The New Age Retelling of The Black Narrative
When I walked out of 12 Years A Slave I pretty much swore off slave movies until the end of time. Although it wasn’t like regular slave movies where in the ending is pretty much them still living their life in servitude or straight up dying, 12 Years A Slave had at least a semi positive ending. But still the scene where Patsey was tied to the tree and whipped repeatedly, along with the scene where a cigarette dish was throne at her face by the jealous wife, I just knew that my time watching theatrical renditions of slavery had come to an end.
Admittedly before the end came, (and when Patsey was being abused), I did shed a couple of tears. Those same tears formed out of anger and sadness also poured from my now ex girlfriends face as well. The theater was very small and it was noticeable as well that everyone at that particular moment were either shedding a tear or in complete shock at what was occurring in front of them. Further lamenting this point was the audiences reaction when we all left the theater in complete silence; not even a word was uttered in dialogue about what we just saw.
In that precise moment in time, we were all tired, sad and disgusted finally with the slave narrative.
That was 2013, fast forward three years later and by the time the remake of Roots was announced I wasn’t too interested in watching it because: one I already saw the original and two I didn’t want to sit through another re-imagining of slavery again after my ill feelings after the end of 12 Years A Slave. Nothing against the movie itself, (which looked great by the way), or against the History channel, (who is usually on par with everything history related); I was just too tired and too weary of seeing anything that depicted us in a negative light time and time again.
When Snoop Dogg made his comments about being tired of movies depicting us in a negative light, (more so or less in those words lol), I was pretty much on his side on the matter. After the watching 12 Years A Slave, as well as Mississippi Damned, (which is also a great movie by the way), I’m not really in the mood for seeing anything oppressing at the moment. I wanted to see something different, feel different emotions and not have to relive the weight of what this world feels about my race on a daily basis. The closes movie that I saw to that effect was Dope and even that was still a stretch.
But then one trailer changed my mind on the whole matter.
When Jahking Guillory popped up on my YouTube feed with the trailer for his new movie Kicks I was oddly fascinated by it. I don’t know if it was the carefree black boy on the preview image with the word kicks, or the fact that my man Mahershala Ali, (Remy of House of Cards and Hunger Games fame), was in the description. Either way I was hooked automatically. Then I actually sat down and watched the trailer and realized that this wasn’t just another hood movie that depicted inner city violence that we are use to seeing from so many films. This film is different from all of the other movies of that type; it’s something familiar, but completely new at the same time.
Seeing the trailer made me realize that it isn’t necessarily that we don’t need these movies anymore, it’s that we need these movies told from a fresh perspective. As the years tick away and the world finally opens their blind eye to the truths that have plagued us since the dawn of it, storytellers such as the director Justin Tipping are needed to show the world our stories with a different style to it. Directors like Ryan Coolgler and Ava DuVernay are important for the simple fact they can tell stories that weave pain, suffering, hopes and achievements all into one great package.
Those directors are the light to a new way we direct our own narrative.
To say Snoop Dogg was wrong would be wrong, and to say he was right would also be right. He was right in the sense that it’s time to stop telling these tales of African Americans struggles in either slavery or modern history for the consumption of people that will never have true empathy for what we went through, we we’re going through and what we will continue to go through. They don’t really care about what we went through or what we’re going through, they simply say in their mind “I’m glad that it wasn’t me who had to go through that kind of thing”. He was right in saying that WE need to create our own stories of today in what inspires us, (both good and bad), to be better than what we are.
But he is wrong in the sense that we have to stop telling the stories of suffering and pain of our ancestors or even folks from during his youth. Their stories are imperative because it directly affects what we do to this day. It wasn’t that long ago that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Assata Shakur or the late and great Muhammad Ali were seen marching for our freedom. All of this happened less than 50 years ago. The stories of then and the stories coming out Chicago, LA, New York, Florida, Georgia, Texas and various other places need to be heard by the masses and finally put on the proper grand scale.
The time is now for us to reclaim our history, and it’s time for us to start telling it in our voices.
