BEFORE: Well, the next film on my list was going to be "Love, Simon", with Katherine Langford carrying over from "Knives Out" - thus finishing the Pride Month trilogy. But I can't ignore the news of the past week any more, after staying up late a few nights ago and watching Minneapolis burn, then seeing those fires sparking protests in other cities, I've decided that I have to change course. Yesterday (Tuesday? It's still so hard to tell what day it is...) I went into Manhattan with my wife, partly to accompany her to a doctor's appointment and partly just to get out of the house, and I ended up eating breakfast outside in a park, in downtown Manhattan, half a block from where Al Sharpton and some other activists were holding a press conference to address the inequalities in America's justice system, highlighted again for the umpteenth time by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. And last night, a protest marched right by our house in Queens, a curfew was enacted - on top of the still-in-place shelter-in-place orders, so I guess now we're on double super-secret lockdown - and it's here, it's all around me, it's all around the country, so it's time to address it.
This is part of the problem with laying out my film schedule a month or two in advance - I can't usually make a quick course correction like this. Only I did it three times last year, when I had sudden linking emergencies. This is a social emergency, shouldn't that be even more important than my silly method of linking films? But here's where my ability to link films meets the call for social change - as I was going up and down a certain actor's filmography, coincidentally the SAME ACTOR who just carried over from "The Girl in the Spider's Web" to "Knives Out", I saw a couple of films that I realized could be very applicable to current events. So I went from "I couldn't possibly make a change on the fly to address the news" to "Well, of course I can, and I should, because I suddenly see how I'm going to do it."
So Lakeith Stanfield carries over from "Knives Out" - these next two films were not part of my plan, in fact they've never been on any of my lists before, because I haven't felt any personal connection to them, or any urgency to watch them, not until now. But the urgency is here, the need is here, so I'm going to roll with it. I've thought before about how I always miss doing anything for Black History Month because I'm always so busy watching romances in February. It may not be Black History Month right now, but that's a poor excuse on my part to hold back.
THE PLOT: A chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.
AFTER: I hope you agree with me, that this sort of feels relevant right now - if not, well, you're entitled to your own opinion, because everyone's allowed to be wrong here and there. It's a free country, which is sort of the point, or at least it's supposed to be. But over two centuries after somebody penned that a fundamental belief of our country is that "all men are created equal", why are we still not THERE, at a place where that feels completely true and believable. Or is the problem that everybody was "created" equal, and something in our American society keeps getting in the way from people living equally and being treated equally? What's the point of acknowledging that we all start out at the same place, but then society makes sure that many of them don't get a fair shake? Financial inequality, geographical inequality, gender inequality, and then cover that sundae with some hot racism, and a cherry on top.
Everything old is new again - we had Nazis marching in Charlottesville a few years back, and now we're back at the point where police are beating and killing black people again, it's like the 60's are back again. Yeah, the 1960's, but in some parts of the country, the 1860's never ended. Taking down confederate flags and statues is helpful, but it's not addressing the core problem of fundamental racism. This film was released in 2015, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the march from Selma to Montgomery was an important precursor to getting that legislation passed. President Lyndon Johnson was sympathetic to the cause, or at least he appeared to be when he met with Martin Luther King, but since 1964 was an election year, he kept saying that it wouldn't be possible, not just yet, and he wanted to address any inequalities with an Anti-Poverty Act. Because, umm, well, everybody knows that you can't focus on passing two bills at the same time, right? That would be madness, and also probably sounded to LBJ like a lot of work. Lame excuse!
Before I go any further, I have to point out that I'm a white guy, and the general consensus (at least according to the late night talk shows, which were all off last week, but came back last night full of apologies for making black jokes in the past, and white hosts letting their black colleagues have screen time via tele-conference to blacksplain racism to the audience) is that I don't have the right to comment here, because I haven't experienced racism first-hand. Yeah, but I still recognize injustice, and what took place in the U.S. South in the 1960's was unjust. In addition to lynchings, beatings, general intolerance and lack of service from whites-only restaurants, the entire voting system was rigged to keep African-Americans from taking advantage of their right to vote. The white governments at city, county and state levels made it nearly impossible for blacks to register, not without paying a poll tax for all the previous elections they missed, having another registered voter (aka a white person) vouch for them, then having their name and address printed in the newspaper after registering, so the Klan would know where to build their next flaming cross. After all that, they would have to take a quiz on local elected officials, answering as many non-multiple choice questions as necessary until they got one wrong, at which point, their application to register would be denied.
Is this sounding familiar to anybody out there? Like, maybe the election of 2016, or the one that's about to take place? As I've said here several times already this year, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. We've seen the GOP pull out every dirty trick in the last 4 or 5 years, from gerrymandering districts to being completely hypocritical over how fast to approve a new Supreme Court Justice - they couldn't POSSIBLY do that during Obama's last year in office, because that wouldn't be fair to let an outgoing President choose a new justice, yet they fast-balled TWO of Trump's selections, one who was probably incompetent and the other who was probably a sexual offender and a drunk. (In what universe is that better than a liberal?). And now the latest is the issue over mail-in ballots, because if we allow everyone to vote, somehow that would lead to voter fraud among Democrats, who would immediately use the names and addresses of dead people to vote five times each. What they're really saying is, we can't win the next election fairly, so let's make everyone come out in person during a pandemic, which is already disproportionately affecting people of color, to cast their votes, and then maybe fewer minorities will find the will to vote, and those that do come out, we can find other ways of discounting their votes, either through rejecting their valid I.D.s or making each person with dark skin stand on their heads and recite the Gettysburg Address, word for word.
And so we look back to the past for advice - how did previous generations battle this systemic racism? They protested, they marched, they got the ear of the President. OK, well, two of those might still work today, so that's where we find ourselves, isn't it? Look, this is the guy who said there were "good people on both sides" when one of the sides was alt-right NeoNazis! Trust me, stick to the first two. People this week were defying the curfews in some cities to hold protests, and that's almost exactly what happened back in 1965 in Selma, a march to the state Capitol building in Montgomery to demand voting rights for black Americans.
There was a court order to stop the march, but Dr. King went ahead with it anyway, and people got hurt. Good people, regular people, church people, were beaten by state troopers. Because a piece of paper said the march was illegal, yet there happens to be another piece of paper, the U.S. Constitution, that gives all citizens the right of free assembly, along with free speech. And this was a non-violent protest, or at least it was until the state troopers got involved. (There are some disturbing yet very important images here, including a prominent shot of Oprah, America's Queen of All Media, playing a character knocked to the ground in a close-up - just in case you were at all on the fence about which side you should be rooting for.)
So, they set up another march, and once the news of the first march's failure and images of people being beaten got around, right-minded people of all faiths and colors flocked to Selma for the second march, to stand with their oppressed brothers and sisters. So the second time, a mixed crowd, black and white, crossed over the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River, and this time, the troopers, seeing the mixed nature of the crowd, parted ways to allow the march to proceed. And, Dr. King then turned around and led his group away. Having never studied this event before in detail, I was quite surprised here, but the later debate among the black leaders explained his dilemma - the troopers parting for the crowd could have been a trap, they could have allowed the crowd to pass, then cut off their escape route back over the bridge. Or, maybe the Alabama politicians in charge of the troopers had seen the error of their ways, I guess we'll never know.
Anyway, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Committee) and the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) fought back in federal court, and won the right to have a third, very legal march from Selma to Montgomery. And that's how you should do things, in my opinion. Non-violently if possible, get the courts on your side, and also get media attention, because that gets the word out and gets some sympathy for your cause. Today's protestors would be wise to take some lessons from Dr. King, because if your call for justice also involves stealing sneakers from the Vans store, it's kind of hard to take you seriously. And conservatives, don't think I've forgotten about you, because some of the same people who just a few weeks ago were protesting at State Capitol buildings because they were tired of being under lockdown and they wanted to get haircuts or go bowling are now saying that other people (of color) don't have any right to protest after someone got killed unnecessarily by a cop leaning on his windpipe. What a bunch of hypocrites.
History, unfortunately, is ultimately unkind to nearly everyone, if you think about it. Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for President unsuccessfully four times, and was shot and paralyzed a few years later in 1972. MLK made it another five years before an assassin's bullet found him in 1968. And LBJ made it through his second term, then retired to his Texas ranch, but only lived another four years, until 1973. He had a good record on civil rights (eventually) and other issues, but then there was this little thing called Vietnam on his watch, too. And so I keep thinking that Trump's going to get what's coming to him, too, eventually, but this year I realized that he may drag the whole country down into ruin first, which is kind of unfortunate. When I heard last week that there were protestors trying to storm the White House and harm the President, I honestly thought, "Well, it took a bit longer than I thought it would, but we finally got there, didn't we?"
Trump's now under some fire for calling in the military to deal with these protests in various cities, and if that seems like an abuse of power, well, it wouldn't really be the first one for him, now, would it? This same guy who would only send aid to a foreign country if they could dig up some dirt on his political opponent, the same guy who would only send PPE during a pandemic to the state governors who were willing to kiss his ass, the same guy who's likely to use every possible resource to rig the 2020 election in his favor and then even if he loses, you just know he's not going to step down willingly. We could be looking at a military coup or a potential Civil War II in the same year that brought us the pandemic, economic collapse, racist cop killings, and don't forget about the murder hornets. We've still got hurricane season to go, ebola might be staging a comeback, and then I think the zombie apocalypse before the election, though. But by all means, go ahead and try to Make America Great Again, or Keep America Great or whatever.
I'm going to turn the rest of my time over to quotes from Martin Luther King, or at least quotes from him as heard in this movie, which I'm hoping are the same thing.
"We're here for a reason, through many, many storms."
"Our lives are not fully lived if we're not willing to die for those we love, for what we believe."
"It is unacceptable that they use our power to keep us voiceless."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
"It's time to move beyond the protests to some real political power" (in other words, get out and vote, in person if you have to. Wear a mask if you have to. Mail in your ballot early if you can, and if you can't, don't let anyone tell you that you can't cast your ballot. Even if they do, file your ballot AND a grievance. File a lawsuit if you have to, but get out there and rock the vote. This election in November needs to be won by the widest possible margin, so there can be zero dispute over the result, because I don't think the people in power are going to go willingly.)
Also starring David Oyelowo (last seen in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "The Debt"), Carmen Ejogo (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), André Holland (last seen in "A Wrinkle in Time"), Tessa Thompson (last seen in "Men in Black: International"), Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "The Gift"), Lorraine Toussaint (last seen in "Girls Trip"), Stephan James (last seen in "If Beale Street Could Talk"), Colman Domingo (ditto), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "It Could Happen to You"), Common (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Cuba Gooding Jr. (last seen in "Don Jon"), Dylan Baker (last seen in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"), Tim Roth (last seen in "The Con is On"), Oprah Winfrey (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (last seen in "Shaft"), Niecy Nash (last seen in "Code Name: The Cleaner"), Omar Dorsey (last seen in "The Blind Side"), David Dwyer (ditto), Ledisi Young, Trai Byers, Kent Faulcon, John Lavelle, Henry G. Sanders (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Jeremy Strong (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Nigel Thatch, Tara Ochs, Martin Sheen (last seen in "Love Happens"), Michael Shikany (last seen in "A Merry Friggin' Christmas"), Michael Papajohn (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Stephen Root (last seen in "On the Basis of Sex"), Stan Houston, E. Roger Mitchell (last seen in "The Spectacular Now"), Corey Reynolds (last seen in "The Meddler"), David Marshall Silverman (last seen in "The Leisure Seeker"), Wayne Hughes, Jim France, with archive footage of Harry Belafonte (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Tony Bennett (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Sammy Davis Jr.
RATING: 6 out of 10 FBI wiretaps
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