As discussed in Part One, one of the key things we need to get our heads around is that change doesn’t come all at once—it comes in tiny steps. And even though you wish for great steps—giant steps—even though your well-being depends upon it—you cannot, in your desire for giant steps, crush those making tiny steps. And, so, 12 Years a Slave.
During the buildup to the Oscars, there was an interesting debate about race in film, centering around 12 Years a Slave. While most agreed it was a beautifully made film, there were commentators who were disappointed that this was yet another story where black characters were shown powerless in a white-dominated world—stripped of any joy or self-dominion, and rendered down into little more than a pornographization of helpless, miserable survival.
At the New York Film Critics Circle awards, in January, Steve McQueen was heckled by black critic Armond White as “an embarrassing doorman and garbage man” for making a film that was little more than “a slavery horror-show . . . torture-porn.”
In the Guardian, meanwhile, black commentator Orville Lloyd Douglas explained why he would be seeing neither The Butler nor 12 Years a Slave: “I’m convinced these black race films are created for a white, liberal audience to engender white guilt.”
In short, these were not films that a wealthy, ascendant black film industry would make for a black audience—but the unhappy product of black creativity having to look for funding from a white-dominated industry, and play out to white audiences, who were mainly propelled to the cinema, popcorn in hand, out of liberal shame.
Or, as Golden Globes host Amy Poehler summed it up: “12 Years a Slave, what a film. It totally changed the way I look at slavery.”
While it would obviously be to all of humanity’s joyous betterment if the roles available to actors of color could be expanded out from “gangster” and “horrifically abused slave,” ultimately, I feel about 12 Years a Slave triumphing at the Oscars the same way I did about Fifty Shades of Grey.
For years, we fretted that society wasn’t allowing female sexuality free expression—that the conversation was dominated by male-created pornography, and however many highbrow conversations about it we tried to jump-start, it just wasn’t crossing over into a mainstream conversation.
Then Fifty Shades of Grey became a phenomenon—one hundred million copies sold—and many went, “But this wasn’t the conversation about female sexuality we wanted. This isn’t about a powerful woman unashamedly indulging in rococo sexual liberation. It’s all about a shy teenage girl being beaten on the clitoris in exchange for an iPad, instead. This is the wrong revolution. I don’t like it.”
But the thing is, when you’re starting a revolution—by which I mean altering the landscape so that new voices become dominant—you have to take the longer view. The simple fact is, Fifty Shades kicked the doors in and, more importantly, made a lot of money. Publishing is a business, like any other. It will go where the money is. Now that there is, thanks to Fifty Shades, a huge new market for “women writing about their sexuality,” there will be a lot more women writing about their sexuality—and they will write different books, better books, bolder books. But they will all be fueled by that first, imperfect kick start of Fifty Shades.
Because the history of change is that someone has to start the conversation. Someone has to be fearless enough to go to that new place. But if we attack those who start valuable new conversations—the writers, directors, and actors—for not delivering the perfect revolution, whole, straight off the bat—we scare off the next generation of writers, directors, and actors. We end up having no new conversations at all.
The single biggest mistake made by cultural commentators—critics, academics, bloggers, political activists—is to attack the artists for the failings of the industry they’re working in. It’s like those moments when the activist Michael Moore bursts into the offices of a multinational corporation, film crew in tow, to tackle that company’s appalling record in human rights—and then just hassles the receptionist, instead.
If you don’t like the black films that are being made, attack the power—the white studios, backers, and distributors—not the few black artists out there breaking their balls to get something bold and beautiful made.
Here’s a story I found, a couple of months ago, that encapsulates the whole 12 Years a Slave affair. Danny Glover—star of the Lethal Weapon films—has spent thirty years trying to make a film about the Haitian revolution. The Haitian revolution—the only slave colony in the world that overthrew its slave masters to form its own government. This is basically as if, in the Second World War, there had been a concentration camp where the prisoners overthrew the guards—and then went on to rule Germany. It’s one of the all-time great pitches.
And yet this film still hasn’t been made—despite, at one point, Glover assembling a cast that included Wesley Snipes, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Angela Bassett, and Mos Def. Studios could not imagine someone making a film about the first ever black revolution—no matter how righteous a subject it might be. But what’s the one thing that might, now, finally get this film made? That the imperfect conversation-starting 12 Years a Slave made $158 million, and won Best Picture, at the Oscars. Steve McQueen has started a new conversation. He’s opened a new market. That is more—more—more—than enough for one film to do.