#nile freeman appreciation day is all the time

[captainpikeachu]

I need to really make a post about all the reasons that I love Nile.

- she got to have her own solo arc, her own solo fight, she gets to have agency, the story allows for her to have a choice, something that even the comics didn’t even give her

- she might be the new kid on the block but she is not belittled, or treated like she’s an idiot who needs older people to tell her what to do, nope, she might be “a kid”, but she is just as competent and intelligent as the rest, the future legacy of the immortals is in good hands with her

- her moral fortitude, I respect her so much for that, she knows that she might have to kill but she doesn’t want to become some unfeeling killing machine

- she won’t leave anyone behind

- her kindness, to the kids she was interacting with, and to Booker at the end

- “it wasn’t your gift to give” - seriously I love that she suffers no fools, I love that she’s not going the route that so often these movies can do with the whole “well greater good matters more than personal autonomy”

- her refusal to let Andy give up, and showing Andy and the team that they do have purpose and what they do matters

- she has the one brain cell

- except when she shot her own foot when she could have just told Copley she’s new LOL

Anyways, I just want to say that Nile Freeman is so awesome and I love her and I can’t wait for more of her in the sequel!

[qqueenofhades]

Since you mentioned that you may be taking requests and also that you did that Dreamling oneshot the other day, I would like very much to humbly request an “every one of my family members is an eldritch abomination myself included however I should very much like to just go to uni and hopefully not destroy the entire world thanks” girlfriends, Rose and Nile?

It goes without saying that there are many things about this whole situation -- uprooting her life, moving to a new country, becoming her brother's legal guardian, helping him adjust while still feeling horrendously guilty about not saving him from his previous abusive situation sooner, sorting through her wealthy and late great-grandmother's extensive estate, and trying to start a graduate degree, while the mellifluous tones of Yakety Sax echo constantly through said country's government and she's not sure if the whole place is about to explode in a puff of clown-car smoke -- which are very, very stressful. Rose has always been good at making up more things to worry about, but even she doesn't need to search for ways to whet her anxiety, because it's already there and then some. Not to mention the whole part where she nearly destroyed the universe, became a dream vortex and then un-became it, inadvertently helped her friend have a baby with her dead husband, and almost agreed to let her creepy immortal great-uncle murder her for the greater good, before calamity was averted at the last minute and she turned out to be something called a Child of the Endless. Surely that won't be a problem again. Right?

In any event, amid this whirlwind of chaos, change, anxiety, and effort, Rose is very grateful to have met Nile Freeman, and they've taken to spending more and more time together. They have instantly bonded as young black women from America (or rather, Rose thinks Nile is from America, but she hasn't actually said) who both live in London and have endured the headaches of obtaining graduate degrees in history. Nile finished her PhD at KCL a few years ago, and is now doing that oh-so-fun early-career-researcher shuffle as she decides what she wants to do next, though she's made several cryptic references to wealthy parents who live in Malta and send her enough money to make sure she doesn't sleep under a bridge. "I appreciate it," she says as they walk through Bloomsbury, en route to Senate House so Rose can use the University of London's main library. "And considering all the disasters happening back in 2018, I was lucky to survive, truly. But sometimes I still want to do it on my own, you know."

"Mmm-hmm." Rose looks at her curiously. "What exactly do your parents do, by the way?"

"They..." Nile pauses. They come to a halt at the crosswalk and wait for the light. "You know, this and that."

Rose finds this answer rather vague, but maybe it's a sensitive subject, or Nile just doesn't want to talk about it yet. After all, they've only known each other for a few months, and Rose can't deny that she's very keen to impress the older girl. Nile is so gorgeous, so self-assured, with a strange eerie sheen to her skin and eyes that sometimes looks almost unearthly, but she's definitely the most normal person that Rose has recently met, and their interactions are the most refreshing part of her life. She has a bit (or maybe more than a bit) of a crush on Nile, but is too shy to see if that is actively reciprocated. As the light turns green and they cross, Rose says, "Are you from Malta, then? I thought you were American."

"Ethiopia," Nile says. "I was born there, at least. My parents adopted me a... a long time ago."

There definitely seems to be something she isn't saying, but Rose decides to let it pass, and they spend an enjoyable afternoon working at Senate House. Afterward, they trek off into the Bloomsbury streets in search of dinner, select a charming underground restaurant, and sit down in a candlelit corner. Nile orders her steak rare -- rare enough, in fact, that it's still practically mooing on the plate -- and Rose says jokingly, "Don't tell me, let me guess. You're a vampire."

Nile, who has just taken a sip of some indeed rather blood-red wine, chokes, starts coughing, and takes several minutes to compose herself, as Rose apologizes profusely. But she isn't laughing or treating it like a joke; she looks deeply startled. "How did you -- "

"Wait." Rose frowns. Oh no. Not her nice, normal, lovely friend who-she-kind-of-wants-to-be-her-girlfriend. Not in the one relationship and/or person she foolishly thought was not at all magical, creepy, supernatural, insane, or otherwise weird. "Are you...? I was just joking. I didn't..."

There's a very, very long pause. Nile seems to be weighing something up. At last she says, "If, hypothetically, I was... well, something like that, would you be upset?"

"I, uh." Rose considers what to say. After all, her horizons of what is possible have been recently and drastically broadened, and she's certainly not about to claim out of hand that vampires don't exist. "I don't think so?"

"I'm..." Nile looks around shiftily to make sure that all the other diners are happily absorbed, then lowers her voice anyway. "Technically half-vampire, half-djinn. My dads are one each. Nicky's a vampire and Joe's a djinn, and they sired me together, so it's... a long story."

"Okay." Rose blinks several times. "So your parents are...."

"Magical creatures, yeah." Nile eyes her. "You're taking this very well. Wait, are your parents also some kind of...?"

"My biological parents are both dead, but it turns out that I'm descended from something called the Endless." Rose feels awkward saying it, but there it is. "Do you, er, know what those are?"

"I don't think so. I could ask?"

"My great-uncle is the King of Dreams," Rose confesses, in something of a rush. "Lord Morpheus. Do you know him?"

"Maybe. It's been a long time, I can't remember everyone we've crossed paths with over the centu -- years." Nile nods her thanks as the waiter sets down a fresh basket of bread. "But again, I could -- "

"Wait. Centuries? How old are you?"

There is another long and deeply awkward pause. Then Nile says, "Technically, nineteen. But I was sired in 1104, so that means..." She calculates, then ventures, "Nine hundred and eighteen?"

"I knew it," Rose mutters. She is apparently just a magnet for every ever-living (literally) eldritch weirdo in the Western Hemisphere, and this isn't even touching the fact that her likewise-seemingly-nice-and-normal history professor/thesis supervisor is evidently also an ageless immortal and her aforementioned creepy King of Dreams great-uncle is valiantly attempting to not only date him, but ask Rose for advice. Truly. Her life is ridiculous.

[victimhood]

Fic Preview: The Beautiful Game, Chapter 1

ehehehehehehee IT’S HERE!!! Chapter one of the Old Guard soccer (henceforth called football) AU, based on the outline here (don’t read outline if you don’t want story spoilers)

I might live or die on this hill but for the chapter summary: We start with Nile POV, as she begins her new career as a football analyst on television. The fic will feature Kaysanova quite heavily, and the fic will build up to Book of Nile. The AU is set in the year 2026, where the FIFA Men’s World Cup Final is held in Los Angeles.

I’ll post this on AO3, where I am anonymonypony, once it’s cleaned up a little.

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME: CHAPTER ONE

FAREED: And this marks the end of Holland’s run for the World Cup. With no new goals scored at extra time, we enter the penalty shootout, and oh, what a tense shootout it is. It’s Captain Di Genova that scores into the top corner, after de Haas missed for the Dutch team, his effort ricocheting off the top bar. The Dutch are crestfallen, and here, we have Di Genova comforting Kaysani with a hug—their defensive partnership for their club is one of the best, isn’t it? And in a sight so commonplace in modern football, players form incredible bonds with their club teammates across national boundaries.

DIXON: Italy loves al-Kaysani don’t they? They like to call him their adopted son.

FREEMAN: Italy, after all, is the birthplace of catenaccio, and they appreciate a good defender like no one else. This is the country of Maldini, Cannavaro, Nesta...

DIXON: My god, Kaysani really reminds one of the young Nesta, doesn’t he? So elegant with his clearances, and such incredible vision, starting plays from the back with that passing ability...

FAREED: Yes—as a defender Kaysani departs the World Cup with no cards to his name—a testament to his tackling finesse.

DIXON: It’s obvious why Di Genova loves him so, isn’t it? He is the Cannavaro to Kaysani’s Nesta...sigh...

FREEMAN: Speaking of Cannavaro, it is twenty years to the tournament that saw Italy win their fourth World Cup. This time, we have the imposing Di Genova leading the azzuri into the finals—where they face, as in a repeat of 2006–a seasoned French team.

FAREED: Some would say aging, but there’s no denying the strength of Les Bleus—champions in 2018, semi finalists in 2022, and now in 2026–in the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles—they have a chance at their third World Cup. The French team has the slight advantage of having an extra day of rest, and they concluded their match against Brazil decisively, without extra time. 

DIXON: Yes, the obvious star of the French team is playmaker Sebastian LeLivre, who has flourished in the Premier League under manager James Copley for Liverpool. 

FAREED: In him, we have the young Zidane, don’t we?

FREEMAN: Yes—LeLivre, or as they call him in the Merseyside, Booker, is also born and bred in Marseilles. Zidane is his childhood idol—and perhaps taking a leaf out of his idol’s playbook LeLivre has stirred controversy once for saying he doesn’t feel French—he’s just Marseillais.

FAREED: Ooh, yes, when he’s losing, he’s le banditisme, but when he’s winning he’s French isn’t he?

DIXON: Yes, yes—we shall see. [chuckles] With Booker and Di Genova on the pitch—let’s hope they let football do the talking. 

“—aaaand cut!” The director yells.

Nile heaves a sigh of relief, glad that the cameras have cut away. This is her first professional gig since chronic rheumatoid arthritis forced her into early retirement from playing the game she so loves. She had been holding out for a third World Cup next year, playing through pain to lead her team, the Chicago Red Stars, to a league victory—but she has to give up on that dream now. Through some connections, Nile manages to work her way into a role as a budding studio analyst with NBC. A television gig analyzing the men’s game pays ludicrously well, enough to enrage Nile and yet—she has to do what it takes to survive, what with the expensive medical bills she will have to deal with for the rest of her life.

It is the year of our lord 2026, a Black woman is President of the United States, and football, as always, moves at a glacial pace, as if in a pre-global warming world.

[quarantineandchillthings]

BLACK PANTHER

Rest in peace Chadwick Boseman 1976-2020

I am definitely not the biggest Marvel fan but Black Panther was one movie that I really wanted to see. It obviously was a hugely successful film and was very popular, but the thing that made me want to watch it the most was the soundtrack. The soundtrack of the movie is absolutely amazing and featured so many great artists, I knew that if the soundtrack was this good, the movie had to be good too, and that, it was! As I said before I’m not the biggest Marvel fan, not because I don't enjoy the movies, there are just too many to catch up on. Maybe one day I’ll make that huge commitment. 

This movie is so visually satisfying, and has a great story to it. The cast is absolutely incredible and really brings the story to life. The story follows T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who after the death of his father, returns home to Wakanda to inherit the throne, however he runs into an enemy who threatens his family and nation. I love the storyline and setting of Black Panther, from the start, showing the back story of Erik Kilmonger’s (Michael B Jordan) father and T’Challa’s father, explaining why Erik is back for revenge, to the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, a truly magical place. This movie is not only visually stunning but it is also packed to the brim with action, as well as a juicy revenge plot. It is a great film for the whole family, kids will love it but as an adult you can fully appreciate it. I would recommend it to anyone. 

What I really enjoyed about the film is that it is a predominantly black cast with amazing actors and actresses bringing the story to life. It is such an amazing film for young black kids to see and find a hero in many of the characters. Black Panther was also directed by an African American man (Ryan Coogler) who used his life experiences to direct the film that was so important to him. Jamil Smith from Time writes that “It’s themes challenge institutional bias, it’s characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors, and it’s narrative includes prismatic perspective on black life and tradition”. For more insight on the power of the film go to https://time.com/black-panther/.

Something that was very important in the  film was how they depicted women as incredibly strong. All the women cast were powerful in their own way and helped King T’Challa through his battles. The warrior women like Nakia and Okoye and the rest of Dora Miljaje are great to watch, as this is not common large number of movies. Shuri, T’Challa’s sister has to be my favourite character of the whole movie. She is the chief science officer for Wakanda, a role that I think normally would go to a male. Although she is also the princess of Wakanda, she cares much more for her role as chief science officer. She is so smart and constantly upgrading the technology that helps T’Challa with his battles. She is the one to create T’Challa’s suit that absorbs kinetic energy as well as many other things. I can only imagine how awesome seeing her on screen is for young girls who are interested in science and technology. 

FUN FACTS

- The director Ryan Coogler first became familiar with the Black Panther comics when he was 9 years old, he bought it from his local comic book store in Oakland and asked to see the superhero that looked like him 

- Chadwick Boseman was the first and only person considered to play King T’Challa

- The aerial shots of Wakanda were filmed in South Africa, Zambia, Uganda and Argentina 

- The director put importance on inclusivity and visibility on and off-screen, he made sure a lot of the key department heads were either African American, women, or both

- Lupita Nyong’o who plays Nakia bought 600 tickets of Black Panther for kids in her hometown of Kisuma, Kenya

For more fun facts go to: https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-black-panther 

Some other projects that the actors of Black Panther have been in are: 

Chadwick Boseman (King T’Challa/Black Panther)  - Marshall - Legal Drama Film

Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger) - Creed - Sport/Drama Film 

Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia) - Us - Horror/Thriller Film 

Letitia Wright (Shuri)  - Death on the Nile - Mystery/Crime Film 

Danai Gurira (Okoye) - The Walking Dead - Horror TV show 

Daniel Kaluuya (W’Kabi) - Get Out - Horror/Thriller Film 

Winston Duke (M’Baku) -Spenser Confidential - Action/Crime Film 

Angela Bassett (Ramonda) - 9-1-1 - Action Tv show 

Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross) - The Hobbit Film Series 

Here's where to keep up with them: 

Michael B. Jordan - 

https://www.instagram.com/michaelbjordan/?hl=en 

https://twitter.com/michaelb4jordan

Lupita Nyong’o - 

https://www.instagram.com/lupitanyongo/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/Lupita_Nyongo

Letitia Wright - 

https://www.instagram.com/letitiawright/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/letitiawright

Danai Gurira - 

https://www.instagram.com/danaigurira/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/DanaiGurira

Daniel Kaluuya - 

https://www.instagram.com/danielkaluuya/?hl=en

Winston Duke -

https://www.instagram.com/winstoncduke/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/Winston_Duke

Angela Bassett - 

https://www.instagram.com/im.angelabassett/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/ImAngelaBassett

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: The Old Guard

THE OLD GUARD— 3 STARS

When it comes to the myth of immortality, the sweeping sentiments of Queen from the Highlander soundtrack say it best. Their song poses it as a pair of questions: the titular “who wants to live forever” and “who dares to live forever.” When Brian May’s lyrics continue, they wax “but touch my tears with your lips/touch my world with your fingertips.” Netflix’s new actioner The Old Guard, toplined by the age-defying Charlize Theron as the “who” pronoun compared to Queen, has its own heroic perpetuity and spits back “nothing that lives lives forever.” Her lips aren’t kissing a thing and nothing but murderous weapons are at her fingertips. 

Charlize would be the one to tell Queen to take their romantic sweetness and shove it with harshness. That tone and timbre works just fine for the Academy Award winner who has been cementing this attitudinal career niche for the better part of a decade. Based on Greg Rucka’s 2017 Image Comics graphic novel featuring the art of Leandro Fernandez, The Old Guard combines its own brew of created legends intersecting modern settings and compulsions. Like its lead, The Old Guard has a toughness completely devoid of anything trite. The narrative screws might not be the tightest, but its aim is deadly enough to draw you in.

Theron, with a vitae including the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blonde, and Hancock, is no stranger to plots with unknown mythology. She is one of four warriors with unexplained immortality who have fought for centuries behind the frontlines of pivotal events on carefully selected missions. Her “Andy” is really the storied Andromache of Scythia. She is joined by the Napoleonic era Frenchman Booker/Sebastian (Rust and Bone’s Mathias Shoenaerts) and the Crusades opponents-turned-soulmates Nicky/Nicolo (emerging Italian star Luca Marianelli of Martin Eden) and Joe/Yusuf (Aladdin’s Marwen Kenzari). Here in a 21st century that is harder to hide in, the group are clandestine assets for hire who cannot be killed and wield a mix of venerable melee blades and silenced firearms. 

LESSON #1: WHAT TIME LEAVES BEHIND— Time has brought both skill and lamentation. Booker, speaking often as the poetic nougat center of the movie, describes Andy as a woman that “has forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn.” Repeatedly torn and re-torn over centuries, their internal scars push against the pay-it-forward hope of multiplying their efforts. These stoic mercenaries thought the world would be a better place after centuries of struggles, even if the people they saved seemed to go on to future achievements in life.

LESSON #2: LOSING A SOLDIER— Booker bemoans further “just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting.” Immortal as they may be, they feel each death and the recovery takes time. They speak of previous immortals (prominently featuring Van Veronica Ngo recently seen in Da 5 Bloods) they have lost where the healing power mysteriously stopped and their time to die arrived. Those weary losses weigh on their vast memories and indomitability. 

A betrayal on a staged hostage situation in South Sudan from their most recent fence, the ex-government spook Copley played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, has put the team in the crosshairs of a London-based Big Pharma executive named Merrick (Harry Mellick, all grown up from his Dudley Dursley Harry Potter days). The millennial mogul feels “morally obliged” (*insert a fakely principled comic book plot laugh here*) to take their genetic code as a means for weaponized science and a windfall of potential health market profits.

LESSON #3: GAINING A SOLDIER— For the first time in over a century, a new individual has gained the enduring power and calling. God-fearing American Marine Nile Freeman, played by the second-billed KiKi Layne of If Beale Street Can Talk) survives a slit throat in Afghanistan and gains beacon mental connections with Andy and the others. The veteran ancients seek her out to assuage her fears, teach her their ways, and protect her newness from the pursuing Copley and Merrick. Nile becomes the exposition driver of the veiled “why” questions we’re all thinking.

Increasingly prolific director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, Beyond the Lights) brings her talents to a new genre. Drawn to Strong Female Characters in every sense of the term, The Old Guard graphic novel was ideal material for the filmmaker’s stylish ardor. With Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne as her instruments, the film has a posture of determination over effeminate weakness that is wholly appreciated. Like many comic book films before it, The Old Guard relies heavily on their mentor/mentee dynamic. Layne continues to be a future star in the making and kicking ass alongside Theron will do her wonders. The confidence growth shows already.

One keen choice from Gina was the electronic pop selections merged into the action sequences adding backbeat to the nondescript danger music from the Oscar-nominated Lion team of Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O’Halloran. That inertia bears Prince-Bythewood’s fingerprints. Shot by Bigelow and Greengrass vet Barry Ackroyd and GPB confidante Tami Reiker, the movie balances bloody guts with gritty gloss to make this a very showy thriller. Editor Terilyn A. Shropshire makes the actors and the massive stunt team led by Marvel-experienced stunt coordinator Brycen Counts, fight coordinator Daniel Hernandez, and department head Sarah Greensmith look  

It is a rare and welcome treat of compromise to see a graphic novel’s original creator granted the opportunity to pen his or her own film treatment. How many times have followers and fans seen works butchered by script doctors? Following Joe Russo’s recent fellow Netflix entry Extraction and Joe Kelly’s superior I Kill Giants from 2018 (a must-see gem available on Hulu and Hoopla), Greg Rucka received the chance he didn’t get with 2009’s forgettable bomb Whiteout. His improved craft on the written page since then is evident and it is given a fair chance on a larger stage.

The trappings and limitations of a graphic novel distilled and compressed for a single movie are still very much present. The Old Guard has a sky-high concept (think 2008’s miscue of Jumper with its attempt at applying a centuries-old saga) with a low energy for expanding ideas. Harry Melling’s sniveling Merrick villain is implausibly bad, even by comic book standards for a movie bending reality like this one. A swerving double cross in the climax is also feeble compared to the powerful and principled characters. Copley’s Mr. Glass/Pepe Silvia-level conspiracy wall and the tiny flashback snippets sending viewers back to ancient times tease rich and unharvested levels of referenced depth that could be far more interesting than the present. It feels like a heap of gravitas and world-building was left on the paneled page. 

As sudden and kinetic as The Old Guard may play for a quick entertainment ride on your couch, a Netflix miniseries might have done Rucka’s five-volume work more justice than merely one movie and a tease at a potential sequel. Root for a modest franchise with Netflix’s deep pockets securing commitments from the creative team and on-screen talent. We’ll follow Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne anywhere. If given the chance, The Old Guard could build admirably.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#894)

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[mandibierly]

Why Morgan Freeman's globe-spanning series 'The Story of Us' hits home

Morgan Freeman meets with Megan Phelps-Roper, former Westboro Baptist Church social media manager, who explains how she turned her back on the church (Photo: Justin Lubin/National Geographic)

Morgan Freeman has never shied away from asking the big questions, whether it be ending his long-running, Emmy-nominated Science Channel series Through the Wormhole with “Is gun crime a virus?” or launching the Emmy-nominated National Geographic series The Story of God with “What happens when we die?” He’s at it again with the Oct. 11 premiere of Nat Geo’s The Story of Us — a six-part global journey that, at time when the world is so divided, explores the forces at the core of our common humanity: freedom, peace, love, social division, power, and rebellion.

Among his 36 interviewees are three presidents (the current leaders of Rwanda and Bolivia, Paul Kagame and Evo Morales, as well as Bill Clinton), two Nobel Peace Prize winners (Rigoberta Menchu Tum, an advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples, and Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency), and individuals including Megan Phelps-Roper, who left the Westboro Baptist Church founded by her grandfather; Daryl Davis, a black blues musician who tries to befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan; and Victoria Khan, a transgender Afghani woman who first felt free when, as an orphaned boy, she was liberated from a jihadist camp and asked to wear a burka to cross the border so she wouldn’t be separated from her younger sister.

Yahoo Entertainment spoke with Freeman and fellow Story of Us executive producers Lori McCreary and James Younger for a preview.

Yahoo Entertainment: You tell 36 different stories this season. How did you decide on the six themes they would fall into?

Lori McCreary: They morphed during the process.

James Younger: We thought about all these basic human drives, emotions, feelings. So we had love, this idea of peace, freedom, power, and we’re like, “We should do a film about happiness,” but then we couldn’t really find enough drama in happiness. So we dropped that, and we ended up making a film that we were very happy we did, which ended up being called “Us and Them” [premiering Nov. 8], which is about where tribalism comes from and how we can get around tribalism.

I don’t know that there’s going to be a more timely hour on TV when that episode airs. What did you learn from those conversations with Megan Phelps-Roper and Daryl Davis, in particular?

Younger: Daryl Davis has spent time trying to connect with people who are KKK members and get them to change their ways. Racism in America is actually a form of culture war, isn’t it?

Morgan Freeman: I would say yes. Because I always sort of questioned the separation when people talk about culture. There’s “black culture” in America. What exactly is that? And is it in opposition to “white culture” in America? Well again, this is that tribalism thing.

Younger: In some ways, part of culture is real. A big part of culture, though, is an invention of “the other.” So if one group says, “You’re not our culture” — be you black or white, be you a Muslim in Bosnia or a Serb in Bosnia, be you a member of this Christian group or not — a lot of it is an invention. There are things we’re connected by genuinely in culture that are meaningful, but they tend to be just additive. Whereas when we talk about culture wars, you’re assigning negative stereotypes with people who are not like you. And that’s something that has always been happening in human history, but it seems like it’s getting worse today.

McCreary: Let’s just take Rwanda, for example. There wasn’t just a stopping of the genocide, there was a reconciliation of the two sides [Tutsi and Hutu], so to speak. And they came together in a way that seems like it’s going to be lasting. It’s interesting to me that in America we did have kind of a coming together —  there were laws put into place like now there’s no segregation and all those kind of things — but I’m not sure there’s ever been this kind of healing process on a national level like there was in Rwanda, from the leadership on down. And I have been thinking just recently how I wonder what it would take in America to have like [President] Paul Kagame in Rwanda, who basically forced entirely communities to come together. Like what would it take in America to actually have real connection between people who right now seem like they’re so far apart?

Younger: But there are examples of that so in the “Us and Them” episode. Social media is the reason Megan Phelps-Roper left the Westboro Baptist Church that she’d grown up in and grown up indoctrinated with this idea that you hated homosexuals, hated —

McCreary: Anyone that wasn’t in her church, even, other Christians.

Younger: We now probably associate social media more with an increase of animosity and vitriol, but she was able to connect with a Jewish man in Israel. His name is David Abitbol [founder of the blog Jewlicious]. He engaged with her in a very calm, fulsome way and started a conversation, and through social media they were able to share pictures with each other and they began to humanize one another. She was able to see him as a human being, he saw her as a human being. And that was a conduit to get over this culture war that we’re in.

McCreary: We need millions of those conversations to happen.

Younger: Daryl Davis and Megan Phelps-Roper are two of the pioneers of that, I would say. We need to follow their example.

Freeman: I think we would have had a reconciliation period here in this country, but they shot him before we had time to work on the healing aspects of it. It just worsened the situation, if you ask me. Because I live in the South, and boy…

Are there any stories that, even after you heard them from the people who lived them, you’re still trying to process in your own mind?

Freeman: Rwanda.

Younger: Rwanda. Mariya and Filbert.

Freeman: Holy cow.

McCreary: This Hutu man, [Filbert], was responsible for killing [Tutsi] Mariya’s [husband and brother-in-law, and two of her sons]. It took her a couple years [to forgive him], but now they work and live right near each other [in a reconciliation village] and they’re friends. That is still — I can’t imagine being her and being able to look at him every day and know that he’s the reason that your family’s not around.

Younger: We’re not that good at forgiveness. And I know that there’s a recent story that’s been going around in the news about the woman [Michelle Jones] who had been convicted of killing her child. She was 14, and had an unwanted pregnancy, and ended up abandoning her child [when he was 4], and it was killed. She went to jail for 20 years, remade her life, got out, and got a place at Harvard [in a doctoral program]. And then [her admittance was overturned]. When [some] people found out what she’d done, they couldn’t forgive her for it. Even though she atoned and she realized what she did was terrible, we can’t forgive. And I’m not saying that we should forgive that, but I’m just saying that as an example of forgiveness comes hard to us.

One of the stories I’m struggling to process is that of the Hamar Tribe in Ethiopia. [Before a young man runs over the backs of standing bulls in a coming-of-age ceremony, women are whipped with sticks to show their love and support for him.] I appreciated that you, Morgan, wanted to hear from the women themselves that this was their choice, that they were encouraging the men to whip them. The translated answer was basically, it’s what’s always been done — it’s necessary. [“So it’s the culture. When your brother leaps, or when your uncle leaps, then you have to get whipped. For them to feel like he’s jumping, you have to be whipped.”] We’re being told it’s empowering for those women, but that’s not the most empowering response. Why did you want to include that ceremony in “The Power of Love” episode [airing Oct. 25], and what do you hope people take away from it?

Freeman: I’d like to know, what got you started on this line of demonstration?

McCreary: Who was the first?

Freeman: Yeah. I will decide to accept pain, just to show you that I appreciate the danger that you’re putting yourself in in order for us all to survive…

Younger: It was very difficult to watch. To us, it completely seems abusive, and maybe it is abusive.

Freeman: But [to them], it’s what they require.

McCreary: And it’s also a badge of honor. The women who have the most scars on their backs are lifted up, basically, in that culture. When were talking about it, we were like, “Really? We’re going to show this?” But we really were trying to show the different types of how people show love. They’re really there to support the boys as they’re moving into their manhood. And it would be interesting to find out where it started. And also, everyone from the outside is judging what they’re doing.

Younger: Yeah, the Ethiopian government tried to stop it. “This is bad advertising!” But they’re like, “We’ve always done this, and we want to do it.” The women really were in charge that day.

Freeman: Yes.

Younger: They’re singing, and they’re dancing — hours and hours and hours. They are driving the agenda that day. So it’s confusing to our Western eyes to see it. But what I thought was powerful about it was it is a really clear manifestation of “you sacrifice for love.” We all do that. Parents do that for their kids. You do it for your brother, your sister, whoever. You do things for your family that are not in your own interest. And if we only lived by our own self interest, what would we be? We would be what we call animals — we’d just be crocodiles in the Nile. So that’s the root of something which is really fascinating about human society: we choose to do things that are not good for us, but they keep our group together. It’s that “take one for the team” idea, so it’s really important to human society. That’s just a very shocking manifestation of it.

The episode includes a warning for “cultural nudity” for that segment, but I was surprised there wasn’t one for “cultural violence.”

McCreary: It’s odd to me. I don’t know if it has to do in terms of the FCC. But there is a lot more violence in American television than there is nudity. Nudity is looked at as “ugh,” but you can chop somebody’s head off and you don’t have to have a warning. So I think it has to do more with what is more normally accepted here versus what might be offensive to your kids. They’re used to seeing CSI, unfortunately.

Another discussion that is incredibly timely is with Mohamed ElBaradei, who in Oct. 18’s “The Fight For Peace” says nuclear weapons are, in the long run, not a deterrent from war, but rather increase the likelihood of it.

Freeman: We’ve created and are continuing to create weapons that have the capacity to eliminate us from the planet… so as not to eliminate ourselves from the planet?

McCreary: To protect ourselves from being eliminated by somebody else. When is it going to stop?

Younger: He’s very pessimistic about it, right?* He says we’re here by good luck [rather than by good management, quoting former Defense Secretary William J. Perry]. I don’t think our luck is getting any better.

Freeman: Well that’s why earlier [today] I spoke about [how] the machinery that will control us will decide: “You people are emotional. This can’t happen. If you want to stay here, this is the way we have to do it. I will clamp down on your ass.” [Laughs]

McCreary: “I’m not gonna let you push that button.”

Morgan Freeman meets with Victoria Khan, a transgender Afghani woman, who discusses her harrowing childhood and her journey to personal freedom (Photo: Justin Lubin/National Geographic)

Some of the stories you’re hearing in the series, Morgan, are very emotional. In the Oct. 11 premiere, “The March of Freedom,” I think I saw tears in your eyes when you were speaking with Shin Dong-Hyuk [believed to be the only prisoner to escape from a North Korean labor camp]. After sharing how little attachment he felt to his parents from being born in the camp, he started talking about his wife being pregnant now, and seeing for the first time a parent who’s able to show love by clothing and feeding her child. What was the most emotional you got speaking with someone?

Freeman: What got to me most in those kind of interviews was the fact that I was talking about someone’s childhood. Shin’s childhood. Victoria Kahn’s childhood.

Younger: Izidor [Ruckel], the Romanian orphan [turned activist], was another example of that [in “The Power of Love”].

Freeman: Oh, gosh. Yes.

McCreary: It’s so inspiring that they decided to turn around their experiences and help other people in their later years.

Younger: Where do you get that when you don’t have a parent to show you how to do that, yet you somehow find within yourself that power, the strength to overcome what Shin did, what Victoria did, what Izidor did? It’s really a testament to the human spirit, the fact that people can find that within themselves.

The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman premieres Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. on National Geographic.

*Mohamed ElBaradei does also tell Freeman in the show that looking at young people gives him hope: “They are color-blind, religious-blind, ethnic-blind. The day we treat each other as part of the same human family, that if somebody dies in Darfur I will react the same way if somebody dies in LA, the same day we will end nuclear weapons.”

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