R. Kelly and the State of Freedom in America

Today, I must make a plea on behalf of a great artist – a great man, really – because it seems no one else will.

R. Kelly – the sage who brought us Ignition, The World’s Greatest and I Believe I Can Fly – has wrote 32 new chapters to his exquisite, genre-defining Hip Hopera, Trapped in the Closet. But sadly, he cannot find funding to film what is sure to be a masterpiece.

As everyone knows, R. Kelly is a genius. And as everyone also knows, sequels are always better than the original. So tell me then: why are the studios not leaping at this lucrative opportunity that sits before them on a golden platter?

I’ll tell you why: the Hollywood elite fear what R. Kelly’s new genre will mean for the motion picture industry.

Who would ever again go see a regular film when given the chance to watch non-stop action over a soulful beat? Who would ever pay to see Ryan Gosling grin sheepishly on screen when they could instead witness Mr. Kelly’s charming, yet funky, impression of an overweight, white woman from the south?

I’ll tell you who: no one.

And Hollywood knows this, which is why Mr. Kelly has struggled to find the funding he, and all other art enthusiasts, so desperately need.

But, people of the world, I say we make 2012 a year of revolution, a year that begins where 2011 left off. I say we throw off the shackles that have let Hollywood force feed us flicks like New Year’s Eve and Jack and Jill year after year. I say that we, the 99%, let our voices roar: Let’s all chip in and make the last 32 chapters of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet a reality.

This is about more than the heroic saga of Sylvester and Tron. This is about more than extramarital affairs and midgets under sinks. This is about more than finally learning what is in that mysterious package.

No, Trapped in the Closet is about everything and nothing, which means it’s about as close as we can get to understanding this crazy thing called life. For when the muse whispered this tangled tale in Mr. Kelly’s ear, there were tremors across the world and everything changed. And until we see where this R. Kellian tragedy ends, we will never know how to put it all back together again.

So, if the elite are so hardheaded that they will not fund this film, we really should ask ourselves why. Perhaps these final 32 chapters will open our eyes to something we’ve been blind to for ages. If Hollywood is going to keep that truth from us, I say it is time for us to go out and take it.

Fellow humans, please join me in giving a little to Mr. Kelly; surely we’ll get a lot more in return. For this Hip Hopera will be a symbol of the power of the 99% – it will reassert the notion that majority rules. It will demonstrate that great art holds real power and that censorship is truly a thing of the past. And best of all, we the people will be the patrons of the great masterpiece of our era, a piece that will spur the long-awaited R. Kellian Renaissance.

So while this may look like nothing more than a 2-hour-long R. Kelly music video, goddamn, don’t it smell a lot like freedom.

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