“I’m So Damn Tired of Slave Movies”
“From a simple visual perspective, I’m tired of being told that I have to watch black actors in physical pain and endure mental abuse for two hours in order to be worthy of a distinction. I don’t want to watch a black body being lashed open so white people can finally “get it.” I’m tired of black actors not only having to live throughthe trauma of acting in those films, but for also having few other options in front of them.
Often, films about slavery receive laborious, highbrow praise for truly showing the horrors of the institution to a larger audience — the unspoken suggestion being that after watching these films, white Americans will better understand and empathize with the slave experience. However, it really smacks of an opportunity to assuage what apparently is a deep emotional burden of being white and having benefited from white supremacy. How nice, that a white viewer can feel good about themselves for shedding a tear during Amistad. As much as I’d like them to, I think it’s clear by 2016 that films about slavery do not help us become a more tolerant or understanding society. I have no doubt that there exists a white person who loved 12 Years A Slave and who also thinks Donald Trump makes some good points…
I want stories about Solomon Northup and Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman to be told. But I also want to watch movies about black debutante balls and the Great Migration and a coming-of-age movie about a black teenager in Houston who loves to skateboard and gets into trouble with her Desi best friend. Those films are surely out there waiting to be made.”
