Why is Black Trauma becoming a trend?
An essay examining the effects of using black trauma as plot points in the film industry.
Cinema has always been a tool for escape. Over time, this tool was used to educate the less informed. The documentary genre would be the hub for this kind of academia.; focusing on fringe culture, lost civilizations, cultural impacts, etc. Mainstream films would begin to adapt this concept by dramatizing certain events or the lives of cultural figures. By extension, this was another way filmmakers were able to educate people. The incredibly slippery slope of this education is the context of the subject. Some cultures have suffered such significant trauma that it bleeds generations down, leaving scars so deep that some wince at the idea of exposing them again. There’s a growing conversation surrounding Black Trauma in film and the difference between clever subversion and egregious exploitation. Are these kinds of films needed and if they are, what kinds of stories need to be told?
Over the course of this essay, I will be attempting to dissect the phenomena of black trauma in film and its impact on those watching it.
White guilt is more dangerous than colored innocence. The black American has been dealing with a form of identity crisis for a long time. This crisis is perpetuated through mainstream media and educational systems. This system tells the offspring of slaves that their tortuous history was for the betterment of an entire country and their atrocities can be shrugged off under the guise of not knowing any better. The offspring of these pillaging colonizers have been imbued with a sense of inheritance when it comes to our culture, and in turn, being raised to believe their forefathers were defending their country against savages and brutes.
Over the years, black filmmakers have carved a way for our stories to be told. Directors like Rudy Ray Moore, who used obscene language and antics in his films can be clearly seen in the early Wayans Bros parodies. Antoine Fuqua’s crooked cop Alonso Harris is a twisted echo on Gordan Parks's film, Shaft. Films that deal with the socioeconomic status of the black community have always been an integral part of film history. These stories range from day-in-the-life tales to tragic retellings of police brutality. Although in recent years, it seems as though these concepts are becoming trendy and lack the fundamentals of what these films are supposed to represent.
The catalyst for this is Jordan Peele’s Get Out, a socioeconomic horror thriller based around the fears that black men have about being in an interracial relationship. The film was a success and received an abundance of awards and accolades, including an Oscar for best screenplay. The very next year, a film named Green Book won an oscar for best picture. This film is about a black musician who navigates through the south during the 1960s. The hook is that this man has to be driven around and protected by an Italian man. The film is the definition of Oscar Bait.
In recent memory, shows likes Lovecraft Country, THEM, and a reimagining of The Underground Railroad by Barry Jenkins have been released in such succession that the trend of black trauma is becoming nauseating. Lovecraft Country imagines a world where magic exists in the rural south of the 1950s. The show tackles generational trauma, sexual identities within the black community, and the seemingly impossible task of being comfortable in your own skin. The show is a fantastical journey that seeks to portray its black heroes as genuine as the white heroes we’ve come to expect from a Spielberg film.
Lovecraft also serves as a micro-history lesson with real-world inclusions such as The Tulsa Massacre and the aforementioned Negro Motorist Green Book. The connectivity between black history and science fiction is palpable in the show. This is centralized in Hippolyta; a character who, as a child, named a passing comet but didn’t receive proper credit due to her being black. The show is consistent in reminding its audience that no matter how terrifyingly otherwordly these settings; the true horror is within the black experience. At the end of the day, Lovecraft does a serviceable job of being a show that tackles the black experience and the traumas that follow our community through generations.
The antithesis of this idea is Amazon’s “THEM”. The story follows a family who moves from the cruel life of Jim Crow’s North Carolina to a seemingly perfect white-fenced community of Compton, Los Angeles. Set in 1953, the historical anchor of the show is the Second Great Migration which, for those who don’t know, is a real-life event where 5 million black Americans moved from the South to the west and midwest. The show’s premise is to explore the horrors of suburbia that many black Americans faced when moving into these communities. The show also attempts to tackle the existential human fear of the “other” but fails miserably with its message. THEM’s worst scene is an arduous seven-minute rape scene of the main actress. The scene is so brutal and gut-wrenching that it seems like a sick homage to Last House On The Left or Irreversible.
Sexual assault is an incredibly sensitive topic that few filmmakers have reverence for in terms of knowing what to show and what not to show. ‘I May Destroy You’ and ‘Unbelievable’ are two examples of shows that solely focus on the subject of sexual assault and serve as both educational and cathartic. Many feel that the mere depiction of sexual assault is completely unnecessary and that you can convey the action without showing it. It comes off as exploitative when the act of sexual assault is filmed like a spectacle and keeps the camera on the victim without aversion; this is was happens in THEM.
The show spends an uncomfortable amount of time on the act; not to mention depictions of violence against an infant. What’s more upsetting is that the act is shown later in the season and it’s presented in a way where the audience can understand what’s happening without explicitly being shown the assault on screen; which begs the question, why spend almost ten minutes showing us this trauma? THEM is a gross misstep in attempting to mine black American trauma and ends being an exploitive and offensive slog that could’ve been a great stepping point to talk about the racism found in people who don’t believe their racist but feel as though they’re simply protecting their community from outsiders.
Between Lovecraft’s magic and THEM's despair, is Barry Jenkin’s The Underground Railroad. The story follows a young woman who escapes her plantation via the infamous Underground Railroad and her journey to the North. The controversy comes when it’s revealed that this world is parallel to ours where The Underground Railroad is a literal locomotive that transports slaves from the plantations to the Free North. This decision has a whiplash effect for those unaware of its existence. Barry attempts to remove the audience from our history and add a tinge of mysticism by making The Underground Railroad an actual mode of transportation.
On paper, this decision seems like a slap in the face for the incredibly brave members of the Railroad who risked their lives to help fellow slaves find freedom. The itching question is why choose to make the Railroad real? Barry still depicts the horrors of slavery such as whipping women and children for hours, being forced to sleep with other slaves for procreation, and the complete breaking of one’s soul. Barry Jenkins didn’t make The Underground Railroad for a black audience, he made it for a white one.
Black people are very aware of what is for them and what is being used as a tool to pander to a white audience. Aaron Mcgruder is a genius black creative that doesn’t make his shows intelligible for a white audience. Shows like The Boondocks & Black Jesus are so engrained within the black community that it makes it difficult for white audiences to relate to, giving the very played-out phrase of, “I just didn’t get it.” This bleeds into criticisms from white critics who review black films with no understanding of what’s being presented and will pan the film due to it not meshing with their cultural sensitivities. This leads to black creators making a tough decision on how to make a film that will be true to the culture but also widely accepted by the white masses.
Many black people feel that it’s not on us to be responsible with our art to appease or even educate a white audience. There’s a growing cry for films that feature black characters that don’t tie back to racism or slavery or any of our cultural traumas. To open such a wound as large and as deep as American Slavery, you risk everything. The immediate question from the black audience is ‘why?’ Films like 12 Years A Slave are incredibly harmful because it puts the idea in the white audience’s mind that maybe slavery wasn’t such a bad thing, in fact, a necessary evil; look at how more resilient black people have been because of it, they think.
Barry’s heart is in the right place but it does nothing other than show how difficult that experience was. In making the train real, he smartly tricks the white audience into another mode of thinking by reengineering a piece of history. The reimagining of The Underground Railroad isn’t going to make watching a slave narrative more interesting or less exhausting to watch. It’s only going to reinforce the idea that either slavery wasn’t that bad or that it was needed. Black audiences aren’t the main focus of these projects or else the creatives would have more respect for what’s being shown. Black people don’t need a reminder of how horrendous slavery was or how far-reaching systematic racism goes or even the social awkwardness of being in interracial relationships. These projects will only serve as a faux, and at times, a pretentious history lesson that most never asked to be taught.
The focus should be on making films and shows that have black characters with depth and flaws that don’t rely on a racial narrative. It’s okay to show black people having fun. It’s okay to show black people enjoying themselves. Every film that comes out about the black experience doesn’t have to be slathered with social commentary on the zeitgeist. Once black creators free themselves from the need to show a white audience how tragic our experience can be, we will finally start moving forward with films and shows that properly represent us as a community and not as a hurt dog that constantly expects its master to realize the abuse hes’ committed.