Fun With Aronofsky's 'Noah' and The Curse of Ham

I saw Aronofsky's movie Noah several hours ago.

Aronofsky is a genius. I enjoy his films and cinematic vision. He may fail in execution; the viewer is rarely bored. We should have more such risk-taking and ambitious filmmakers. American cinema would be better for it.

Moreover, Noah is a smart film that finds its impetus from a brilliant and basic assumption--the Bible is a work of mythology, how then to present an accurate view of magical thinking in the form of a powerful story, one that is really a parable about environmental disaster and human arrogance while also making lots and lots of money?

To my eyes, Aronofsky's Noah is a big joke on the "faithful", and those "Christ followers" who believe that the Bible is the literal "truth".

The marks who I watched clap at the end of Noah here in Chicago were reverential and moved. Apparently, God was in the movie theater...for them.

I doubt that those viewers clapping in appreciation of Aronofsky's fun and smart (and yes, bloated) depiction of their sacred Noah story got his joke.


I was very curious about the film's take on Noah's son Ham. Would the film allude to his failings and how black folks were "cursed" as his descendants? Aronofsky is a smart man. How would he depict Noah's drunkenness, and how Ham would be punished for not being respectful to his father?

[There are other versions of this story which suggest something far more lurid was taking place with Noah's nudity.]

Aronofsky plays it safe with Noah in regards to Ham's series of transgressions against his father. For those who know the history of the Curse of Ham, and how it was used as a justification for the enslavement and murder of tens of millions of black people during the American and European slave trade, the character of Ham is a potent introduction to what would happen in our real world based on a biblical myth.

Sunday is the most segregated day of the week in the United States. Black folks worship together; white folks worship together. Latinos, Asians, and other people of color worship somewhere between those two poles in terms of the racial homogeneity in their respective houses of religious worship.

More serious minded folks who are curious about the tensions between the colorline, race, Christianity, the Black Church, and white supremacy could do far worse than to read James Cone's essential book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

I believe that God/Crom/The Force has a sense of humor. There are too many seemingly bizarre wonders in the universe to think otherwise.

The sequel to Aronofsky's Noah should focus on Ham and his life in exile. Given how Ham's tale will eventually be used to justify the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, what are some potential titles for a sequel to Aronofsky's take on said Biblical epic, where Ham, wandering the Earth, spawns a "new" "race" of people who are "black" in color--and thus marked as natural and permanent slaves as a result?

Here are my entries:

Noah 2: Ham Strikes Back
Noah 2: Bigger and Blacker
Noah 2: Rise of the Dark Side
Noah 2: Dark Side of the Moon
Noah 2: Once You Go Black You Never Go Back
Noah 2: Black to the Future

Here are your suggestions so far:

Noah 2: Citizen Canaan
Noah 2: Ham 'A Gettin' Outta Here
Noah 2: Ham Gets Dicked Over
Noah 2: Paula Dean's New American Treasury of the Very Best Recipes for Ham and Fixin's

Noah 2: Blackwater World
Noah 2: Ham Boned Ham Boned Have You Heard?
Noah 2: The Antediluvian-ChristNoah 2 - The Wolf of Ararat
Noah 2 - The Hammed United
Noah 2 - I Used to be Darker
Noah 2 - 40 Days, 40 Nights, 40 Acres, One Mule.
Noah 2 - I Ham Legend
Noah 2 - Black Rain
Noah 2 - Chocolate Rain
Noah 2- Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair

Noah 2- Bad Day at Black Rock
Noah 2 - The Wolf of Ararat

Noah 2: Fear of a Ham Planet (or Noah 2: Fear of a Black Flood)
Noah 2: Summer of Ham
Noah 2: The Naked and the Hammed
Noah 2: Green Plagues and Ham
Noah 2: Oh God! You Devil (Maybe this time with Abe Vigoda and Kevin Hart)
Noah 2: Hamming It Up With Racism
Noah 2: The Dark World
Noah 2: Shiiiiiit, this is what we believe?!
Noah 2: Black on Solid Ground
Noah 2: Back in Black
Noah 2: Man in Black
Noah 2: Black on Both Sides
Noah 2: April Showers
Noah 2: You Can't Stop the Rain
Noah 2: Black Friday
Noah 2: Make Me a Biblical Sam'mich w/some Black Ham, Bitch!
Noah 2: Cornbread, Ham & Me
Noah 2: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
Noah 2: How Ham got his Groove Back
Noah 2: White People are Still Lying to Themselves
Noah 2: 2 Black 2 Furious
Noah 2: Legally Black

What are your additional suggestions for the potential title(s) of a Noah sequel about Ham's life?

If you have seen Aronofsky's Noah, please share your thoughts and feelings about the film.