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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   32483 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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I very randomly watched A Time to Kill, a now mostly forgotten film that had some super-hot takes on the culture war back when it came out in 1996. Overall, I liked it a lot and thought it threw out some genuinely interesting moral considerations, but I also found the tone and message... wonky.

The premise - In the Deep South of Alabama (presumably in 1996), two drunk red neck good old boys who liberally say "nigger" and have a Confederate flag on their truck are trawling around town harassing random people. On a whim, they kidnap, rape, torture, and try to murder a 10 year old black girl. She survives, but is left with lots of injuries, including being unable to ever have children.

The rednecks are quickly arrested and everyone in town hopes they'll receive swift justice, but some people aren't so sure they will. Alabama is still considered deeply racist, and apparently a similar case a few years ago saw different perpetrators escape punishment. So the father (Samuel L. Jackson) takes matters into his own hands. While the two suspects are being marched through the local court house on the way to their trial, the father guns them down with an assault rifle, and accidentally wounds a police officer in the process.

The rest of the movie is a courtroom drama where a white lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) defends the father while the local DA (Kevin Spacey) tries to charge him with double first-degree murder. Meanwhile, the brother of one of the suspects tries to get the literal KKK to terrorize the lawyer to sabotage the defense. He's told that there is no KKK in town, but through some contacts, the brother finds the nearest Grand Wizard who then commands the brother to set up a local chapter. Throughout the trial, the KKK launches various terrorist attacks on the town and amasses 100+ members to march through the streets, and gets into violent encounters with pro-father protesters.

To get to the most interesting culture war-y part, I need to SPOIL the plot, so don't read on if you don't want to know what happens in a 25 year old movie.

The Defense mostly fucks up in the trial and it looks like the father is going to be convicted. The biggest problem for the Defense is that the jury is all white and presumed to be racist/unsympathetic. In one scene, the jurors are shown talking about the trial (illegally) the night before its conclusion, and all 12 jurors admit that they will vote guilty (one of whom even refers to the defendant as a "nigger").

Cut to the climactic closing statements of the trial. The DA gives a rousing speech about how he feels sorry for the father given what his daughter went through, but the law is the law, and you can't just murder two men in cold blood because they wronged you. Then McConaughey gives his closing statement: he recounts in gruesome detail every step of the 10 year old girl's kidnapping, torture, and rape, and concludes with... "now imagine if she was white."

The Defense wins the trial. The father is cleared of all charges and goes free. The film's narrative portrays this as an unambiguously good thing.

There's a lot to unpack here, but a few prompts:

  1. Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist? Would the random average white person in Alabama at that time be considered racist enough by default that they would automatically side against any black defendant? Were there enough real, true, hardcore racists that the KKK could field 100+ protesters at a big racial trial?

  2. How differently, if at all, would such a trial be perceived today?

  3. What is a proper punishment for the father, if any? If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context. I most certainly wouldn't be comfortable with finding him not guilty, not if we want to have a functional society.

Non-culture war addendum - the movie has an insane amount of contemporary and future movie stars. There's Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Kurtwood Smith, Oliver Platt, Chris Cooper, Charles Dutton, and I'm proud of myself for spotting Octavia Spencer as a literal extra.

My reactions to reading your synopsis:

  • This sounds like a social justice fantasy so outrageous that it borders on pornographic

  • This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped (and sure enough @Folamh3 says it was; do you have a link to the case?)

To your prompts:

  1. "No" to all those questions. Alabama in 1996 is much closer to Alabama in 2023 than to Alabama in 1926.

  2. Not very differently. Which is to say, both back then and today the jury would have been quite fair and just, unlike the ridiculous civil rights fantasy the movie portrays. Alabama today might actually be slightly less tolerant than Alabamians in 1996, since back then they were on board with "colorblind" race relations as a sort of truce. Now, racial identity politics and tribalism are on the rise, but I still don't think it would be enough to change how the trial would be handled.

  3. Light sentence for the murders of the two scumbags, and whatever the standard sentence is for unintentionally shooting someone.

Not very differently. Which is to say, both back then and today the jury would have been quite fair and just, unlike the ridiculous civil rights fantasy the movie portrays.

Like, this isn’t Alabama, and this is just one case, but I dunno, man.

The assailants did NOT think Chin was Japanese. They told a guy they'd pay him $20 to help them find "a Chinese guy".

My experience of autoworkers suggests that they do not know the difference between the various Asian ethnicities.

General experience doesn't really hold up against the actual attackers telling someone they were looking for a Chinese guy. As for Colwell, her testimony obtained her a lighter sentence in an unrelated matter.

Link: https://www.leagle.com/decision/19891862537so2d132511825

Thank you.

This sounds like a social justice fantasy so outrageous that it borders on pornographic

It's still a pretty good movie. Hollywood used to be a lot better at making their ideological messaging movies actually enjoyable as movies, too. True Believer or Runaway Jury come to mind as liberal/lefty propaganda (even my left liberal wife was a bit disgusted by the theory of the case in Runaway Jury's lawsuit, and she's as anti-gun as any given young liberal woman who doesn't know much about politics) that are also really enjoyable movies.

Hell, a lot of courtroom/law dramas from the 70s, 80s, and 90s have an almost unabashed liberal slant while still being good.

The problem with woke movies these days isn't necessarily the wokeness, it's that the writers seem to think the wokeness was enough and they forget to make the movie good.

The problem with woke movies these days isn't necessarily the wokeness, it's that the writers seem to think the wokeness was enough and they forget to make the movie good.

Hasn't that been discussed as intentional? That is to say, if the movie is good, you might catch a bunch of people who just like good movies with your signaling. If the movie is bad, the only reason to signal that you like it is to endorse the message.

This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped

Huh? You're saying if a white man murdered two black men that raped and tortured a white girl, an all-black jury would let the murderer off the hook entirely?

Oops, good catch, my wording was completely wrong. I meant that if two black men abused and killed a white child, I wouldn't be surprised for them to get away with a relatively light sentence.

Mohamed Bakari Shei just got sentenced to 180 days for raping a 9 and 4 year old. Fairly ridiculous, I'd agree.

The black guys who stabbed Tessa Majors to death got 14yrs, 9yrs, and 18 months respectively.

Brittany Covington got 4 months probation for kidnapping and torture, though the victim was a mentally disabled 18 year old and not a child.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Chicago_torture_incident

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