The Birth of a Nation is a movie directed by and starring Nate Parker that focuses on the story of Nat Turner. Nat Turner was a slave of African descent who led a slave revolt in Virginia back in 1831. The history of Nat Turner is important because most Americans are taught very little about the horrific realities of slavery in America. We are taught even less about the heroic men and women who fought back against slave owners. The Birth of a Nation initially debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It was a hit at the festival and Fox Searchlight Pictures went on to purchase rights to the movie. The film, which cost about $10 million dollars to produce, garnered $17.5 million dollars in the deal and was set for release on October 7, 2016.
All of the above is fine, but that’s not what I’m writing about today. I’m writing about the fact that, once again, black women are being dragged into a conversation about a black man with a problem, and ultimately being blamed for the negative impact that his choices and unfortunate run-in with the law are now having on his career. For those who are not familiar with Nate Parker, he is an African-American actor, director, and writer. Although he has been in the industry for a long time, only after his film deal for The Birth of a Nation did past rape allegations against him come to light in the mainstream.
In 1999, back when he was in college, Nate Parker and his roommate, Jean McGianni Celestin (who also co-authored the script for The Birth of a Nation) were both accused of the crime of rape. Nate Parker was acquitted, but rape victim advocates continue to question his innocence. Celestin was initially found guilty of the assault, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and prosecutors chose not to retry him for the crime. It is important to note here that the movie itself depicts acts of rape, and that certainly fueled the fire. Because the movie and the controversy surrounding it are so strongly tied to the subject of race, it is also important to note that the accuser was a white woman, who, unfortunately went on to kill herself a few years ago at the age of 30.
Further adding to the complexity of this topic, Nate Parker is married to a white woman.
Last week, The Birth of a Nation opened in box offices around the country. During its opening weekend, it pulled in around 7 million dollars, which has caused many media outlets to report that the movie “flopped.” Generally, a movie is not considered to be successful if it doesn’t pull in the amount of money it costs to produce and distribute the film. Here, Fox Silverlight paid 17.5 million dollars for the rights alone, and the movie didn’t pull in even half of that amount during the opening weekend.
As soon as the numbers started to pour in, supporters of the film and its star immediately began looking for a scapegoat. As is usually the case, the finger was pointed at black women. Article after article popped up blaming “angry black feminists” for the movie pulling in lower numbers than expected. I was baffled as to how, once again, black women were being characterized not only as angry, but also personally responsible for the so-called failure of the project when there were millions of Americans who simply chose not to see the movie. While I have heard of black women calling for boycotts of other movies, there was no such call for collective action over this movie.
Yes, there were some black women who expressed reservations about seeing the movie due to the past allegations against Turner. Yes, Gabrielle Union, one of the actresses in the movie, who is also a rape survivor in real life, penned an open letter about the allegations. But, it was not black women who made the original allegations. It was not black women who prosecuted Parker. It was not black women who brought these allegations back to light (because we certainly do not control mainstream media or the Hollywood narrative). It was not black women who were solely responsible for purchasing tickets to this movie on this particular opening weekend to ensure that it had a strong showing.
I am a black woman and I didn’t see the movie because I didn’t want to.
I’m in a place and a space where I don’t subject myself to psychologically harmful images. When the movie premiered on October 7th, many of my friends did go and see it. They reported on Facebook that they left feeling angry, hurt, and emotionally exhausted. Most has positive reviews of the movie itself, but they reported negative feelings after watching graphic images of fighting, abuse, and killing. Those are not feelings or images that I’m willing to subject myself to at this time. That does not mean that I don’t support the message of the movie or the story that it told, nor does it mean that I will never see the movie.
It does not mean that I’m angry about anything, or that I hold it against Nate Parker that he has a white wife, which is another theory that is floating around. I did not even know the man had a white wife until this story surfaced after the movie’s release. If I held it against every black person that dates or marries non-black people, I would be hard pressed to watch any movie, go to any sporting event, or even watch many of my favorite YouTubers. The issue of the race of Nate Parker’s wife may be a topic in this case because of the allegations against him and the history of black men being falsely accused of rape and mistreatment of white women. It is not an issue simply because black women made it so.
Parker has stated before that his wife, despite not being African-American, is sympathetic to the plight of black people, and reads the books that he gives her to read about culture. That would beg the question of why other “down” white women like Parker’s wife did not stand in the gap and support the movie in mass? After all, there are more white women in American than black women. If even a fraction of non-black women in America would have showed up and showed out like they do for a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, then The Birth of Nation would have been a massive hit.
Many have argued that black people must see the movie because of its historical significance.
However, when I want to learn more about something historical, I read books. I read books for entertainment, enjoyment, additional knowledge, and self-help. I go to the movies for entertainment, not necessarily to make a political statement. If I do watch a film for education purposes, it’s usually an actual documentary, like Ava DuVernay’s recent documentary on the criminal justice system in the United States. I did not see D’Jango or 12 Years a Slave, and I don’t remember black people being credited for the success of those movies in the same way that we are being blamed for the low box office sales of this one.
In fact, the last “slave” movie that I can readily recall watching is Alex Haley’s Queen when I was a little girl. I didn’t like the images of whippings then, and I don’t like them now. That does not mean that I am uniformed, nor does it mean that I’m any other of the derogatory names that I have seen black people slinging at each other all over box office sales.
The beautiful thing about art is that its value is not in money. Nate Parker presumably made this movie to tell a version of history that would be preserved forever on film. He accomplished that goal. It was up to each individual whether or not to purchase tickets to see it. It is not black women’s responsibility, or any person’s responsibility to purchase movie tickets to prove anything to Hollywood.
To all of my brothers and sisters who felt personally responsible for making this movie a hit, here’s what I believe. Black people don’t need to do anything to prove ourselves as worthy consumers.
How many number one films, television shows, and albums must we produce to have the burden of being excellent consumers taken off of our backs?
How many times must black women march for black men, profess our love for them, and stand by them, even when they marry white women, before we are given credit for our loyalty?
How many times are black people going to be silenced from being critical about what we do and do not lend support to?
If Hollywood producers, large corporations, and mainstream media have not yet realized that black dollars are valuable, then this movie would not have been the one project to finally convince them.
Instead of this movie creating a positive dialogue about the black community, our heroes, and accomplishments, I’ve seen black people calling each other coons and sellouts, and saying “we don’t support anything,” even as we have an album by Solange Knowles, all about being black in America, sitting at the top of the music charts with only a digital release.
I haven’t seen any of the theories below proposed that may explain why the film had a low opening weekend.
- It was not produced to appeal to the mainstream audience. As an indie film, the budget did not allow for big battle scenes that people are accustomed to seeing in action movies.
- People in general are not interested in graphic scenes that depict rape and killing.
- The movie was not widely or properly advertised.
- Nate Parker was not convincing during his media tour to promote the movie.
- The film was not showing in enough theaters (it was only in 2100 theaters, while other films were in over 3000 theaters).
Even assuming that the past rape allegation had a negative impact on the movie’s numbers, which it very may well have, how about instead of blaming black female feminists and would-be movie goers, we look at each of the contributing factors listed below.
- Nate Parker’s responses in interviews about the incident were conflicting. He maintained his innocence, but his tone and discussion of the incident shifted considerably.
- Nate Parker’s open letter regarding the victim’s suicide brought negative attention.
- Several promotional events for the movie were canceled amid negative press.
- Some people, regardless of race or gender, simply did sympathize with the accuser and chose not to see the movie.
- Some people never heard anything about the allegations, or did hear but simply chose not to see the movie for some other reason.
As I’ve illustrated above, there are many, many reasons (this list is not exhaustive) that could explain why the movie underperformed. Instead of exploring some of the reasons above, writers and online posters immediately jumped to conclusion that it was the fault of black feminists, or black people in general. In other words, we resorted to programming that taught us to go with the most negative explanation possible when considering a problem within black community. Not only do we blame each other, we’ve been programmed to blame black women, specifically, for any perceived failure within the black community. This negative way of holding conversations, this way of blaming and pointing fingers instead of seeking solutions has got to stop.
What I know is that I have supported countless black film projects, actors, politicians, and musicians. I also support lots of projects that were not produced by black artists. I support what I want to see and see more of when I can. Even when I desire to support a project, I am sometimes unable to do so due to a lack of time or money. But, what I will not do is sit by and be blamed and made to feel guilty by family, friends, or strangers, whose apparently believe that support for the entire black community is based on this one movie.
Nate Parker is a highly successful black man who apparently still felt quite comfortable navigating white spaces and marrying a white woman, and, even after all he had been through, still managed to display black pride and advocate for a story of a black slave revolt leader, who was arguably a hero. If he can be that complex and still gain the respect of moviegoers, why can’t people who are equally complex and choose to stay at home for whatever reasons, or for no reason at all, not be given the same level of respect for our choices?
I can only hope that we can move past the divisive nature of the online conversation surrounding this movie and focus on the history it reveals and ways that we can further equal rights and fair treatment of black Americans, and all Americans, in the present-day.
