When Movies Matter

“Epps asked me if I could write and read, and on being informed that I had received some instruction in those branches of education, he assured me, with emphasis, if he ever caught me with a book, or with pen and ink, he would give me a hundred lashes.”

~ Excerpted from the book 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, who could not only read, but wrote eloquently and passionately. 

Every so often a movie is released that is important more for its message than its entertainment value (and oftentimes they are still from an artistic point of view, excellent viewing).  Nearly always these films are historical dramas. 

There’s Dalton Trumbo’s antiwar film, Johnny Got His Gun about a soldier in World War I, who is hit by an artillery shell, leaving him a quadruple amputee who has also lost nearly all of his senses; a prisoner of his own body. Schindler’s List depicts the horrors of the holocaust.  The first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan violently and graphically tear away the antiseptic nature of battle portrayed in movies up to that time; bullets audibly buzz seemingly from one side of the theatre to the other, GIs burdened by the weight of their gear sink to the bottom of the English Channel and a soldier lies screaming next to his own entrails.  And now there is 12 Years a Slave, adapted from the memoir of the same name by Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York, kidnapped into slavery and transported to the ante-bellum south. 

Years ago as a history major 12 Years a Slave was required reading for a class about the ante-bellum south.  That was 40 years ago and Northup’s book was just one in a conga line of books I blitzed through and set aside for the next – no one leaving any more impression than another.   But I did have enough of a recollection to realize that the movie would likely be brutal.  True enough it was, much like Schindler’s List, a difficult movie to watch.  Whipping, lynching, and rape are all present; and degradation is the common theme.  To soft pedal any of these would be to deny the story.

12 Years a Slave and films like it are important in that they forcefully remind us of things that shouldn’t be forgotten and counter the myths of sloppy or, even worse, apologetic, revisionist history.  They are films that I often characterize as required viewing.  Sadly the knowledge that Americans have of their own history, the positives and especially the negatives, is about a fraction of an inch deep.  Some argue that history is irrelevant or it bores them while others don’t want to expose themselves to the dirty details of our past, preferring to shelter themselves in the bubble of life as Disney and Dancing with the Stars.  And then there are those who simply deny; calling the holocaust mythical propaganda disseminated by the Jews; or who put forth preposterous propositions denying the brutality of American slavery or the nonsense that it was actually a heaven sent blessing to the slaves who would otherwise fail in freedom. 

12 Years a Slave is the antithesis of another famous movie about the ante-bellum south; a film touted, as one of the most important in movie history.  That movie, Gone with the Wind paints an absurd portrait of a genteel, paternalistic slave holding society living in harmony with slaves happy and carefree in their bondage.  It’s a film which portrays a myth which is apparently alive and well as witnessed by some cavalier comments by some folks who actually have serious followings. 

                Conservative physician and Fox gadfly Ben Carson:  "You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," Carson, said in remarks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. "And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."  And this man is actually African American!

                Newt Gingrich:  The former Representative from Georgia, somewhat serious contender for the presidency and teacher of American History to some impressionable college students taught a course called Renewing American Civilization in which he managed to cover the entire Civil War without a mention of slavery.  During the last presidential election Newt tiptoed around the notion of reinstituting slavery for the unemployed and the poor.

                Nevada State Assemblyman Jim Wheeler:   When asked if he would vote for slavery if that’s what constituents wanted,  Wheeler responded,  “Yeah, I would.  If that’s what they wanted, I’d have to hold my nose, I’d have to bite my tongue and they’d probably have to hold a gun to my head, but yeah, if that’s what the citizens of the, if that’s what the constituency wants that elected me, that’s what they elected me for. That’s what a republic is about.”  It apparently never occurred to Wheeler to respond with something like, “I’m afraid I’d have to tell my constituents to go screw themselves.”

                Right wing theologian (I use that term very loosely here) and Senior Fellow at New Saint Andrews College, Douglas Wilson:  In his pamphlet Southern Slavery as it Was, Wilson wrote: Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since. Whatever its failures, slavery produced in the South a degree of mutual affection between the races which will never be achieved through any federally-mandated efforts.  This may seem preposterous coming from a so-called man of God but the society of The Old South considered itself a God fearing Christian society and used the Bible as justification for the institution (a frequent theme in 12 Years a Slave).

While these people are all bona fide crackpots, they’re crackpots with larger than fair sized similarly crackpot audiences that they hold sway over.  I've watched folks with relatively small audiences treat slavery as some minor pimple on the national face.  When I was a Civil War reenactor (On the Union side I would like to stress), I listened to men on the Confederate side who called themselves historians tell the historically ignorant that slavery was not really an issue during the Civil War demonstrating just how mythology perversely becomes accepted fact. My disgust with this poppycock was one reason that I quit the Army of Lincoln. Apologists, deniers and soft peddlers of slavery, along with unrepentant racists, are exactly why 12 Years a Slave is important. 

Back to our viewing.  The consistent “N” word, which is abhorrent, had me literally wincing even if I did understand the historical context. The brutality and degradation; the sadistic behavior of the whites caused me to squirm in my seat, sometimes looking away.  Finally at the end of the film I was in tears, not just because of the poignant ending but, as in Schindler’s List, from the sheer horrific inhumanity. Cora asked me if I was okay and I nodded but in fact I needed some moments in the still dark theater.  

I've never been one to feel that I have to apologize for the past sins of my country, or my race.  I can’t undo the unjust wars, the slaughter of Native Americans, the institution of slavery or any of the misguided injustices of the past.  As I waited in the hallway while Cora used the restroom, those who had remained in the theater walked by, most of them lost in their own silent contemplation of what they had just viewed.  An African American woman, about my age, smartly dressed and very dignified looking met my eyes and smiled.  I returned her gesture with a weak smile of my own barely making eye contact and feeling a burning shame.