Hear Me Out… Maybe We Actually Need “Slave Movies”
“Another slave movie?”
That’s a question I’ve heard a lot lately regarding the film, Emancipation, which is a historical drama starring Will Smith that chronicles the journey to freedom for an enslaved man in Louisiana in the 1860s. I haven’t watched this film yet, but the recurring questions about “slave movies” made me consider what actually bothers people about these movies and whether or not they’re necessary.
Over the past several years, I’ve seen and heard many Black people express hesitancy, discomfort and sometimes, outright refusal to watch movies about slavery, the civil rights movement and form of historical Black trauma. Consequently, like many opinions that are shared on the internet, this viewpoint has been spread widely and repeated without much analysis of it.
Common statements include: “I don’t watch slave movies”, “I’m tired of seeing us getting beaten and brutalized”, and “No more trauma porn”.
I’ve been a bit confused by this seemingly sudden stance against movies depicting slavery. I’m often left with questions like, “Why now?”, “What’s the goal?” and “How often are we actually seeing slavery on film?”
More importantly, how much do we really even know about slavery?
