BuzzFeed has an interesting discussion of some of the controversies surround the new film “Harriet” about Harriet Tubman. There has been a Twitter war against the film ever since it was announced that a British actress would portray the iconic African American hero. Several choices by the director, including her creation of a fictional black slave hunter, have drawn criticism. BuzzFeed’s Michael Blackmon spoke to people on both sides of the controversy and you should read his article here if you want a good explanation of it. He addresses the black slavecatcher issue (in my research they were extremely rare), whether this film is a “White Savior” movie (in my opinion it is not), and other questions that have been raised. Here is an excerpt from the long essay Blackmon has written, but you should definitely read his in-depth article and not just this teaser:
It is not unusual for dramatic license to be taken when a writer or director is creating a narrative based on actual events. However, with Harriet, the recently released biopic of the iconic historical figure Harriet Tubman starring Broadway star Cynthia Erivo and directed by Kasi Lemmons, such creative license has come under scrutiny.
The inclusion of a fictional black bounty hunter named Bigger Long (Omar Dorsey), as well his death at the hands of Harriet’s “master,” Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn), has upset a faction of Twitter users who believe these creative liberties were in poor taste. They have called for people to refrain from seeing the film, using hashtags like #NotMyHarriet — which, at first, stemmed from a controversy surrounding Erivo’s casting in the title role of a black American hero (the actor is British, born to Nigerian parents). Now the hashtag has become a vessel for the brewing conversation around the film’s supposed white savior narrative.
Calls for the movie to be boycotted because of that purported trope highlight some thorny topics, like the purpose of biographical art — and its responsibility to the truth — and whether someone can critique art without having first seen the project they are assessing.
Lemmons, who previously directed 1997’s Southern gothic classic Eve’s Bayou and is herself a black woman, spoke with BuzzFeed News at length about the controversy in a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon. She called the film’s white savior criticism “completely ridiculous.”
The chorus of voices dissatisfied with the first feature-length telling of Tubman’s story is representative of a very real issue: Black stories are often warped in order to appear more palatable or sympathetic to white viewers. Hidden Figures (2016) — a movie that should’ve been interesting enough based on the fact that it’s about a real-life team of black women who contributed significantly to NASA during the space race — featured a fictional white man, Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, who dramatically destroys a “colored ladies room” sign hanging above a restroom in protest of segregation — as if in assurance to white audiences that not all white people are bad. And who could forget The Help (2011), a film Viola Davis admitted she regretted appearing in, even though the role earned her an Oscar nomination, because the movie centered around the white journalist played by Emma Stone instead of “the help” themselves. 2013’s 12 Years a Slave also included the storyline of a redeemable white person played by Brad Pitt, who produced the movie and whose character one reviewer wrote had “messianic qualities.”
