Teenagers can always be counted upon to fill their world with music, so there are a bunch of great little film-music moments in Paul Saltzman's Prom Night in Mississippi, a documentary about the first racially integrated high school prom in Charleston, Mississippi—filmed in June 2008, just a handful of months before Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. One that really caught my attention took place at the prom itself, where early in the night students are shown enthusiastically line dancing to "Cupid Shuffle" by Bryson Bernard (better known simply as Cupid). The track's hookiness is, of course, the main thing getting people out on the floor, but there's a cross-cultural draw too, and it's worth examining.
Line dancing has been hugely popular in country-western circles for going on 30 years now and its roots hearken back to some rather lily-white European folk traditions, so you have to consider what a bold move it was for a young R&B singer from Lafayette, Louisiana to use it as a concept for a crunky little bounce track. "My philosophy is, there's so much standard R&B going on, it's always a good idea to have a different vibe," said Bernard of his 2007 album Time for a Change, which he describes as a blend of several Deep South influences. "Cupid Shuffle" became a big hit and Internet sensation, with hundreds of people posting YouTube videos of themselves dancing to it. In fact, "Cupid Shuffle" helped to set the Guinness Record for the world's largest line dance in 2007 when 17,000 Atlantans danced to it at the Ebony Black Family Reunion Tour. A year later at the first ever integrated prom in a small Mississippi town, it effortlessly brought a group of black and white classmates out onto the dance floor together for the first time.
And it really was the first time. One of the recurring comments the students make is how odd it is for them to have spent so many years together in classrooms, but barely to have hung out socially—a fact they attribute almost entirely to their parents' attitudes versus their own. Such attitudes start to become more apparent when you realize there's only one interracial couple featured in this documentary, and they report they're the only one in town. When a small faction of parents decide to protest the integrated prom by throwing an alternative "whites only" prom for a few dozen of their begrudging sons and daughters, it really sinks in just how much racism has been allowed to shape this community—one where 70 percent of the high school students are black. (The "whites only" prom organizers take pains to hide their identities and prevent the event from being recorded, but second hand accounts make it clear the event was small and lackluster).
A few weeks later at the big, lavish integrated prom (spearheaded and paid for by Morgan Freeman), the seniors seem extremely happy and excited to be there. As the hour grows late, no one drifts away to hotel rooms or parties. The vibe stays up, the dance floor stays packed, and at one point is filled to its edges with grinning students dancing to the bittersweet groove of "Graduation Song (Friends Forever)" by Vitamin C, who sounds more like a fourth member TLC in this track than a blond pop chanteuse. A looping sample of the Pachelbel Canon glides wistfully behind her hip hop and neo-soul inflected singing..a nice little array of nuances sandwiched into one song. Somewhere else in the United States that night, Barack Obama may have been finishing up a stump speech in his preferred manner: by blasting the twangy country song by Brooks and Dunn, "Only in America."
Truly.
For another outstanding documentary on modern segregation, check out Margaret Brown's The Order of Myths, about the two entirely separate Mardi Gras celebrations—one white, one black—that happen in Mobile, Alabama.
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