Recently I have seen a couple films that reinforces the narrative that Hollywood keeps spitting out the same movies only as cast in different genres. The great lion’s share of what Hollywood produces emphasizes how stupid or evil white people are. It is such a trope that you realize that every film is the same as the previous film that you viewed.
The first film I caught was “Django Unchained.” Here you find the typical tired bromides that White Southerners were evil and that blacks experienced the worst possible form of slavery. The only White person who comes across as “admirable” is a bounty hunter who is vicious in his murderous tactics in hunting down and killing those for whom he has a bounty. The only kindness our White Bounty Hunter has is for a black slave he frees in hopes of that slave being able to point out three brothers upon whom he has bounties. Over time however, the White Bounty Hunter takes a shine to the black slave and after they together murder the just mentioned three brothers the White Bounty Heart decides to make the now former black slave his Bounty Hunter protege. The White Bounty Hunter does this because he is smitten with how madly in love his slave is with his long lost German speaking black wife. We see here that the black slave is virtuous because of his deep love that will do anything (as we shall see) for his long separated wife.
The film progress with White people teaching the former slave how to use assorted firearms. The two Bounty Hunters gun down and murder countless numbers of white people. This was such a theme that Jamie Fox, who played Django — the freed slave turned bounty hunter — boasted in a Saturday Night Live appearance that “the movie was great, I get to kill all the white people.” Django becomes the modern Negro male beau ideal inasmuch as he finds his identity if murdering white people.
As mentioned earlier, all the white people in the film, save Dr. King Schultz (Bounty Hunter) are repulsive and wicked. The worst of them all is “Calvin Candie,” a plantation owner in Mississippi who owns Django’s wife. Of course, it is not accidental that the most wicked white man of them all is named “Calvin.” The film writers arrange it so that when Calvin is murdered the impulse is to cheer Dr. King Schultz.
One oddity in this film is that there is one black character in the film who is cast as being evil. However, this is not accidental because this black character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) is cast as a complete Uncle Tom who is the house Negro for the Calvin Candie plantation. Django murders this Uncle Tom to every viewer’s relief.
The film ends with every white person being dead (including Dr. King Schultz), the plantation manor dynamited and with Django having regained his long lost wife they ride off into the night.
One theme that comes through in the film is how much Whites hate uppity Negroes. Whites can’t believe that Django rides his own horse. Uncle Tom, the House Negro, can’t believe that Django is going to sleep in the Big House and eat with the White Folks at the White Folks table. Whites can’t believe that Django is dressed like a cowboy. Whites can’t believe that Django talks all uppity to Whites. Clearly we are to believe from the film that Whites expect of Blacks that they know their place.
In the Stephen King film, “The Green Mile,” we have much the same film only in a different genre. All the White people are evil or stupid or have to be enlightened by the “magic negro” in the film.
This film is cast in the context of a death row called “the Green Mile.” On death row in Louisiana are two white guys (one of whom is particularly demented and wicked), one American Indian, and one giant of a Black man named John Coffey. All are guilty of their crimes except the giant of a Black Man — John Coffey. Coffey, as we learn as the film unfolds is a gentle soul who was wrongly arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of two little white girl sisters — and this even though it was really the case that Coffey was seeking to heal them of their wounds. Keeping watch over the inmates are five guards. One (Percy) is particularly evil while the other four are simpletons who must be educated in goodness by the Black John Coffey.
The other two main characters are the White Warden and his wife. The wife is dying of a brain cancer.
In the course of the film we are constantly reminded of how gentle, wise, and supernaturally gifted John Coffey is. Coffey has the gift of the shine and of healing. Coffey knows what people are thinking and what they have done merely by touching them or by being in close proximity to them. Coffey also has a magic healing touch that comes to the fore several times in the film. Coffey is the very epitome of the “Magic Negro.”
As the film unfolds we learn how noble John Coffey is because he goes willingly to his death in the electric chair because he can no longer stand living in such a painful mean spirited world. (Now keep in mind all this pain and mean spirited-ness comes in the context of all his interaction with White people. He tried to supernaturally heal the two raped and murdered little girls (raped and murdered by one of the white inmates on death row [Green Mile] we learn in the film) but instead was treated like filth. He watched as Percy (the wicked guard) abuses the other prisoners. He sees one of the White inmates hurt his prison guard friends. White people have caused him all his pain so he is glad to leave this world in the electric chair.
As mentioned earlier Coffey heals the Warden’s wife of brain cancer. There was a very sexually suggestive scene in the film in the scene where Coffey heals the Warden’s wife. In that scene Coffey holds the Warden’s wife in his arm while he presses his lips against the Warden’s wife’s lips in order to suck the cancer out of her brain. The scene only last a few seconds but it clearly gives the flavor of some kind of miscegenation.
In both films the white people are evil, stupid, or simpletons. In both films the main characters are black who rise above the world, either by killing all the competition (Django Unchained) or by leaving the world (The Green Mile). In both films the theme of the movie is the inferiority of white people and the superiority of black people. In both films the audience is moved to identify with the black people and to loathe the white people. The message in both films is that it sucks to be a White person.
However, as said earlier, anymore these are the themes of every movie made by Hollywood.
