Best movies about Slavery and Racism

BEST MOVIES ABOUT SLAVERY AND RACISM IN AMERICA

‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ revealed the issue of racism and racial segregation years before appropriate legislation in America. The movie, as a piece of modern art, has been depicted in the same way for only the last forty years. Movies on racism in the USA help us to point out and emphasize what differentiates us from animals, or what should. Within this material, I’ve chosen six movies about racism in the USA from among the dozens seen. We can symbolically divide it into three groups of two. Movies about slavery in America (USA): ‘Amistad’ and ’12 Years of Slavery.’ Movies about segregation: The Help and Selma. Movies about racism: ‘Time to Kill’ and ‘American History X’. These six stories span 200 years of American history.

AMISTAD

In addition to ’12 Years of Slavery,’ ‘Amistad’ is based on a bestseller book, which, in this respect, depicts the real story created by a historian. The plot does its best to describe and make a historical reflection of one of the most important events in the struggle against international slavery in the first half of the 19th century. The main events took place in the 1839-1840s in the US, when the most powerful states as Britain, the USA, and Spain, had already agreed to accept slavery as something beyond the law. The movie by Steven Spielberg emotionally stresses the importance of the ‘Amistad case’ and its prolonged influence on American society and even the future Civil War. The trial itself was not only an issue of public interest. It has become an apple of discord between some complainants and between the judicial and executive branches of power in the USA. Four years after the ‘Schinlder’s List’ masterpiece, Steven Spielberg stresses the audience with a cruel scene of killing slaves to solve some ‘logistical’ transport mistakes. The movie is a brilliant example of historical accuracy in locations, requisites, costumes, and makeup—all these have guaranteed a strong feeling of historical presence.

12 YEARS OF SLAVERY

This movie about racism in the USA can be deservedly characterized as the best film about slavery ever made and among the most artistically sophisticated on the issue. Multiple movie awards, including an Oscar for ‘Best Picture.’ You will have two hours of faith to find yourself in the American South in the middle of the 19th century, surrounded by fields of cotton and swamps. Ingeniously chosen locations create a strong effect of presence and historical authenticity. 12 Years of Slavery is based on the real story of an African American, Solomon Northup, who was forced to be a slave. The history of slavery in the South is depicted employing contrast. A free Black man, a citizen of the northern state, has been illegally imprisoned, and now he has to survive as a slave within a plantation. Now, the opposite is true for Solomon, and he suffers from an attitude like an animal. Northup is on the rack to be beaten, sold, and punished like a cow or a dog. Twenty years before the Civil War and a hundred years before desegregation, we perceived real slavery.

THE HELP

The Help is based on a book by Kathryn Stockett, which depicts a fictional story with fictional characters but with an accurate historical environment of the 1960s. The USA is still far from completely overcoming segregation, and Martin Luther King is only on his way to Washington. The main events take place in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. ‘The Help’ operates with emotional contrasts. Sunny summer weather and, for a show, a happy atmosphere, young, delicate women in nice dresses, loftiness, and cheerfulness in conversation. The same Jackson is a place with metal plates ‘Colored’ and ‘White,’ segregating public places. African Americans can already take a desirable place in transport or a cafeteria, but avoid some particular sites. We can see a charity ball to help the starving children of Africa, held by a young woman who passionately lobbies for her racial initiatives and humiliates her Help. Double standards with the maids are the key issue and a point of the whole story. They bring up white children and kiss them, but they are softly forced to use a separate toilet, as they are stated to have ‘other kinds of deceases.’

SELMA

The creators of ‘Selma’ set themselves a task to recreate the real historical events of the 1964-1965 era. The United Society has already experienced changes and desegregation within public transport and public places, in schools and universities. Martin Luther King had already organized a famous ‘March on Washington’ and proclaimed his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. However, Black citizens of some states still cannot fulfill their rights to vote and even to be registered to vote. In this respect, the city of Selma has become an apple of discord and is now a site of major desegregation struggles, impassioned by Martin Luther King. He organizes marches for freedom and equal rights to overcome prejudices and violations of American law. Selma accurately describes these events that took place in Selma, as well as depicting ‘Bloody Sunday,’ which was widely reported all over the country. In addition, intimate processes and debates within the White House. In particular, the participation of President Lyndon Johnson in the complete desegregation of society.

TIME TO KILL

John Grisham does his best and most well-known books depicting racism issues within US society, in particular in the South. And as well as most of his stories being courtroom dramas, Time to Kill earns an additional sense in this respect. Carl Lee Hailey kills the rapist of his little daughter with the M-16 gun, and he seeks assistance. He believes that a Black man in Mississippi can have a fair trial with no reference to the color of his skin. Carl Lee is now not only a murderer of two local white guys with the Confederate flag on the track. He and his lawyer are the targets of the Ku Klux Klan, marching through the streets of the city. African-American citizens have to experience strong conflict and violence with men who hide their faces behind the white hoodie. The movie emphasizes not only direct violence and racial intolerance but also inner prejudice. White juries cannot be completely faithful to themselves in dealing with a Black accused, Carl Lee. Even though the ending is more like a fairy tale, we see a kind of social awakening and Renaissance as the climax of the issue.

AMERICAN HISTORY X

This movie has earned an iconic status for the last twenty years and is generally presented within different recommended lists to watch. American History X is one of the most socially instructive movies about racism in the USA. It is much more about aggression and intolerance than about segregation. All citizens have equal rights on paper, but the underground reality is cruel and full of prejudice and violence. The movie depicts a dark backstage of any modern society of antisocial behavior. Instead of attending to self-improvement and work, a young man named Derek (Edward Norton) creates a racial organization, delivering bursts of violence to the streets. They consider Black people and other national minorities as the ‘rapists of America’—a modern plague that should be destroyed. The protagonist experiences his emotional renaissance in prison, being humiliated by his former ideological partners and the same-thinkers.