Thread by @michaelharriot

I think I can answer this:

First of all, I don’t think people understand that there is a difference between “slave movies” and movies about people who were slaves.

What’s the difference?

A thread.

https://twitter.com/Reddsaidit/status/1493770350680690690

Amistad, 12 Years a Slave, Django, were “slave movies.”

Notice anything about them?

They were all made by white people.

And in these movies, slavery actually DEFINED the black characters. For instance, Django is essentially a superhero movie. But What was his superpower?

He was smart, fearless and a deadly shooter DESPITE being a slave. What’s even more interesting is that he got his superpower from a white man.

Even in 12 Years a Slave, & Amistad it was white people who gave them their freedom as if it was a gift bestowed upon them.

But even though the characters are defined by slavery, the villains are not “slaveowners,” they are are human beings.

In Django, ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE were slaves and Leo DiCaprio’s character was an evil man who owned slaves but Christopher Waltz was a decent dude.

Same with 12 Years a Slave and Amistad.

The white people were nuanced human beings while the Black people weren’t just subjected to an institution created by white people, they were slaves. It’s all they were.

Now let’s juxtapose that with movies written & directed by Black people (I’m not talking about the quality of the movie, just the actual movie).

Look at Harriet or Antebellum, or Sankofah, which are films about HUMAN BEINGS who were in an INSTITUTION. You didn’t root

To be honest, that criticism extends past slave movies. It seems like white filmmakers cannot seem to find a way to make Black characters relatable or human unless there Black character dies, cries or screams “WHYYY!”

One of the best examples of this is “hood movies”

White people LOVE “hood movies.” They don’t make or watch movies about human beings who live in Black neighborhoods but fucking LOVE movies about saving Black people from gangbangers, drugs & “the inner city.”

In “Dangerous Minds,” Michelle Pfeiffer saves kids from “da hood.”

Hillary Swank does it in “Freedom Writers” & so does Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side.”

“Bring it on” is essentially a movie about a white cheerleading squad who saves a whole inner city cheerleader squad through cultural appropriation

Here’s the thing about those movies

They are “slave movies too!”

The Black characters don’t have personalities or dimension. They are reduced to being defined by their oppression and circumstances.

When I watch white movies, I actually play a game called “Who’s the Slave?”

Take “Monsters Ball” for instance

It’s a movie about a prison guard who is a widower with 2 sons and a racist dad who falls in love with a woman who is defined by her tragic circumstances. How do they fall in love?

He literally takes her to da hood.

In “The Help,” the Black women are defined by their circumstances until a woman with dreams, talent & ambition miraculously sees their humanity and becomes their friend.

How does she do it? She goes into “da hood” (the place where the maids work and talk)

“Hood” movies work!

Contrast that with actual movies about da hood made by Black filmmakers.

“House Party” is a movie about PEOPLE who lived in a neighborhood having a party

“Do the Right Thing” was a movie about all the different PEOPLE who lived in a Brooklyn Neighborhood

One of the best at this is Ice Cube.

All the “Friday” movies were about a day in a South Central LA neighborhood.

The Barbershop movies did the same thing. The audience was invested in their humanity, NOT their tragic circumstance.

AND it is interesting to note how these movies, even Boyz in da Hood, manage to depict a kaleidoscope of Black characters AND WHITE CHARACTERS with nuance. You understood Remy’s motivation in Higher Learning. You felt for Sal in Do the Right Thing. They were not the slavemasters.

What’s even more interesting is that these movies aren’t considered “great movies” even though the Black AND WHITE characters are more three-dimensional and more nuanced than the white movies that win Oscars. In White Hollywood, Black characters are just “black characters”

That’s why the only people who won Oscar’s either have to play someone who actually lived, someone who is suffering pain and tragedy, or the BLACK FRIEND of a white person who is suffering pain & tragedy

Don’t believe me? Look at every Black Oscar Winner & tell me I’m wrong

You can extend this metaphor to ANYTHING. You ever notice why you always hear about football players who grew up poor in a single parent home with a mom on crack. Of course, that’s the typical athlete, right?

Well actually it’s complete bullshit.

The MOST COMMON trait of Black athletes is that they grew up in middle-to-upper middle class homes with their fathers. There are actual studies that looked at this phenomenon

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo…

That’s why white artists like Post Malone etc emulate Black rappers by talking about guns drugs & violence. Because they overlook the nuance when Tupac rapped about crying tears or when Jay-Z rapped about the conflict between his mother’s concern and providing like a man

Or when politicians claim we are “playing the victim,” they can’t see the nuance in because THEY ONLY SEE THE SLAVE.

No one objects to movies about slaves. They object to white people’s flat, one dimensional depictions of Black history & humanity on film

or:

Slave movies

Fin