You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I am extremely into fashion. I grew up in New York City to a former model so it was a given. I faithfully bought Vogue from high school through possibly law school. I’m also black, and if you don’t have money, there are still standards, but I’m also part white, raised in predominantly white spaces, some affluent, so my form of unconscious rebellion was to be comfortable and expect to belong in any space regardless of how I dressed. I can feel my ancestors cringing every time I go to brunch in athletic gear or wear jeans to church. Even in one generation, I can see the difference between the way that I and my mom inhabit space even though she travelled in more rarified air than me in her youth.
When you’re a black person, you have to be aware of your relationship to your surroundings, and if anyone came before you. To love fashion and to be black means that you know André Leon Talley. I’m not sure when I became of aware of him, but I devoured ALT: A Memoir, which I bought in hardcover, and was delighted when he became a revered figure to younger generations as a judge on America’s Next Top Model. I still use dreckitude! Talley belongs in all spaces, high art and popular culture.
When I decided to see The Gospel According to André, I knew that I would be satisfied with just seeing him and getting some shots of pretty clothes, but it exceeded my expectations by being a celebration of blackness and centering his blackness in his relationship to the world. As a child, he is not entirely accepted in black spaces because he is so flamboyant, but as a black person, he is not safe on an elite campus in the South. I love that the director, Kate Novack, understood and captured all the silent signifiers of blackness such as Talley watching Michelle Obama speak or casually touching her Vogue cover. The TV does not just happen to be on, and that particular issue does not just happen to be resting near him. This documentary was shot around the 2016 election. These moments are talismans of beauty and blackness against a world expanding the reach of the Jim Crow South that he had escaped as a child. He is everything that they are against.
The Gospel According to André is divided into four parts: his childhood, his first time away from home, his first professional trip to Paris and his life in the present day. There is no narrator. Talley comments on those periods that are visually punctuated with old photographs or archived footage if available. His friends, some famous, some not, and colleagues provide personal insight into the legend and their time with him. Talley is simultaneously extremely relatable and extraordinary. Talley confirms what most people should already know. He is fully cognizant that some may see him as an exotic curiosity like an Abyssinian guard in the Russian court, but he pushes back with pride in his intellect and dismisses any suggestion that he is purely ornamental. When one of his colleagues used the term “primitive,” even in a complimentary fashion when the term instinctual would have been preferable, I winced.
The Gospel According to André’s main point about its titular hero is to “create your own universe and share it with people you love and respect.” We are shown the universe that Talley created, filled with beauty and friendship, and I felt so uplifted by his finding joy in church, enthusiastically embracing his interests and joyously hanging out with his friends, which include Tamron Hall, Eboni Marshall Turman and another Andre (whose last name I don’t remember so please comment and remind me). They are thrilled at their inclusion into a world that they were not born into and understand the historical significance of every personal triumph. Talley advises, “Don’t say you’re black, and you’re loud. Just be it!” Done!
The Gospel According to André depicts how difficult it is to be true to yourself if you are the embodiment of the opposite of what the professional world expects and embraces and still succeed. Talley is still wounded by “black buck” stereotypes, and even though he is always discreet, his brief allusion to Grace Mirabella not understanding him implies volumes that his expertise was not valued, and he explicitly needed an ally who could value what he offered and be willing to let him use it for Vogue in the “chiffon trenches” in order to progress to where he is today. After seeing The First Monday in May, I was stunned that his ally is Anna Wintour, who says that he wrote letters to her about the prejudice that he faced in his professional life. She confesses that she wasn’t protecting him, but she needed him; however logic never plays a role in racism. Just Google flight attendants calling for doctors then rejecting offers of help from black doctors. So Wintour does deserve praise for recognizing that Talley had skills, that she needed them and then was willing to use them regardless of the packaging in less life threatening conditions.
I completely empathized with Talley, who appears the most disheveled immediately after the election. I watched the most of Presidon’t’s inauguration during The Gospel According to André and am thrilled that we both decided that the best way to get through the day was to work albeit I was not dictating to Maureen Dowd. Even at his lowest point, we can see how he manages to survive inhospitable environments by seeing a master class in networking. Before the election, he helps his friends in fittings and reminds one of them to reach out to Hillary if she needs help. During the election, he praises Melania’s style despite his apparent distaste in her other life choices.
Even though our approach to church and style is at completely opposite entry points, I related to how he also fell in love with the beauty and passion of the world. Talley notes, “Moments should come to you every day.” Navigating and emerging unscathed by the Scylla and Charybdis of sex and drugs, but still embracing the passion and physicality of dancing and food is an integral part of my life story. I hope that Talley lives even longer and is revisited because each time that he is the sole focus, he is more open, and I love it.
The Gospel According to André may be the best documentary of 2018, and the only reason that I’m qualifying my opinion is because we still have half a year to go. You know that I adore Talley and this documentary because I actually took the time to type the e in his first name with an accent. No one else gets that honor unless auto spell check takes the wheel. Once again, my ancestors are holding their heads with their hands. I was raised better than this! My only criticism goes to IMDb that only lists the most famous people featured in the documentary, not the people who are featured the most and are also famous.