Selah is still the Hero

Selah and the Spades is an independent, coming-of-age film written and directed by Tayarisha Poe and starring the ever-amazing Lovie Simone Oppong. The story takes place at Haldwell Academy, a prestigious east coast boarding school comprised of five factions: The Sea, the Skins, the Bobbies, the Prefects, and the Spades, run by main character Selah Summers. The Spades supply students with booze, pills, and other recreational drugs. However, the story isn't about the factions, but how Selah walks a fine line between being feared and loved while grooming her next protégé to take over after she graduates.

While watching reviews on TikTok and other platforms, I noticed the major complaint was that Selah, a dark-skinned black girl, is portrayed as the villain. While these concerns are valid, the audience failed to realize that Selah wasn’t the villain of this story. Her actions may have portrayed her as such, but it's often forgotten that she's the hero too.

Character vs Self

Selah and the Spades contains several conflicts, such as Character vs Character, which was made more obvious by the Selah vs Bobby dynamic. However, the major conflict is Character vs Self, defined as a conflict where the main character struggles with self-doubt, a moral dilemma, or their nature.

Selah has a monologue about holding tight to control, and we learn she is someone who makes sure everything and everyone is aligned with her views, which makes her tough yet unapproachable. We see this with her interaction with her friends, Paloma and Maxxie.

Maxxie (Jharrel Jerome) was Selah's right-hand man that she trusted, but his downfall was mostly his doing. His focus shifted when he started dating Nuri, a member of the spirit squad. Selah was indifferent about their relationship until his mistakes ruined the Spades' reputation. When he goes behind her back to make deals he knew she wouldn't agree with, Selah lured him into a beating that left him bloody and bruised.

Paloma Davis (Celeste O'Connor) was the new sophomore at Haldwell that Selah took in and showed her the ropes. Selah was softer with her until she pushed Paloma to take charge of a rat situation and later drugged her. Since Paloma is the one she’s grooming to take over the Spades, Selah had to make sure she can handle these situations accordingly. Drugging Paloma was to "humble" her, but Selah feared she couldn't trust her after a conversation she had with Bobby, as well as Paloma surpassing her as a leader. The Spades meant everything to Selah and she wasn't ready to let it go.

The true villain of "Selah and the Spades"

Maybelle Summers (Gina Torres), Selah's mother.

The dynamic between Selah and her mother isn't discussed often, but I see Maybelle as the real villain of the story. In a previous journal entry, I described their relationship as a scared little girl silenced by a tyrant dictator. Before her actual appearance, we meet Selah's mother through a couple of phone calls where we see Selah recoil into a quieter, more reserved person—a direct contrast to the head baddie in charge we've become accustomed to.

We don’t learn much about Maybelle's character from what we see in the scene between her and Selah, but my theory is that she is one of those parents that projects their dreams onto their child or she’s competing with another parent to see who can raise a more successful child. Either way, she's pressuring Selah to become someone she isn’t, even if Selah herself doesn’t know who she is.

Critiques

While Selah and the Spades is a phenomenal character study piece, it falls flat in establishing the Character vs Self conflict.

Selah's home life should've been explored more. In the scene with her mother, we can see that Selah is uncomfortable and silenced around her, but we don't understand why. As previously stated, there's some manipulation there, but it's hard to gage what's really going on with one scene. Along with that, I've noticed Maybelle's animosity towards Selah's father because she would compare them negatively. It leaves me to question if he left his family or did he pass away and Maybelle hasn't completely grieved him?

Teela should've been a character even if it was just flashbacks. Throughout the film, there were mentions of a former Haldwell student named Teela, and the way they spoke of her led me to believe she was dead. She was actually expelled for crashing a car while high on acid, even though she never used drugs before. Of course, there's no surprise how those drugs got in her system. We also learned that Teela was a Bobby until Selah convinced her to join the Spades, where she got uncomfortably close to her. I believe Selah's dynamic with Teela may have impacted her friendship with Paloma, and that should've been explored further.

Selah's Sophomore Year. I thought it would add more depth to Selah's character if we knew about her sophomore year at Haldwell. During the scene where Selah comforts Paloma after beating up the rat, I couldn't help wondering what Selah was like before she joined the Spades. Has she always been the tough baddie we see, or did a senior become her mentor and made her that way?

Closing Thoughts

Selah and the Spades should've been a series.

There were talks about Selah and the Spades having a series, but we were unsure if it would be a spin-off or reboot series with the same story and more time to flesh it out. Unfortunately, Tayarisha Poe has stated that the series isn't happening for now.

We can only hope for it soon.