Response: A Time To Kill
Aug. 27th, 2007 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaI just finished watching A Time To Kill, you know, the one starring Matthew Mc-How-You-Spell-His-Name and Samuel L Jackson. Probably should've had some Kleenex on hand, after watching Sister Act II this afternoon (needed Kleenex for that too).
Racial relations and rape are two big issues that I really care deeply about. I love joking about race relations and watching stand-up about it, but I can't ever find rape funny.
Rape is never funny. Rape should never be glorified. Rape is never excusable. Any violence preceding or following rape is also never excusable. It doesn't matter if it's an adult or a child, a man or a woman, it's never excusable, it can never be justified - "she was asking for it dressing like that": WTF? "It's not like she matters": WTF? "She's my wife": WTF? "I didn't know it would hurt her": WTF?
Now to race relations. Powerful subject. It's one of those things which bring people together but also tears people apart. It never ceases to amaze me how people think that skin colour makes a god damn difference in whether someone is deserving of violence. It never ceases to amaze me that in this day and age, groups like the Ku Klux Klan still exist. How does your skin colour make you better than someone else? It makes you different, but not better.
But there is one thing I absolutely have to give the movie credit for: it's absolutely honest dealing with the issue of race relations. It was profound to me when Carl Lee deadpans to Jake: "We're not friends." BOOM-down. "We're different." BOOM-down 2. "I picked you, exactly because you're one of the people on the jury." FATALITY! Carl Lee is not taking poppy-cock about "all humans being equal" and "skin colour doesn't matter." Carl Lee recognizes straight up that he's a black man (a nigger, if you will), he's a murderer, and he doesn't have any social stature - all these are points against him when he's faced with a predominantly white, righteous, middle-class jury.
And Jake sits there, swallowing his pride, faced with the awful truth that he either hadn't thought about all along or was trying to bury by mixing with black people. He can't pretend to know exactly what it's like in Carl Lee's shoes because he's not Carl Lee. His playing the "sympathy for the black man" card did nothing but hurt his case. Sticking to the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law only put him back several moves.
I'd talk more about the revenge cycle, and senseless violence, and the different statures afforded by either social position or race, but I cried a lot so I have a headache. Good night, ya'll.
Racial relations and rape are two big issues that I really care deeply about. I love joking about race relations and watching stand-up about it, but I can't ever find rape funny.
Rape is never funny. Rape should never be glorified. Rape is never excusable. Any violence preceding or following rape is also never excusable. It doesn't matter if it's an adult or a child, a man or a woman, it's never excusable, it can never be justified - "she was asking for it dressing like that": WTF? "It's not like she matters": WTF? "She's my wife": WTF? "I didn't know it would hurt her": WTF?
Now to race relations. Powerful subject. It's one of those things which bring people together but also tears people apart. It never ceases to amaze me how people think that skin colour makes a god damn difference in whether someone is deserving of violence. It never ceases to amaze me that in this day and age, groups like the Ku Klux Klan still exist. How does your skin colour make you better than someone else? It makes you different, but not better.
But there is one thing I absolutely have to give the movie credit for: it's absolutely honest dealing with the issue of race relations. It was profound to me when Carl Lee deadpans to Jake: "We're not friends." BOOM-down. "We're different." BOOM-down 2. "I picked you, exactly because you're one of the people on the jury." FATALITY! Carl Lee is not taking poppy-cock about "all humans being equal" and "skin colour doesn't matter." Carl Lee recognizes straight up that he's a black man (a nigger, if you will), he's a murderer, and he doesn't have any social stature - all these are points against him when he's faced with a predominantly white, righteous, middle-class jury.
And Jake sits there, swallowing his pride, faced with the awful truth that he either hadn't thought about all along or was trying to bury by mixing with black people. He can't pretend to know exactly what it's like in Carl Lee's shoes because he's not Carl Lee. His playing the "sympathy for the black man" card did nothing but hurt his case. Sticking to the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law only put him back several moves.
I'd talk more about the revenge cycle, and senseless violence, and the different statures afforded by either social position or race, but I cried a lot so I have a headache. Good night, ya'll.