a SMUGGLER production / Executive Producers: C Prinz, Jeremy Pope, Elizabeth Doonan, Patrick Milling-Smith, Brian Carmody / A Paradise production / Executive Producer: Jill Ferraro / In ASSOCIATION with Diplomats / Executive Producer: Manon Leurent
Longing to create a visual narrative to accompany the themes of his debut EP, “LAST NAME: POPE,” actor-musician Jeremy Pope reached out to SMUGGLER director C Prinz in the midst of the pandemic. Fostering an almost instant synergy, the pair spent three years discussing everything from the church experience to the Black experience, queerness to the overall anxieties pervading our society. In their 20-minute short film “God is Good” they showcase his journey to self-acceptance as a Black queer man. Pope and Prinz tell Yaya Azariah Clarke about the process behind creating their visual universe and the sense of freedom they hope it might bring to others.
What is it the church says? God is good all the time, and all the time “God is good.” In the opening of Jeremy Pope’s autobiographical short film, its title appears in small, equivocal text, before flashes of a dancer quickly emerge. Stood before an abyssal black background, they stretch their limbs above, with an awestruck gaze before an aqueous swarm washes them into a blur, and flashes of a Derek Jarman-blue screen ushers us into a journey of transformation. Written and performed by the actor-musician, and directed by C Prinz, “God is Good” visualizes Pope’s road to accepting his identity as a Black queer man, dissecting his relationship to Christianity and gender performance. “It’s all of my thoughts, feelings, wishes, prayers and fears as a Black queer person,” he says, “but it’s bigger than me, it’s for anybody questioning.”
It’s all of my thoughts, feelings, wishes, prayers and fears, but it’s bigger than me—it’s for anybody questioning.
When he first reached out to Prinz during the pandemic, the pair connected over conversations about their queer experiences, race, identity and spirituality. Four years later, their shared magnetism and openness is reflected in “God is Good.” “It’s rare in life that you find somebody who uses humor and levity as a tool of momentum. We always find a dark and funny twist for things we discuss. That’s our rapport, that’s our friendship,” Prinz says.
Constructing the film’s concepts in the wake of Black Lives Matter and the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy, especially in Pope’s native Florida (one example being Ron DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which prohibits discussion around gender identity and sexual orientation in certain phases of childrens’ school lives), Pope felt an increasing need to document his fight, but they also wanted to show the anxiety that comes with living in the midst of these societal shifts.
We used flashing to create a sense of a lawless panic, and the freedom, revelation and relief that can come within that.
Although he’s most known as an actor (morphing into period characters in “One Night in Miami,” “Pose” and “Hollywood”) Pope’s creative entryway was music. Growing up in Orlando, Florida, the child of a father who was both a preacher and professional bodybuilder, his upbringing was marked by a great deal of polarized ideals around who he should be and how he should live. The conservatoire-esque world of the Black church—where expressive praise, instrumentation and vocal prowess are custom—the internalized homophobia it instilled in him and the hyper-masculine world of bodybuilding, left their mark on him.
In “God is Good,” we witness his journey to accepting every aspect of himself. “We wondered how we could create a universe where all of these parts of me could exist together in a way that feels like they’re coming from a singular being, and one day C said to me, ‘think of it as an audition for God.’ And after that, I felt free to be every version of myself,” Pope says.
“People want to condemn me for existing in my love and in my truth,” he says. “I always felt like church was very black-and-white, and I’m more interested in what happens in the gray, because I’m in the gray.” Central to the film is Pope’s monologue, sometimes delivered confrontationally and other times reflective, sometimes into the ether and other times looking directly at us. It’s an intense grapple between his queerness and Christian upbringing, the masculine and the feminine, good and evil, and self-criticism and self-love. At one point, he asks, “Why is life a little harder for Black queer men like me?” At another, he’s illuminated by light and shouting Black congregation responses: “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good” and “‘Let him use you.”
Pope’s audition is broken up by his own imitations of characters: figures such as Grace Jones and other recurring characters such as a Black male wrestler, an ode to the many sides to his identity. “It took a massive amount of research and style prep to make room for the mania, to show the shapeshifting Jeremy has experienced,” says Prinz. The film’s visuals are often presented in intense flashes: “It’s flashing because of anger—anger and urgency,” Prinz explains.
It’s me setting myself free from fears, from internalized homophobia, from things that have been projected onto me.
Indeed, watching “God is Good” is watching a person go through the panic, the pain and the overwhelming sensory overload of confronting their own sense of self, confronting all the things that make them who they are. By the end of the film, though, we also see Pope free himself from those questions and anxieties. “We’ve all experienced anxiety in some way,” says Prinz, “and we used flashing to create a sense of a lawless panic, and the freedom, revelation and relief that can come within that.”
In this day and age, many are looking to integrate their queer identity with their connection to God, faith or religion. Or simply put, we all have a longing to integrate our varying multiplicities. In the last minutes of “God is Good,” accompanied by the sound of crashing chords, Pope sternly mimes “I am a child of God,” says “thank you,” and the audition is over. The small and wanting title that appeared at the beginning of the film now fills the screen and pushes the theater stage into insignificance. “It’s me setting myself free from fears, free from internalized homophobia, from things that have been projected onto me,” he says. With this, the artist hopes his narrative can free others. Pope wants us to know that the God in us is good.