Dr. Anthony Reed

Cinema has always intrigued me with its ability to really transport the senses. The knowledge you can gain by being put into the shoes of another person is irreplaceable and our movies allow this interaction to occur. Yet, there is a bad side to this power. The director can attempt to cloud our senses. This can be done through the use of music and symbols which can enforce a pathos which makes us feel a certain way about what we are seeing on the screen.  This in turn makes us more susceptible to the opinion and views of the director whether it is historically accurate or not.

Dr. Anthony Reed, from Yale University, showed us that by looking at the basis behind slavery movies you can see that they aren’t that much about black slavery at all. The true intention of these films seems to be to make the whites feel better about their past. In the end of Amistad you are filled with a gratitude for John Quincy Adams who freed the slaves with his passionate words. You feel a gratitude that the white people allowed the slaves to go back to Africa. This sense of happiness prevails in the end when it is determined that the rich white folk are finally switching over the side of goodness. These emotions are being used to take your thoughts away from what is really going on with the slaves in order to make us feel better about ourselves.

The more recent film about slavery was done by Quentin Tarantino who directed Django. In this movie the story line is so covered in blood and action that the historical accurateness is completely disregarded. After talking about this film I found myself thinking about how this movie is actually racist. This is because it conforms into several stereotypes that were set up during that time period in order to justify having slaves. One such stereotype was that the black would be dangerous if they were let loose. This movie conforms to this by pivoting around Django shooting people up and being ruthless in order to get what he wants. Also, in order for Django to learn how to live he has to be under the tutelage of a white person who will show him how to survive in society.

These movies are important to show us how traitorous we can be but we should not sugar coat our past to make us feel better. We should use cinema as the powerful tool it is to educate people about ourselves and others but we should avoid any misrepresentations that may occur. Even while in the depths of a film the brain should still be working and trying to figure out what could be true and what could be false. The movie should be used as a starting point for our opinions not as the reason for our opinions by letting it do the thinking for us.