Harriet vs Hollywood Revisionism

Expecting Hollywood to depict a true to life film about slavery or the life of a historical black figure is a fool’s errand. A specific archetype is always to be expected; they will always attempt to invent black villains and simultaneously implement white heroes to dilute the story and balance things out. It’s textbook revisionism that history books and Hollywood have been doing for years. Harriet is reportedly a well made film that has mixed reviews. Surprisingly a large amount of black Americans are giving it a thumbs down because of many decisions made to mold Harriet to fit the aforementioned archetype. Hollywood is also being exposed for its new trend of continuously casting foreign black actors to play roles about historical American blacks. While many black Americans were angry with the film which is based on the life of Harriet Tubman, the direction taken should come as no surprise.

In Django Unchained, for example, the movie is fictional but still obeys the same format. The movie’s main protagonist, Django, is a former slave dealing with the oppressive racism and harsh realities of the old American south. However, Django’s main antagonist was of course “Stephen”, played by Samuel L. Jackson. And one of the main heroes besides Django was Dr. King Shultz played by Christopher Waltz. It seems too much of the raw truth laid out as it actually was is too heavy for Hollywood to depict. So, habitually we see stories making sure there is at least one black villain and one white hero. And here we are again in the new movie about Harriet Tubman. The difference is that Django Unchained was an excellent film, widely accepted and it was fictional. In Harriet however, the implementation of the fictional Bigger Long as Tubman’s main antagonist was foul and completely unwarranted. They assumed they could slide this in without controversy, but they assumed wrong.

The Systemic Problems Amiss

It’s very hard to support this movie because doing so would mean you have to overlook some very serious audacious decisions. For example, and as previously mentioned, everyone knows at this point that a primary villain was a completely fabricated black bounty hunter named “Bigger Long”. Yes, they completely made him up—and that’s the name they went with. Making matters worse is that many American media platforms are exposing themselves as dishonest shill platforms that do the bidding of corporate entities, and they are flat out lying to save the movie. They are literally telling people that what’s in the movie—isn’t in the movie as if people are stupid. Bigger Long is, in fact, a completely made-up black character and was thrown in to the Harriet Tubman story to be a main antagonist. And big bad Bigger Long was killed by the white plantation owner before the menacing and profane Long was able to harm Harriet Tubman. Because why would a good, God-fearing plantation owner in the American south ever want runaway slaves caught and returned? Why of course plantation owners were likely to have a change of heart and would assist runaway slaves freeing other slaves. Harriet could have been a very good movie, but this bastardization of the narrative renders it simply unacceptable.

There are many more problems with Harriet that outlets are refusing to address. The film’s British-Nigerian star Cynthia Erivo, has been exposed for trashing black Americans and she arrogantly refuses to even acknowledge this or apologize. Because of this in addition to her not being a black American, she simply wasn’t a good choice to play Harriet Tubman.  Sure, Erivo is extremely talented, but it’s hard to root for a person small-minded enough to feed into American racism as a black person herself, and then choose not to even address it.  Let’s be very clear, if Erivo was disrespectful to the LGBTQ community she would have her head on a spike. If she had made disparaging comments about Jews, the result would be the same. Black Americans have repeatedly brought up Erivo’s disrespectful comments—and no one felt the need to say anything at all. Everyone involved with this movie are inadvertently sending the message that it’s OK to trash black Americans and not have to address it. And as she is engulfed in backlash and lack of support, liberal media that systematically ignores real black concerns decided to play the feminism card instead and is telling people she isn’t being supported by the black community because she’s a woman.

The Fix is in

In American schools are more of the same white washing, lies and distortions. Even though American slavery was a demonic institution entailing forced labor, rape and abuse for centuries that lasted longer in the United States than anywhere else in the world, the powers that be try to extend culpability by teaching children that it was the Africans who sold their own people into bondage. This is highlighted even though it was not as common and pales in comparison to the number of slaves that were snatched and captured. All of this is simply the system of white supremacy at work.

We already know very well that when it comes to several subjects like world history, ancient Egyptian character depictions or the logistics of American slavery, to name a few, Hollywood will produce fiction and distortions every time.  So, the story of Harriet Tubman featuring a fictional black bounty hunter and a white plantation owner as the unlikely hero saving her life is unfortunately not one bit surprising.

When a film is done well and too close to reality it’s likely to be sabotaged. Let’s take the film Birth of Nation, a film about Nat Turner, for example. The sad thing is that this film probably would have been up for several awards and could have been actor/director Nate Parker’s shining moment. However, almost deliberately to sabotage the film’s success American media dug up Parker’s rape trial even though it was back in his college years and he was found not guilty on all 4 counts. Court decisions were once respected but the #metoo movement changed things drastically. Acquittals are no longer respected anymore and they will re-litigate anything through the media and no matter how long ago it was. Consequently, Parker who already had his day in court was retried in the court of public opinion. The #metoo movement which appears to have a very special interest in the cases of prominent black males, put the pressure on encouraging the public to not support the movie. And so, Birth of a Nation did not achieve what it should have.

The Awakening Masses

In decades of old, the decision to invent a black male villain and make a hero out of a slave master would most likely have been overlooked if the rest of the movie was on point. Not today. The powers that be are slowly learning that it’s a new day and the same old tricks simply will not work anymore on an awakening public. When you factor in Hollywood’s new disrespectful trend of casting foreign actors to play historical black American characters, it’s easy to see that this movie was bound to face some backlash.

There is a lot of irony to this situation in that a movie about escaping slavery is exposing many of the psychologically enslaved in modern day. Many of the black publications, pundits, journalists and commentators defending Harriet are very much like modern-day slaves who still feel black people need to overlook some inaccuracies, or make compromises and sacrifices in order to see black stories told on the big screen. Trapped or psychologically enslaved minds are willing to have their culturally significant stories slightly changed and diluted with subtle attacks as long as the stories come close enough. And so, they try to get the rest of the community on board, but are slowly learning that day is over.

Dave Chappelle once told a story about how he wanted to make a movie about performing at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem. However, “Hollywood” told him that the idea was great, but decreed there weren’t enough white people in it. Chappelle’s sentiments were, “But…. it’s about the Apollo…”. They didn’t care and were insisting that one of the principle characters should be a white person. Perhaps this wasn’t racism from any individual but people playing into institutionalized racism. Shot callers feel they need to make movies ensuring they appeal to white audiences, but rarely do we see the reverse. There are many stories like this. So it’s safe to assume, although she may not admit it, in order to have projects funded and green-lighted writers and directors like Kasi Lemmons often have to change things around to make sure white audiences are not subjected to any discomfort. This includes making sure likeable white characters are always included and in multi-racial projects, white people are never made out to be the sole villainous entities.

Harriet was a movie about freedom and escaping slavery, but ironically revealed the chains that exist in Hollywood this very day. The movie could have been a classic hit if Cynthia Erivo acknowledged and apologized for her comments before the release of the film, and if the writers did not choose to invent a black villain for a film about escaping slavery. Consequently, too much was riding against the film before it even came out. What the people involved with this film need to realize is that they attempted to serve up a delicious meal—but with a very noticeable drop of excrement in it. They were hoping most black Americans would simply cut around the foul sections but are quickly learning many are instead saying, “No, thanks.”

There are so many shocking but captivating stories about American history to tell that would lead to amazing, groundbreaking movies. However, whether or not Hollywood has the capability of telling those amazing stories honestly and uncontaminated is another story and ongoing saga all on its own.