I thought a lot about what I would write for this afternoon. On one hand, I have a lot of thoughts about the election, about the Trump campaign, about the state of American democracy. On the other hand, I know everyone is exhausted and I like that this space can be a bit of a respite from the direness of everyday politics. With that in mind, here are a few short paragraphs on two of the movies I watched this week. |
You would not necessarily think to watch “A Time to Kill” and “Amistad” as a double feature. The former, directed by Joel Schumacher, who died recently, and released in 1996, is an adaptation of John Grisham’s 1989 novel of the same name, a pulpy legal thriller concerning racial violence and retribution in a post-Jim Crow Mississippi. The latter, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a 1997 drama about the slave ship La Amistad and the fight to secure freedom for its captives. But they both are legal thrillers, both star Matthew McConaughey, and both tell us a great deal about how mainstream (read: white) American audiences understood racism in the 1990s. |
First, a recap. In “A Time to Kill,” McConaughey plays a young lawyer who takes the case of Carl Lee Hailey, who is on trial for murder. Hailey, played by Samuel L. Jackson, had killed the two men responsible for the abduction, rape and attempted murder of his 10-year-old daughter, shooting them in the courthouse. The film devotes itself to the drama of the trial as well as events in the world at large, as the Hailey case becomes a flash point for civil rights groups, white supremacists and the national media. |
In “Amistad,” McConaughey plays a young lawyer who takes the case of the enslaved men of the ship La Amistad, who overcame their Spanish captors only to be captured by a U.S. revenue cutter. The trial concerns their rightful ownership — whether they were the property of the government of Spain, as argued by Secretary of State John Forsyth on behalf of President Martin Van Buren, or were captured by Spanish slavers and sold illegally, and thus legally free. Their struggle goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and former President John Quincy Adams (played by a wonderful Anthony Hopkins) argues their case and wins their freedom. |
If you watch these movies back to back, a few elements make themselves immediately clear. There is the extent to which the Black characters exist as objects to be acted upon, not protagonists in their own right. There is also the extent to which racism is portrayed as a problem of individual souls, not one of power and structure. |
But what I’m most interested in is how these movies, taken together, seem to situate racism outside of the present as understood by their audiences. “A Time to Kill” takes place in a small, anonymous Mississippi town. It has a Black sheriff, yes, but its presentation is that of an anachronism, a place removed from the full tide of liberal progress. If the villains of the film are atavistic racists with vicious instincts — from snarling Klansmen to a white juror who doesn’t hesitate to use racial slurs — it is because, the film says, Mississippi is a backward place where the raw bigotry of the past still holds sway. |
This sense is hammered home by the aesthetic of the film, which I can only describe as “sweatcore.” Our characters are always sweating, never to enjoy the cool embrace of air conditioning. They’re either caught in the sweltering heat of a Southern summer or the warm neon of a stuffy, humid hotel room. The effect is to set the characters apart, as if they exist in a different universe altogether. “A Time to Kill” takes place in the present of the 1990s, but it presents racism as an ugly relic, whose impact is felt most in those places time has left behind. |
“Amistad,” by contrast, is a period drama. It takes place in 1839, near the height of America’s slave society. And yet, outright racism does not make much of an appearance. Nor do we see many images of slavery outside of a harrowing section depicting the Middle Passage, from the western coast of Africa to the Americas, where captives were subjected to the worst kinds of brutality, up to and including forced drowning when the vessel runs low on supplies. |
The purpose of all of this, as far as the viewer goes, is to build sympathy for the captives — led by Djimon Hounsou as Cinqué — as if their suffering is the only way we have to connect to their humanity. It’s also part of the broader arc of the film, which is to present the Amistad case as the first confrontation in a battle that will lead to the Civil War and the liberation of the enslaved. |
This is not true — in the real world, the case of La Amistad was a minor curiosity, the resolution of a set of loopholes in American law — but it does fit Spielberg’s expectation of a mainstream audience, that it could only absorb a drama about racial oppression if it were one part in a story that leads to victory and moral renewal. Racism was a problem and now, thanks to the heroism of the protagonists, it is no longer. |
This makes “Amistad” the other side of the coin to “A Time to Kill,” in that it also relegates racism to the past. Not by creating a zone of exception in modern society, but by presenting the modern era as, by implicit contrast, a more enlightened place. |
From the perspective of 2020, where Donald Trump is president of the United States and white supremacists have surged back into the mainstream, this is ridiculous. But from the perspective of the 1990s, a time of broad prosperity in which American culture was more racially integrated than ever, it makes a certain amount of sense. For the target Hollywood audience of the time — white, suburban, middle-class and politically moderate — it was comforting (and even a little flattering) to see racism and racial oppression as artifacts of the past that only mattered for the present insofar that there were pockets of resistance to racial equality. |
Despite very different styles and subject matter, “Amistad” and “A Time to Kill” both put racism at a remove from their mainstream viewers, reinforcing a (white) political consensus around the declining significance of race. In that, both films represent a remarkably self-satisfied vision for what was, in retrospect, a remarkably self-satisfied time. |
My Friday column is a contribution to The New York Times Opinion section package on what we’ve lost during the Trump years. My answer? Only our illusions. |
For as much as it seems that Donald Trump has changed something about the character of this country, the truth is he hasn’t. What is terrible about Trump is also terrible about the United States. Everything we’ve seen in the last four years — the nativism, the racism, the corruption, the wanton exploitation of the weak and unconcealed contempt for the vulnerable — is as much a part of the American story as our highest ideals and aspirations. |
David Frum on the Republican dilemma in The Atlantic. |
David Roth on the political future of Donald Trump Jr. at The New Republic. |
Kara Voght on the economists driving Joe Biden’s agenda for Mother Jones. |
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week’s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at jamelle-newsletter@nytimes.com. |
 | | Jamelle Bouie |
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Decided this week to pluck something from my archive! A few years ago, I went to observe a Revolutionary War battle re-enactment outside Williamsburg, Va., and hauled my old press camera with me to take pictures. The re-enactors were happy to pose for my portraits, and this one was one of my favorites. |
I have been eating a lot of lentil soup lately, and all of it has been a variation on this recipe from Melissa Clark of The New York Times. I use a full mirepoix instead of just onions and garlic, and I go a little crazy with the herbs, sautéing the vegetables with chopped parsley and celery leaf. I also add another ¼ cup of lentils so that the soup is a little thicker when I purée it at the end. I usually finish with a drizzle of olive oil and a garnish of herbs. But that’s just me! You can go in any direction you like, since lentil soup is endlessly flexible. |
- 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1½ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
- 1 quart chicken, beef or vegetable stock, preferably homemade
- 1 cup brown or green lentils, rinsed
- 2 thyme or rosemary sprigs
- 1 to 2 garlic cloves, finely grated or pushed through a garlic press
- 1 teaspoon white-wine, sherry or cider vinegar, or lemon or lime juice, plus more to taste
- ½ cup thinly sliced radicchio, or red or green cabbage (optional)
- ½ cup parsley leaves, chopped
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Heat ¼ cup oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Stir in onions and ½ teaspoon salt, and cook until onions start to brown at the edges, stirring frequently, 6 to 9 minutes. |
Stir in stock, lentils, thyme and remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until lentils are tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Discard thyme sprigs. |
Stir in garlic and remaining 2 tablespoons oil, and use an immersion blender to purée the soup to the desired consistency, keeping it chunky or making it smooth. (Alternatively, ladle it into a blender and blend in batches.) Stir in vinegar, then taste and add more salt and vinegar if needed. |
In a small bowl, toss radicchio, if using, and parsley with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt. To serve, ladle soup into bowls and top with a small mound of radicchio and parsley, and/or any other garnishes you like. |
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