Society uses labels like Black, queer, disabled, or anything outside the “norm” to cast aside individuals. It’s easy to ignore people perceived as invisible, pushed into the shadows, or hidden away. However, some people burn so brightly that the labeling and the casting aside only make them shine brighter. No matter how society marked him, Richard Wayne Penniman, aka Little Richard, demanded to be witnessed. In her electric documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything, on the originator of rock n’ roll, Lisa Cortés shines a spotlight on the mesmerizing musician whose complex legacy is infused in the DNA of American popular music.
Typically when legendary figures are given the documentary treatment, the audience goes in knowing quite a bit about them. But so much of Little Richard‘s legacy had been whitewashed and wallpapered over that every scene felt like peeling back the history of the music industry and American society.
Continue reading at Shadow and Act.