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Do We Really Need More Slave Movies?
Reflections on a genre that too often celebrates White saviors over Black souls
It’s always tough to be a Black person in the position of analyzing a piece of art that reflects our culture or history. Do we always celebrate a movie, song, or other work? Is it okay to say you don’t like something that’s about Black history? Must we always love a thing just because it features someone Black?
This is why I appreciate culture critics and writers who aren’t afraid to offer a nuanced analysis of an issue. Take the movie Antebellum, for example. It’s a horror flick, starring Janelle Monáe, about a modern Black woman who winds up in the Civil War–era South. And when you put a modern woman in old American chains, what do you think will happen? Monáe’s character explores this in the film.
As Monáe said last week in an exclusive ZORA interview:
Our film was shot with the same cameras used on Gone With the Wind. I think that Gone With the Wind is a horror movie. The romanticization White people have of the antebellum South is horrific. People still have weddings on plantations. People are still trying to relive their Civil War dreams by going to reenactments. It’s just crazy to me. The president is trying to take the 1619 Project out of schools. The project deals…
