On the recommendation of a good friend, Cortney and I recently went to see Twelve Years a Slave. The film deals with the American slave trade in the mid 1800s and is based on the true story of Solomon Northup – a free-born African American man living in New York state. After living his entire life as a free man with a wife, three children and home of his own, Northup is stripped of his dignity and identity when kidnapped by men pretending to be his friends. He is smuggled south, where he is sold into slavery. The rest of the film tells the story of his twelve long years as a plantation slave and his desperate attempts to contact his family for help. I haven’t included any real “spoilers” in the six scenes I discuss below since the film is based on Northup’s autobiography – released in 1853. But whatever you do, don’t let this review serve as a replacement for going to see it yourself. A top contender for the Oscar for Best Picture, I would commend it to everyone (though it may be a bit too graphic for young children). So, here they are, my thoughts on six scenes that really stuck with me from 12 Years a Slave.
The film offers many poignant reminders of our country’s brutal and not-so-distant past, as well as the work that still needs to be done in the area of racial prejudice and reconciliation. However, the most disturbing scene for me starts with Northup thrashing about as he dangles from a noose around his neck, surrounded by a group of white field bosses. The overseer arrives just in time to disperse the lynch mob, and though Northup is saved from a gruesome death, the overseer decides to teach him a lesson for being a troublemaker. So instead of cutting the rope, the overseer lowers Northup just enough so that the very tips of his toes barely scrape the ground.
For what seems to be an eternity, we watch as a human being hangs there, gurgling and gasping, unable to call for help as his neck bears the bulk of his body’s weight. Northup is left hanging there all day, and as if this weren’t enough, the rest of the slaves on the plantation come out of their hiding places and go about their chores within full view of Northup – heads down, eyes averted from the abomination occurring in their very midst. The scene is relentless and excruciatingly long. But it is clear that this is the director’s intention. The scene repulses you and at the same time begs you not to hide your eyes. Yes, to witness the heinous injustice perpetrated by someone else, but also as a way for the audience to wrestle with the idea that, in one way or another, all of our hands are dirty.
As much as I squirmed during this and other difficult scenes, I made myself watch. I refused to turn my head, not because I’m some great champion or martyr, but because I recognized the occasion as an opportunity to drive out whatever traces remain of my own racist subtleties. To come to grips with the reality that there are pockets of prejudice that I ignore or call by other names. Whether due to my upbringing, my cultural context, my own ignorance or preconceived notions – whatever the case, I wanted it gone – every last bit of backwards thinking regarding the obvious fact that the helpless man hanging at the end of that rope was just like me.
But as much as I needed the reminder, there were several points throughout this film that I could not help but think of modern parallels – other injustices that people find it hard to think introspectively about. As you read, there may come a few moments when my case starts to feel long and drawn out. Some of this is intentional but I only ask that you give yourself a chance to feel the weight of it. Before you look away, before you say to yourself that you've heard it all before – consider whether or not this film provides a fresh lens with which to see an age-old problem. Stick with me for five more scenes.
SCENE 2
After Northup unknowingly kisses his family goodbye for the last time for the next 12 years, he wakes up in a dark room, chained to the floor. The door of his cell is eventually opened by a character known as Burch. Northup boldly addresses his captor – immediately notifying him of his name and his most basic human nature: “I am Solomon Northup! I am a free man!” Burch acts as if he doesn’t already know this and sarcastically invites Northup to prove his claim to freedom – as if this self-evident fact about all human beings is something anyone should have to “prove”. It becomes clear that Northup will not be able to reason with such a hard and calloused man. Burch knows he has the upper hand and sneers, “You ain't a free man… Yer nuthin' but a runaway nigger from Georgia.” With this, Burch denies Northup's most basic identity as a human; he makes up a lie to obscure the facts of where Northup really came from; and he assigns to Northup an objectified label instead of a person's name.
SCENE 3
Northup is shipped south to the slave market in New Orleans where he is purchased by a man named William Ford. In Ford we have a complex character who, though a slave owner far from innocent, is described by Northup as a "kind, noble, candid, Christian man." He is a man of principle, but one who is also caught at the crossroads of his time. Ford is the one who rushes to cut Northup down as soon as he learns of his employees' cruelty. While Ford tends to Northup’s fragile condition – barely able to speak – Northup pulls Ford in close and tries to tell him the truth about his secret identity, “Master Ford, you must know – I am not a slave.”
The look on Ford’s face reveals that this confession was no news to him, having already taken note of Northup's behavior and abilities – the characteristics and dignity of a man and not of a primitive slave. Conflicted about the position this puts him in, Ford interrupts, “I cannot hear that!” Here stands a man who is not only sympathetic to Northup’s circumstances, but a good man who has the power to grant freedom if only he weren’t so afraid of reprisal from the surrounding community. Northup repeats his confession but again Ford interrupts, “I am trying to save your life!” Ford goes on to explain his completely contradictory plan to “save" Northup’s life by selling him to another plantation owner named Edwin Epps – a cruel and hard man known widely as a “nigger breaker".
THINGS TO NOTE:
– A good person is capable of suppressing the truth.
– It’s better to admit hypocrisy and guilt than to pretend ignorance.
– Silencing the conscience leads to irrationality and callousness.
– Is it possible to make a person’s life better by sending them to a brutal death?
– Doing the right thing is often costly.
SCENE 4
This film has a peculiar ability to squash any possibility of brushing off its message as something we’ve all heard before. At every turn we are reminded of what we cannot afford to forget. Yes, because these are the facts of our history, but also because humans are prone to repeat their mistakes.
There is one scene in this film that lingers in the memory in a much different way than the others – arguably the most haunting scene of them all. While working deep in a overgrown area, Northup is startled when he suddenly crosses paths with a Native American man quietly making his way across the land. Within the span of a few brief moments, their eyes lock; no words are exchanged, but volumes are spoken. During this short encounter Northup is reminded that he is not alone, nor the first to be driven from his home and treated as something less than human. And we are reminded that slavery is only one of the many times our country has treated certain people groups as though they were less than human – their lives not as valuable as the lives of the ruling class.
It would have been much more difficult and costly to expand in the Americas if the original settlers had determined to treat with dignity the native populations that inhabited “our” land. But in the end, they deemed their future hopes and dreams worthy of the carnage and bloodshed – slaughtering untold millions along the way. Likewise, it would have been much more difficult and costly for whites to make their way in the new world had it not been for slavery. But in the end, they decided that the way of life to which they had become accustomed was more important than the actual lives of the slaves – and again, the lives and dignity of millions, trampled.
Instead of curing our ignorance, the explosion of modern technology in the 20th century has only proved to facilitate America’s insistence on abusing “lesser” people groups. In a provocative and rather frightening article, Dr. Tiffany Miller notes that in 1907, the state of Wisconsin asked Edward A. Ross [professor and future national chairman of the ACLU] to provide expert advice regarding the implementation of forced sterilization programs. His suggestion? Start with a narrow definition of what it means to be a “degenerate,” and then, as the public becomes more accustomed to the practice, expand the program until it reaches maximal impact. Another influential American eugenicist at the time, Harry Laughlin, thought this would include the “bottom” 10% of the U.S. population.
Conspicuously absent from most history text books is the little-known fact that Nazi Germany’s systematic dehumanization and extermination of the Jews was a direct product of the eugenics movement popular in United States – advocated at the highest levels of university scholarship and integrated into U.S. public policy decades before Hitler endorsed the program. Again, Miller points out that, during the rise of the Nazi party, “Fritz Lenz… a man who became one of the leading advocates of the Nazi’s 'racial hygiene’ program – criticized his countrymen for lagging behind the United States in the enactment of [forced] sterilization laws.”
After the war ended and the issue of forced sterilizations came up at the Nuremberg war crime tribunals, many Nazis cited the United States as having provided the inspiration for the Nazi model that, not only resulted in hundreds of thousands of forced sterilizations, but also expanded to include “euthanizations” of those who suffered from epilepsy, paralysis, mental disorders and other medical conditions; as well as homosexuals and others deemed as "moral degenerates”. As the world became aware of these horrors after the war, one would think this would signal the end of the eugenics movement in America. But shockingly, dozens of states across the nation continued these programs and as late as 1981 in Oregon. By the end of the “American Century,” between 70,000 and 100,000 women were deemed unfit to enter the American gene pool when they were involuntarily sterilized by federal and state-run agencies because they were non-white, poor, unintelligent or just part of the wrong social class. Many sterilizations were not just involuntary but carried out under the threat of revoking welfare benefits and basic healthcare services if they didn’t comply.
THINGS TO NOTE:
– These are not problems of a bygone era, but a repeated pattern that continues today.
– We have a tendency to naively trust modern “wisdom" and technology.
– Educated, civilized people can nurture ignorance and destructive tendencies of the highest order.
SCENE 5
As the film nears the climax, a female slave named Patsey sneaks away for a few moments for no other reason than to obtain a small piece of soap from a sympathetic neighbor because the stench of her own body causes her to gag. The other slaves have access to such humble provisions, but because Patsey happens to be the object of Master Epps' twisted affection (who repeatedly rapes Patsey), Mrs. Epps denies her the simple decency to wash herself as a way to punish her husband and his helpless victim. When Master Epps notices that Patsey is missing, he goes on a rampage. She isn’t gone for more than a minute when she comes running back to the house, soap in-hand as proof. But it’s too late. Epps has already made a scene, drawing the attention of his wife and the rest of the slaves.
Mrs. Epps recognizes the situation as a perfect opportunity to punish both parties – demanding that her husband flog Patsey. Innocence is caught-up in the middle of a situation that she had no part in starting and now both pride and jealousy must be appeased. Northup tries to diffuse the situation, but instead becomes an unwilling participant in Epps' most vicious expression of cruelty yet. Instead of giving his bitter wife the satisfaction of whipping Patsey himself, Epps orders Northup to do it under threat. Northup reluctantly takes the whip and begins to strike Patsey. Epps is not satisfied with Northup’s half-hearted effort and demands that he try harder or else he will begin shooting the other slaves, one by one. Again Northup tries his best to comply, but Epps’ rage will not be satisfied. He eventually takes the whip from Northup and commences with giving Patsey a proper whipping that literally mutilates the flesh on the young girl’s back. As Patsey shrieks in agony, Northup issues a fearless indictment:
“Thou devil! Sooner or later, somewhere in the course of eternal justice thou shalt answer for this sin!”
To which Epps coldly replies,
It wasn’t really until this scene that the universality of the film’s message crystallized in my mind, extending far beyond what I had expected; mapping perfectly onto several modern parallels to slavery. But for now, one last scene.
THINGS TO NOTE:
– The idea of “people as property” leads to a lack of personal accountability.
– The injustice that results from bad choices taken out on innocent people caught in middle.
SCENE 6
Toward the end of the film we meet the only character in a position to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Master Epps – a carpenter named Samuel Bass from Canada. Epps hired Bass to construct some buildings on his property and, since Northup was also skilled at carpentry, the two became friends while working together. Northup eventually confided his story in Bass and asked for his help.
In a scene straight out of Northup’s autobiography, Bass confronts Epps about his ownership of slaves. Bass inquires, “Is everything right because the law allows it? Suppose they'd pass a law taking away your liberty and making you a slave?”
Epps scoffs at the possibility but Bass presses the issue again, heightening the already charged atmosphere. An increasingly agitated Epps retorts, “That ain't a supposable case,” as if to remind Bass just how deep in the South he was. But again Bass presses the issue:
“Because the law states that your liberties are undeniable? Because society deems it so? Laws change. Social systems crumble. Universal truths are constant. It is a fact, it is a plain fact that what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike.”
A 21st CENTURY PARALLEL
European explorers saw the Americas as “theirs” for the taking. So they started referring to the inhabitants of this continent as “savages” to dehumanize them and to soothe their aching consciences so that they could continue pressing toward a way of life they believed was their right to claim – even if it meant wiping out an entire race of people that stood in the way.
Of course, Americans soon realized that they couldn't sustain this way of life without the scarred backs and broken necks of slaves because, after all, it wasn’t reasonable for whites to sacrifice their way of life after having come so far to attain it. So they started calling people with black skin “niggers” to dehumanize them; to soothe their aching consciences; so that they could continue whipping, raping and lynching – or simply turning a blind eye.
The 3/5ths Compromise, small pox blankets, eugenics, ethnic cleansing, forced sterilizations – a clear pattern has been established that anyone who gets in the way of the "American Dream” is systematically labeled as something less than a person so that they can be treated as sub-human objects – especially if they don’t look or act exactly like us.
So where am I going with all of this? Director Steve McQueen has done us all a great service because this film will not let us forget the ugliness of slavery. But the true power of 12 Years a Slave resides in its ability to remind us that this is a self-destructive pattern that the human race is prone to repeat. And the pattern is not so much a pattern of cruel things that we have done to each other as it is a pattern of falling right back into the foolish pride of thinking that we are somehow too civilized and too educated too fall prey to such backward thinking.
Again, let me implore you to feel the weight of the matter and to truly consider in our modern context. We cringe in horror when Master Epps speaks of Northup and Patsey as his “property,” giving him the “right” to treat them however he pleases – even if it means ending their lives. After all, they really aren’t people, per se. I mean, look at the different color of their skin and the texture of their hair. They can’t even read or write. For goodness sake, they're practically animals – niggers. Again, we cringe at such talk.
But when a mother (or father) speaks of the life growing inside the womb in the same terms, somehow our society seems blind to the same old pattern creeping back in. This thing growing in my body and I have the right to do whatever I choose with it – even if it means ending its life. After all, it’s not really a person, per se. I mean, it looks more like an alien than a human. They can’t even live on their own outside the womb. For goodness sake, a human fetus looks just like an animal fetus early on. Fetus. Embryo. Tissue. Thing. It. We’ll call it anything but a baby girl or baby boy with a name.
In light of all this, what do we make of Northup’s plight? He can’t speak for himself; unable to get a message out to his family – silenced by a system he has no control over. What do we make of Patsey’s plight? Brought into the middle of a situation she didn’t contribute to? What are we to make of William Ford? A good person. A principled person. But a person who silenced his conscience because of the social and financial hardships he would have to endure if he did the right things – the hard thing. And what are we to make of Edwin Epps? A man who thinks he is well within his rights to take the life of the weak simply because they are “his” to do with as he pleases.
In light of all this, what are we to make of ourselves? What role would we play in a modern version of this film?
