Discussion of “12 Years A Slave”

For this blogpost I saw a link between Courtney’s piece and the series of “slave movies” (Lincoln, Django Unchained, The Butler) that have come out recently. To do this I found s roundtable discussion on the New York Times website a roundtable discussion about “12 Years A Slave” titled “An Essentially American Narrative”. Within the interview, there is a section discussing a section of the film where it shows a slave master raping a female slave. Unlike other movies, this one does not cut away instead “let us experience the moment that is part of the lore of America”. This is a counter to miscegenation laws that tried to impose “a blanket censorship of sexual violence and brutality, thus foreclosing any portrayal of racial and sexual violence toward African-Americans and implicitly wiping the memory of rape, castration, and lynching from the American Record” (Courtney 105). However, the sheer amount of these films is problematic. The fact that these movies have been successful in the past has lead to a sensationalist boom similar to the one that happened after the miscegenation law was lifted. The reason this is so problematic is because the sheer mass of these movies has resulted in talented black actors being mostly seen in slave narratives by the mainstream. It could be argued that like the Indian War movies, they serve to keep African-Americans bound to this romanticized setting of the Old South. It relegates black actors to playing “the help” while white actors are still the main story line, thus whitewashing cinema.  

Here is the discussion I drew upon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/movies/a-discussion-of-steve-mcqueens-film-12-years-a-slave.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=arts