been thrown under the bus based on the election results.

It's been hard to cope these last few days, to act like things are normal -- they're not.

I have questioned a lot of my preconceived notions, about my career, how I spend my free time, hell, just people in general.

Virtually nothing can stop me from enjoying the escapism that movies provide though. And on a whim last night I decided to watch a particularly diverting movie -- John Carpenter's 1986 fantasy Big Trouble In Little China -- and despite the movie's considerable flaws, it did provide a wonderful reprieve from all the agony I've been feeling as of late.

It's far from my favorite John Carpenter film -- it's so nutty that I have never fully comprehended its plot and it's hard to make the case that it's not woefully culturally insensitive -- but it is very funny, especially Kurt Russell's John Wayne-esque lead performance, and it's got a visual panache that I greatly appreciate.

The movie tanked when it was first released but has since, like many Carpenter films, earned a devoted cult following. And although it's taken me longer to warm up to it, this trippy trifle is just purely fun and it has a dated charm (it came out 30 years ago) that I found comforting.

I believe in the next four years that pop culture will play a very important role. There will be incisive and incendiary works of art like Rass Kass's Trump takedown "Amerikkan Horror Story," but there will also be colorful confections that will provide us with enough joy and enthusiasm to remind us that we can still laugh, that was can still enjoy ourselves, in spite of the darkness.

Doctor Strange is one of those movies. I am expecting that the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will also be. As our president-elect chooses to spend his time lashing out at every perceived slight on Twitter and appoints people with white supremacist ties to crucial policy-making positions, I do see some glimmer of hope in the fact that we still have the movies to go to.

Here's hoping that Hollywood also has a strong rebuke in store for the bigotry, ignorance and fear that appears to have infected a significant portion of the American populace. We can't turn back the clock and we can't undo our sins, but we can at least move forward and make sense of what we've done.