White privilege and 12 Years A Slave

[PJ]

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Somewhat, yes. Obviously not unanimously among white people, but at least in this article, Stevens criticism of the movie as being gruesome does have a dose of white supremacy within it. The movie was not meant to gross out viewers; the so-called "gruesome" parts were to show the horrors of slavery. It's almost as if Stevens is saying, "It couldn't have possibly been that bad. White people have decency!" Even if at a subconscious level, she feels a sort of unwarranted "solidarity" towards her race, which seems to exist today more than it should. It pains her to be reminded that White people were once that awful, so she wishes that the media would stop emphasizing the goriness of slavery, or slavery in general. There is literally no way that you can paint slaveowners as good guys during this era without being racist at KKK-levels, so people like her would rather they didn't continue to document it.

But if she was offended by how "gross" the movie was, she completely missed the point of it.

[PJ]

It doesn't sound that Stevens was denying that that stuff actually happened, just questioning whether emphasizing the sheer gruesomeness/violence/sexual horror of it is the best way to communicate the intended message. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't now if that is at all true.

The point of the gruesomeness is to emphasize the horrors of slavery.

[PJ]

It doesn't sound that Stevens was denying that that stuff actually happened, just questioning whether emphasizing the sheer gruesomeness/violence/sexual horror of it is the best way to communicate the intended message. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't now if that is at all true.

The point of the gruesomeness is to emphasize the horrors of slavery.

I realize that. I think that the point that Stevenson is trying to make is that those tactics (that is, emphasis on physical violence) might not necessarily be the best way to get the viewer to consider the theme(s) of the film.

Why not, exactly? To emphasize the horrors of slavery, the movie emphasizes the gruesomeness of it, which is actually realistic in this case. It's not necessarily exaggeration; the goal is to show how awful it really was, no holes barred.

[PJ]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Somewhat, yes. Obviously not unanimously among white people, but at least in this article, Stevens criticism of the movie as being gruesome does have a dose of white supremacy within it. The movie was not meant to gross out viewers; the so-called "gruesome" parts were to show the horrors of slavery. It's almost as if Stevens is saying, "It couldn't have possibly been that bad. White people have decency!" Even if at a subconscious level, she feels a sort of unwarranted "solidarity" towards her race, which seems to exist today more than it should. It pains her to be reminded that White people were once that awful, so she wishes that the media would stop emphasizing the goriness of slavery, or slavery in general. There is literally no way that you can paint slaveowners as good guys during this era without being racist at KKK-levels, so people like her would rather they didn't continue to document it.

But if she was offended by how "gross" the movie was, she completely missed the point of it.

That seems like an unfair indictment of "White people" considering the vast majority of white people who were alive at that time never owned a slave in their lives.

It's not white people as a whole; simply the concept that a single white person would own slaves and be brutal towards them.