‘Antebellum’: It is vital the far-right not be allowed to hijack the movie to weaponize ‘White victimization’
Spoilers for ‘Antebellum’
On July 1, on his podcast, ‘The Ben Shapiro Show’, the right-wing political commentator launched into a tirade against Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed 2017 horror film ‘Get Out’. Shapiro said, “It's unbelievable to me this movie really was not perceived as how racist it is -- the movie ‘Get Out’ is really about this, right. The idea of ‘Get Out’ is a Black man, who's being treated incredibly well by a White family and then, of course, it turns out to be a horror story about them attempting to capture his body and then turn him into a white person on the inside. Right? They literally want to take his body and then take their white souls and put them in his Black body to take control of his body. Right?”
Shapiro added, “This notion that Whiteness is the threat because Whiteness only exists in opposition to Blackness -- the only thing that brings White people together is being in opposition to Black people -- it's quite a linguistic twist. But this is the way that we are going to divide the country and make the country worse and worse. That is the direction in which we are moving.”
Shapiro’s ideas seemingly reject the notion there isn’t a pan-White identity. These ideas are spouted by many from the alt-right to fabricate victimization of whiteness and to weaponize that victimization. And in an increasingly racially-polarized America, it is ideas like these -- rather than the alleged viewpoints they criticize -- that make for a more dangerous future. Unfortunately, Peele’s ‘Get Out’ will not be the only film that received a so-called critique of this nature.
‘Antebellum’, written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz in their feature directorial debuts, will face similar comments. The psychological horror-thriller film follows Veronica Henley (Janelle Monáe), a successful and prominent Black author, feminist, and activist. Henley is outspoken on topics as sensitive as patriarchy, class, and race. And because of her outspokenness, she is abducted and placed into a horrifying reality where she and other African Americans are forced to work and live as slaves on a Southern plantation on the eve of the Civil War.
The horror is surreal. Henley and other Black men and women are tortured, killed, and raped by White Confederate impersonators as if things were still in the past. Henley finally escapes from this Kafkaesque nightmare. But not before she has to pay with the lives of her friends and not before she is compelled to take up arms and slaughter her captors.
Releasing just barely more than a month before the U.S. Presidential elections, and at the center of a countrywide protest against systemic racism, White nationalism, Confederate iconography, and police brutality, ‘Antebellum’ is undoubtedly going to ignite more conversations. But as can be predicted, many will attempt to hijack these conversations with rhetoric similar to what Shapiro presented. And he too will undoubtedly be one of those trying to hijack it.
‘Antebellum’ presents a hyperbolic idea of what racism feels like in the modern-day, by actually taking it back to slavery. And that is an idea that will offend many, and make many more uncomfortable enough that they would resort to offense-taking as a coping mechanism. But it is important to not let those voices drown out what the bigger picture is. It is important to remember why the movie is important and what it is trying to tell -- racism is real to Black men and women and in one way or the other, it always takes them back to where it all started for them.
‘Antebellum’ is available on-demand starting September 18. A theatrical release is still planned for international audiences.
