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Josh and I started re-watching Treme this summer with our friends who had never seen the show. This couple used to live in Louisiana and one of them is a musician who’s played to worldwide audiences, including in New Orleans, and who frequently knows the musicians featured on the series. Watching with his commentary is really fun.
The cast is stellar. If Steve Zahn didn’t win a gazillion awards for this show, he definitely should have. And while Treme deals with some serious and seriously disturbing issues, it is simultaneously funny and endearing. My one criticism of The Wire is that the despair is unremitting and unrelenting; Treme has humor and hope to break up the bleakness of the story.
This re-watch has taken on a deeper resonance for me, though, as we just marked the tenth anniversary of Katrina. Before Katrina, if anybody in Mississippi talked about “the storm” or “the hurricane,” they meant Camille. That was the last storm that truly devastated the region. My Yankee aunt (who has always believed she’s higher class than we are despite all evidence to the contrary) used to love to tell a story making fun of my MeeMaw. The story goes that MeeMaw kept talking about the hurricane (pronounced hurrikin, accent on the first syllable), and my aunt kept wondering what kind of bird could be that destructive.
Now when anybody from the South talks about “the storm,” they mean Hurricane Katrina. I am so grateful that we were already at Ole Miss when the storm hit. I am so glad I did not experience Katrina firsthand.
One of the things that bothers me about media coverage of Katrina is the way that the storm in the American consciousness consists entirely of the flooding of New Orleans. And that tragedy should be foregrounded. It was horrific and continues to have far-reaching and troubling consequences. (As an aside, Josh’s stupid cousin stayed in New Orleans and walked out over the bridge after the storm was over but before people were being prevented from leaving that way.)
But Mississippi doesn’t warrant even a mention in media coverage. Mom reminded me of the way the Weather Channel and the news kept referring to MS as “the landmass” in their reporting rather than a place actual people live that was being destroyed.
None of my family in Gulfport left except my MeeMaw who was essentially living with my parents at that point anyway. Nobody left for hurricanes; if you left, you risked not being able to get back to your property, and nobody expected Katrina to be that bad. We spent two days after the storm wondering if that family was dead before we could get through on a cellphone (they weren’t; everybody was fine). We didn’t even think to worry about my parents; they’re in Hattiesburg, a good hour and half inland from the coast, and yet they were without water for a little more than a week and without power for almost a month after the storm. There were a few isolated incidents of violence (at gas stations where gas was being rationed, etc.), and they spent most of that time very afraid of looting and violence even though, fortunately, that fear went mostly unrealized in Hattiesburg.
Waveland’s just gone, there’s still blue FEMA tarp here and there on the Coast even ten years later, and New Orleans has yet to recover completely. Another storm like Katrina on top of the on-going devastation from the BP oil spill might just destroy the region. That thought scares me.
So for now, I’ll just watch D.J. Davis lampoon Ray Nagin and Toni do her best to track down missing prisoners and Janette struggle to keep her restaurant afloat without thinking too much about storm season.
The cast is stellar. If Steve Zahn didn’t win a gazillion awards for this show, he definitely should have. And while Treme deals with some serious and seriously disturbing issues, it is simultaneously funny and endearing. My one criticism of The Wire is that the despair is unremitting and unrelenting; Treme has humor and hope to break up the bleakness of the story.
This re-watch has taken on a deeper resonance for me, though, as we just marked the tenth anniversary of Katrina. Before Katrina, if anybody in Mississippi talked about “the storm” or “the hurricane,” they meant Camille. That was the last storm that truly devastated the region. My Yankee aunt (who has always believed she’s higher class than we are despite all evidence to the contrary) used to love to tell a story making fun of my MeeMaw. The story goes that MeeMaw kept talking about the hurricane (pronounced hurrikin, accent on the first syllable), and my aunt kept wondering what kind of bird could be that destructive.
Now when anybody from the South talks about “the storm,” they mean Hurricane Katrina. I am so grateful that we were already at Ole Miss when the storm hit. I am so glad I did not experience Katrina firsthand.
One of the things that bothers me about media coverage of Katrina is the way that the storm in the American consciousness consists entirely of the flooding of New Orleans. And that tragedy should be foregrounded. It was horrific and continues to have far-reaching and troubling consequences. (As an aside, Josh’s stupid cousin stayed in New Orleans and walked out over the bridge after the storm was over but before people were being prevented from leaving that way.)
But Mississippi doesn’t warrant even a mention in media coverage. Mom reminded me of the way the Weather Channel and the news kept referring to MS as “the landmass” in their reporting rather than a place actual people live that was being destroyed.
None of my family in Gulfport left except my MeeMaw who was essentially living with my parents at that point anyway. Nobody left for hurricanes; if you left, you risked not being able to get back to your property, and nobody expected Katrina to be that bad. We spent two days after the storm wondering if that family was dead before we could get through on a cellphone (they weren’t; everybody was fine). We didn’t even think to worry about my parents; they’re in Hattiesburg, a good hour and half inland from the coast, and yet they were without water for a little more than a week and without power for almost a month after the storm. There were a few isolated incidents of violence (at gas stations where gas was being rationed, etc.), and they spent most of that time very afraid of looting and violence even though, fortunately, that fear went mostly unrealized in Hattiesburg.
Waveland’s just gone, there’s still blue FEMA tarp here and there on the Coast even ten years later, and New Orleans has yet to recover completely. Another storm like Katrina on top of the on-going devastation from the BP oil spill might just destroy the region. That thought scares me.
So for now, I’ll just watch D.J. Davis lampoon Ray Nagin and Toni do her best to track down missing prisoners and Janette struggle to keep her restaurant afloat without thinking too much about storm season.
