The Movie Club

Hollywood and Race

Dear David,

Re our discussion of the function of the Michael Clarke Duncan character in The Green Mile: I agree with you about his presentation as an embodiment of mistaken southern rape fantasies. My description of his function in the film was just that, a description, not a defense. I intended to convey more or less the same thing you conveyed, that his character was yet another example of a movie’s black character functioning as the absolver of white pain and guilt.

I think movies work in mysterious ways, however, and if The Green Mile reaches a large audience, not all of them, perhaps not most of them, will share the sophistication of the members of this discussion. Most people just go to a movie. They react to the story on levels they do not articulate to themselves. It may be that for some of them, the scene where John Coffey heals the warden’s wife will play in a positive way. They will think (not in so many words) that appearances are misleading, that you can’t judge a man by your prejudices, that it is wrong to fear a man like Coffey just because of his imposing physical presence.

The fact is, of course, that the moment the John Coffey character and his story are established, we know without any question or additional exposition that he did not assault and murder the two little white girls, because no Hollywood movie of this sort would ever present an African-American character in such a light. By and large, when black characters are presented as guilty in films, it is only so that their innocence can be established, as a demonstration of racist assumptions.

We know that, but many members of the audience will not. The film may work on them like a useful parable. I think that was King’s intention in writing the story, and would possibly be Darabont’s justification for the character.

Has race so sensitized us that no black character can appear in any movie without being analyzed as a black character? I do not argue that the viewer of The Green Mile should be colorblind: John Coffey is obviously presented as an imposing black man, and that is one of the points of the way his character is developed. I just say that if every black character must be passed through a prism of political correctness, that is not fair to the character, the actor, or the author. For example, the character of Little Melvin the pimp in Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights made me uncomfortable, and yet doubtless such characters existed at that time, and Orlando Jones does a lively job with the performance, and if I am watching a movie about a (Jewish) man who runs a numbers game, is it not possible one of his customers might be like this man?

Re Magnolia: I did get the idea you were discussing critics’ reactions at the Magnolia screening, not their post-mortem at another screening. I was told, however, that there was laughter and derision at a New York Magnolia screening. And also at one in Boston.

But let me ask you: Do you think critics should make their opinions known publicly at a screening? My own feeling is that the film deserves its chance to develop in the minds of its viewers before being defined in a tidal wave of buzz. At film festivals, when I’m asked what I thought of a film I just saw, I often reply, “I don’t like to discuss them until I’ve written my review.” I have often violated that rule in private conversations, but try never to publicly broadcast my opinion to my fellow viewers after a screening.

Best,
Roger