Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Until very recently, I had never heard of filmmaker Alvin Gray, though apparently, I was aware of at least one of his films. You see, when Black creativity and the internet collide, amazing things can happen and that’s exactly what transpired when I was sent the link to the trailer for the Tubi film, “The Nurse That Saw the Baby on the Highway.”
Here’s the YouTube description for the trailer for said film: Based on true/false events, nursing student Marlee Wilson has been struggling with day-to-day issues with school, work and her cheating boyfriend who’s addicted to strippers. Feeling like she’s not getting enough attention from her boyfriend, she decides to fake a kidnapping, but the hoax ends up getting deeper than she ever expected bringing real-life issues across the country!
As you can imagine, Marlee Wilson sounds A LOT like Carlee Russell, who in July, claimed she saw a baby on I-59 in Birmingham, Alabama, and launched a million articles, thinkpieces about real issues affecting Black women and our care for them before finding out the whole thing was a hoax. I watched that movie, by the way. I watch Tubi movies, but I especially watch Tubi movies that seem like they are 100% with the shenanigans. So, it should come as no surprise that when I saw the trailer for “The Rapper That Got Shot in the Heel,” I felt a sense of deja vu. After watching the trailer, I had two thoughts: 1) wow, Tubi gives zero effs; and 2) the person who made this HAS to be the same person who made “The Nurse That Saw the Baby on the Highway.” And I was right.
Let me just say this: It’s amazing how stuff goes viral but doesn’t at the same time. For instance, I have had NO LESS THAN 20 people send me a tweet or IG post about this film where the…
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