This morning, while readying myself for work, I had a quick look at this article from the Guardian. The author of the piece, Joe Queenan, is focused on the new movie "Blood Diamond". I haven't seen the movie yet, so I won't make the slightest effort to counter Queenan's arguments regarding it, which center on the tendency of Hollywood films (or films made by white people) to portray black people as foes to be battled or victims to be saved. He doesn't mention it, but the phenomenon he is describing reminds me of the Noble Savage and White Man's Burden (which, incidentally, I am convinced Kipling was being ironic about).
Queenan notes similar themes in "Glory" (which I haven't seen, believe it or not), "Glory Road" (unseen), "the Constant Gardener" (unsee), "the Interpreter" (unse), "A Dry White Season" (uns), "Cry the Beloved Country" (un), and a couple I HAVE seen.
"In all of these movies," Queenan argues, "the same message comes through: Yes, some white people are bad. Oh, so very, very bad! But when white people are good, well, nobody does it better. That's just the way white people are." I think that's a good point well made.
Except. He had to go and say that "[t]he template for the Up With Caucasians! film was established . . . with the release of . . . To Kill a Mockingbird. Based on a beloved, fabulously successful, thoroughly absurd novel by Harper Lee, who never wrote another book." I won't quibble with any aesthetic points regarding either the film or book TKaM, which I loved and he hated (or didn't actually see/read [wait for it]), but I have to comment on what seems to be his misunderstanding of them. Read no further until you have either read or seen TKaM, because it is awesome and I don't want to spoil you.
First, it is neither here nor there that Harper Lee only wrote one book. When asked why, she once told (I think it was the Birmingham News) that "that was all that happened." The book was clearly semi-autobiographical, and though I will grant that the South was and is in many ways an inherently absurd place full of absurd people, the story in TKaM is more or less true, apparently. And even if it wasn't, it is manifestly bullshitty of Queenan to say that "[t]he notion that a black farmhand accused of raping a white woman in the 1930s - 30 years before the film was made - would have ever reached the courthouse in Dixie is somewhat fanciful," unless of course one knows dick all. What IS fanciful is the idea that said black farmhand could count on a fair trial, but there were loads of show trials. Of course, Tom Robinson (said black farmhand) DIDN'T get a fair trial in TKaM. He had a passionate white lawyer who failed to save him.
In the same paragraph, Queenan criticizes "the director's refusal" to dress the mob who tried to lynch Tom Robinson as Klansmen. Again, this is only worth criticizing if you are ignorant. The sad reality is that the Klan, though potent, was not omnipresent and certainly not the only thing black farmhands had to fear. Most lychings were carried out by precisely the "Good Ol' Boys" Queenan jokingly refers too as cop outs. Queenan has thus cited two examples from TKaM (and made one ad feminam attack on Harper Lee) which undermine his central argument. Strange.
The next paragraph is worth quoting in its entirety.
Pioneeringly foolish, To Kill a Mockingbird establishes the basic theme of all Three Cheers for Whitey! movies: Yes, there are many bad white people out there who do some terrible, terrible things to black people. But when the chips are down and black people are poised on the very precipice of disaster, they can always rely on some thoroughly decent white folks to step in and make sure that justice prevails.
What? I can't find my copy of the book, or else I'd start throwing quotations at the computer, but lemmie see if I've got the plot right:
Scout and Jem are the children of upstanding widower-lawyer Atticus (a white man). Upstanding (insofar as a black farmhand could be in that place and time) Tom is accused of rape by the Ewells, who are on the lowest rung of white society. There is no proof. Racism, however, is so virulent in the town that no lawyer wants the case. The judge asks Atticus to take it (in part due to his own doubt, and in part out of residual fairness). Atticus takes the case, despite the fact that he and his family are harrassed by their fellow townsfolk, and makes an effort to have Tom acquitted. Atticus does this, apparently, because he is a genuinely fair-minded man, and explains to his daughter (Scout) that it is simply not ok to not do the right thing when given the chance. The (white, male, Good Ol' Boy) jury finds Tom guilty anyway. Tom is later "shot while trying to escape" from prison (a southern euphemism for murder). Bob Ewell (the actual rapist) then seeks revenge on Atticus for humiliating him in court by attacking Scout and Jem one night. Scout and Jem are saved by Boo Radley, a mysterious hermit/autistic/deus ex machina from across the street, and Bob Ewell is dead. And that's that.
Justice prevails? Well, certainly not from Tom's perspective! Bob Ewell IS dead, of course, but it wasn't Atticus who smote him. Boo did it, and he did it for reasons having nothing to do with the racial theme of the book.
What's my point? I suppose it is twofold. One thing I wanted to do is get that off my chest about TKaM. The other one brings us back to this morning, though. Is the first bit of his article to be trusted? I found it compelling until his bullshit about TKaM made me doubt him. He did reel me back in a little in attacking "Mississippi Burning" (well done but a horribly inacurrate, and probably dangerous, portrayal of the FBI's role in the Civil Rights Movement) and "A Time to Kill" (which was just silly).
What do you think?
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