LOVE/HATE Knuckles and the Weight of Homage
How Framing Lends Weight to Film and TV References
Hello, Mel here.
Visual references and homage are constant in film, and some of the biggest opportunities come through wardrobe and props. Almost as important as what they are is how they are shown, visual language which help cements connections.
LOVE/HATE knuckles popped up recently in I’m A Virgo. More than ‘look at the cool glowing props!’, they carry several layers of meaning, without a single word being spoken about them.
Both knuckles and framing clearly reference Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing.
Do the Right Thing was itself paying homage to classical film imagery from The Night of the Hunter, which features a travelling preacher with LOVE and HATE tattoos and gives a monologue about what they meant.
While asked about whether Radio Raheem was intentionally referencing the Reverend’s knuckle tattoos, Spike Lee said Raheem hadn’t seen Night of the Hunter, but what matters is he, Spike Lee, had (an anecdote I’ve lost amidst the flotsam and jetsam of the internet).
Both "LOVE/HATE" monologues are iconic - watch Radio Raheem’s here, and Reverend Harry Powell’s here.
But even if you haven’t seen either film, or don’t remember the specifics of the speeches, the iconography has entered pop culture so thoroughly as to be immediately recognisable, especially when the composition is similar, pointed at the camera as though to not just break, but punch through, the fourth wall.
When Cootie is given a gift before he goes out to fight injustice, Boots Riley puts him in a pair of glowing red 'brass' knuckles carries the weight of eighty years of film, two iconic speeches, and an iconic Black character who protested systemic injustice which ultimately killed him. The symbolism is clear . . .
But it’s his framing which makes sure there’s absolutely no mistaking his intent.