For decades (since 1980 or so) Hollywood's only approach to period films about anti-Black racism was films about the 1950s/1960s civil rights movement and films about abolition. The entire post-Reconstruction/pre-Cold War Jim Crow status quo was basically off-limits (with the notable exception of The Killing Floor). There are so, so many stories you could tell with this period that have been avoided just because they're feel-bad (a lot of them would have to end with Woodrow Wilson or J Edgar Hoover or Rutherford Hayes ruining everything the good guys were trying). I'm not trying to say it's immoral to focus on the victories, I'm just saying something that focuses on the nadir is valuable in its own right.
You make some great points especially in the notes. It is a great pity that a movie like this has to pit the gospel against Black humanity to provide rescue. Being made in the image of God applies to all humans. The gospel liberates every one of our cultures from self-idolatry.
And thanks for correcting the record about the Irish.
When I saw all those positive reviews for Sinners, I got really excited because I have enjoyed all of Ryan Coogler's movies. "This is his masterpiece!" I thought. My anticipation deflated after I read this review from a Catholic Substack that I subscribe to (https://100catholicmovies.substack.com/p/sinners-review).
I watched the film and didn't quite know how to feel about it. Using vampirism as a metaphor of assimilation is brilliant and the transcendent blues scene is fantastic. However, its depiction of immorality and Christianity does seem to be problematic. I read this article afterwards saying that it's not anti-Christian: https://chrisicisms.substack.com/p/is-sinners-antichristian. Both articles are convincing and I still don't know for sure.
I would say it's somewhat anti-Christian. Not to Da Vinci Code levels but it seems weird to me that the film doesn't even remotely acknowledge that a Black church in this period would be the main hub of economic and political collective action by the local Black community. Sammie's dad just comes off as a morality-enforcing authority figure, and he would be that, but he would also be someone who could speak for the local Black population in a crisis and lobby on its behalf. The fact that so many Black churches were doing stuff like that is a powerful argument against the idea that Black Christianity is un-Black, which Slim puts forward. I don't think the filmmakers had a duty to prove Slim wrong, but I do think they should have let the film contain some kind of counterpoint to his argument, however mild.
Something interesting that a friend pointed out about Sinners is that just about all the characters are part of a persecuted American minority: African American, Asian, Irish, and Native American. I'm sure Coogler did that on purpose. A lot of people forget that Americans were prejudiced against the Irish for a time, with one of the major reasons being that they're mostly Catholic. (I'm not of Irish descent but I am Catholic.) I think it's an interesting aspect that the man who's credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, St. Patrick, was a runaway British slave who went back to the pagan country who captured him in order to convert them.
The only White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the film (that I can remember) were the Klu Klux Klan members. Again, a lot of people forget that the KKK didn't just hate "colored" people, but Catholics and Jews as well.
For decades (since 1980 or so) Hollywood's only approach to period films about anti-Black racism was films about the 1950s/1960s civil rights movement and films about abolition. The entire post-Reconstruction/pre-Cold War Jim Crow status quo was basically off-limits (with the notable exception of The Killing Floor). There are so, so many stories you could tell with this period that have been avoided just because they're feel-bad (a lot of them would have to end with Woodrow Wilson or J Edgar Hoover or Rutherford Hayes ruining everything the good guys were trying). I'm not trying to say it's immoral to focus on the victories, I'm just saying something that focuses on the nadir is valuable in its own right.
You make some great points especially in the notes. It is a great pity that a movie like this has to pit the gospel against Black humanity to provide rescue. Being made in the image of God applies to all humans. The gospel liberates every one of our cultures from self-idolatry.
And thanks for correcting the record about the Irish.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.
When I saw all those positive reviews for Sinners, I got really excited because I have enjoyed all of Ryan Coogler's movies. "This is his masterpiece!" I thought. My anticipation deflated after I read this review from a Catholic Substack that I subscribe to (https://100catholicmovies.substack.com/p/sinners-review).
I watched the film and didn't quite know how to feel about it. Using vampirism as a metaphor of assimilation is brilliant and the transcendent blues scene is fantastic. However, its depiction of immorality and Christianity does seem to be problematic. I read this article afterwards saying that it's not anti-Christian: https://chrisicisms.substack.com/p/is-sinners-antichristian. Both articles are convincing and I still don't know for sure.
I would say it's somewhat anti-Christian. Not to Da Vinci Code levels but it seems weird to me that the film doesn't even remotely acknowledge that a Black church in this period would be the main hub of economic and political collective action by the local Black community. Sammie's dad just comes off as a morality-enforcing authority figure, and he would be that, but he would also be someone who could speak for the local Black population in a crisis and lobby on its behalf. The fact that so many Black churches were doing stuff like that is a powerful argument against the idea that Black Christianity is un-Black, which Slim puts forward. I don't think the filmmakers had a duty to prove Slim wrong, but I do think they should have let the film contain some kind of counterpoint to his argument, however mild.
Something interesting that a friend pointed out about Sinners is that just about all the characters are part of a persecuted American minority: African American, Asian, Irish, and Native American. I'm sure Coogler did that on purpose. A lot of people forget that Americans were prejudiced against the Irish for a time, with one of the major reasons being that they're mostly Catholic. (I'm not of Irish descent but I am Catholic.) I think it's an interesting aspect that the man who's credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, St. Patrick, was a runaway British slave who went back to the pagan country who captured him in order to convert them.
The only White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the film (that I can remember) were the Klu Klux Klan members. Again, a lot of people forget that the KKK didn't just hate "colored" people, but Catholics and Jews as well.