12 Years A Slave

So since we celebrated the 300th post with a review of the movie 300, I figured I'd pick a movie with the number 12 in the title to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the blog. And I never did see this when it was new, even though it always looked good and I wanted to. That's the only reason I picked this film for this post. I'm not conflating voluntarily updating a blog with slavery.

Just so we're clear.

And I really mean we need to be crystal clear on this point. Because I decided to watch this movie for the meme, and if there is any less meme-able film on the planet, I'm not sure I'm aware of it. Maybe Schindler's List. The subject matter of 12 Years A Slave was obviously never going to be lighthearted, I knew that of course. I wasn't expecting to be able to make fun of a series of Zack Snyder movies the way I was with 300 (which is, of course, a highly meme-able film). But my context going into this was stuff like, I don't know... Glory. Or Remember the Titans. Good films, with good things to say about civil rights, that do a good job of showing some specific aspects of the black experience in America. And oh wait, I almost forgot that I have seen (and subsequently repressed) Amistad, and while the entire movie isn't exactly laser focused on the experience of the slaves (to put it mildly), the early images of existence on the ship were certainly striking.

Wait, Amistad was also Spielberg? Why is it the two most harrowing movies I could come up with to compare against were Spielberg movies? I feel like that says... kinda a lot.

But regardless of repressed memories of Amistad and my own general fear of watching Schindler's List I simply was not prepared for how honestly 12 Years A Slave would portray the depths of actual-pants slavery. It was brutal, one would like to say inhumanly so, but the fact is that every ounce of brutality on display in this film was purely human brutality. Academically I understood that brutality, but sometimes there is no substitute for sight. For stripping back the detached language of textbooks or even the crafted prose of novels, and just laying it out for everyone to see. There is an enormous amount of harsh imagery in 12 Years A Slave, but sadly, there is also essentially no exaggeration.

Look, this movie won Best Picture at the Oscars the year it came out. Along with Best Adapted Screenplay (it's based on a memoir of the same title) and Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o, who between this and Black Panther has cemented herself firmly as a national treasure). Chiwitel Ejiofor was nominated for Best Actor (Lost to Mathew McConaughey, which is sad) and Michael Fassbender for Best Supporting Actor (lost to... Jared Leto?? Once again I must ask the Academy, what were you smoking?) The only critical responses to the film were from cowards unable to process their own past, and in the end I can confirm that Steve McQueen crafted a work of utter genius with this film. Nothing I can say will ever come close to approximating the experience of watching this movie, and honestly given how deeply my soul aches just thinking about it, my brain is automatically shying away from doing so anyhow.

It's especially poignant now as I write this considering that, you know... I started this blog 12 years ago. And when I pause to look back at everything that I have done, everything that I have experienced over the past 12 years, I'm thrown by the shear volume of it. Then to imagine spending that time in despair and daily pain, having been torn away from my family, stripped of my humanity, reduced to the status of property... It is staggering the suffering on display in this film. Staggering, depressing... again, I just don't have the words.

But nothing about this movie could possibly change without it losing some aspect of what makes it so good. The brutality, the dehumanizing acts, the nudity, the rape, the cursing... If you censor even one of those things you will not be telling an accurate story about slavery in the American south. The movie has no bravado about any of the things that earned it that R rating the way seemingly every other R-rated film does. It is honest about the story it's telling, and the ratings board can go suck eggs for all they cared. If you haven't seen it... well, you should. You really, really should. This is one of the best films for teaching you about an experience that I can fathom. It's not comfortable viewing by any stretch of the imagination, but that's kind of the entire point. It's trying to have an honest conversation about slavery.

And much as with any of the horrifying travesties perpetrated throughout human history, from the Holocaust to the Crusades to the Armenian Genocide, if you're feeling comfortable while you're having a conversation about it, you're not having an honest conversation.

Or you're absolutely devoid of empathy.

Either case warrants some serious personal reflection. Possibly with professional assistance.