"Mandela
– Long Walk to Freedom” (2013) and “The Butler”
(2013)
Both of these movies present a liberal
interpretation of the civil rights struggles in two different, yet linked
contexts – the U.S. South and South
Africa.
What is obvious about them is the hard line taken in these films against
black radicalism.
“Mandela” was directed by Justin Chadwick
and written by William Nicholson. Both
are white. Nicholson grew up Roman
Catholic, was educated at Christ’s College in Cambridge
UK,
then became a BBC documentarian. He then
went on to write a play about CS Lewis and wrote parts of “Gladiator.” He also worked on “Les Miserables” – the
movie. So a well-respected liberal who takes on ‘political’ themes with a
Catholic slant. Chadwick is a long-time
actor and director in the UK,
mostly doing non-political dramas.
‘Mandela’ is based on the ‘great man’
theory of history. Mandela’s
autobiography provided much of the source material. Mandela was clearly the right man in the
right place, but without the mass movement behind him and the organizational
prowess of the South African CP, he would have become just another civil rights
lawyer. The film does not mention the
CP, nor other leftist groups. The growing
black consciousness movement led by Stephen Biko is vague and discarded. The CP left around mine trade unionist Moses
Mayekiso (which has now formed a new left party, “The Workers & Socialist
Party”) is ignored. Winnie Mandela, who
was to Mandela’s left at the end, is portrayed at that point as a big crazy
problem.
This is a 2013 film that features the 1960 Sharpeville
Massacre as a key turning point, while the Marikana Miner’s Massacre of 2012
does not exist. As such, the film hints that history stopped with Mandela winning the presidency.
The triumphalist tone take by the film – quite justified in a
traditional Hollywood narrative arc – fails as
an historic arc. Political meetings are ignored - instead the personal
relationship between Mandela and Winnie or his first wife take priority. The military campaign of the ANC’s Umkhonto
we Sizwe is barely shown, and Mandela’s role largely invisible. The significant ANC / SACP decision to drop
demands for economic nationalization and instead propose only ‘one man, one
vote’ is also invisible. Even the
decision by the De Klerk regime to endorse ‘one man, one vote’ is not
depicted. This was, of course, the key
compromise that created the ‘new’ South Africa. Recent statistics show that the South African
working class, poor township residents and black farmers are now worse off than
during apartheid, while rich whites
still mostly own everything.
Simple bourgeois democracy cannot alleviate
these key economic issues. Another
movement is brewing. ‘A Luta Continua,’
as Miriam Makeba once said.
WAITING on PRESIDENTS
“The Butler”
is the U.S. version of this same
standard Hollywood narrative. Lee Daniels directed and Danny Strong wrote
it. Daniels is black, directing
‘Precious’ and producing “Monster’s Ball,” though started his career at 21
owning and running a large nursing agency. The film stars black film stalwarts
like Cuba Gooding, Forest Whitaker, Mariah Carey & Oprah Winfrey. Strong, on the other hand, is a white actor appearing
on many TV shows, including “Mad Men” and “How I Met Your Mother.” He is now involved in writing the “Hunger
Games” trilogy. Again, a white liberal
interested in political themes.
Ethnicity of course is not the only gauge
of authenticity. The American black
upper middle-class has little contact with the working or poor classes anymore. Most black ‘intellectuals,' actors and pop stars have simply
stopped caring and instead, at best, celebrate the history of the aging civil rights
movement – in order, it seems, to forestall another movement. It was a movement one of whose benefits was
the creation of a larger black middle class.
My gut feeling is that THIS part of the movement is what is really being
celebrated.
This film is based on a real character – a black
butler that worked for every president from Eisenhower to Reagan – Gene Allen. It is a way to introduce the history of the
black rebellion in the 1960s and 1970s as a backdrop to long service with the
‘great men’ of American politics – the presidents. Martin Luther King is quoted in the film as
saying that black domestic workers played a role in showing the white man that
black people could be competent and excel.
That is certainly one way to put it.
However, as several scenes show, the black butlers in the White House
didn’t get wage parity until the Reagan administration, when Nancy intervened after Allen complained once again. At that pace, we will get our rewards at
death. ‘Merit’ has little to do with it.
However, much of this movie story is not
based on Allen’s life. The key issue in
the movie is the vast hostility between the ‘butler’ and his radicalized son,
who organizes to integrate lunch counters down south, then becomes a Freedom
Rider, is jailed repeatedly, shot-at and fire-hosed, and eventually joins the
Black Panther Party (“BPP”). He leaves
them, gets an MA degree, runs for office and becomes an activist with the “Free
South Africa Movement.” Only then, sometime perhaps in the 1980s, does the
movie ‘butler’ reconcile with his activist son at a FSAM rally. Both films come together at this point,
referencing this issue.
This is frankly reactionary hokum. The intense hostility towards the son makes
no sense. Even the mother only gently
reprimands her husband, but she also breaks ties with the son. (And it’s Oprah, if you don’t get the point
clearly enough.) In one scene, the son
is thrown out of the house during dinner, after he shows up as a Panther with
his girlfriend and says some mildly offensive statements. Yet at this point they had not seen their son
in many years! The Panthers are shown as
violence-loving and offensive, in some FBI cartoon-way. They are also shown as being slaughtered by
the FBI and police, on orders from Nixon.
Might I remind the writer that the BPP was called the “Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense.” They believed not in ‘violence’ as some
vague, stupid term used by liberals, but in defending themselves from racists
and racism.
But hating on the BPP is the stand-in for
hating black radicalism in the U.S.
of any form. So is the portrayal of intense
animosity between father and son here – a psychological inoculation of the
audience against radicalism that makes no sense as a plot line in any other way. I expect Mr. Strong will also ruin the ‘Hunger
Games’ series. His ‘revolution’ will
be televised.
The film ends with its glorious culmination
– the election of Barack Obama. And
history stops again. If it had
continued, it might have pointed out that Obama has done little for the
majority of black people in his 6 years in office. He’s busy running the capitalist state, after
all. A job that has certainly proved his
competency, excellence and ‘merit.’
“The
Hunger Games” is reviewed below.
Use blog search box, upper left.
See “Black Agenda Report” for analysis of Obama’s role in the U.S.
Red Frog
August 7, 2014
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