On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Jonna E M Roos wrote:
 
> I found Farmer's critique relevant and so true. There are more prisons
> than schools and governement is putting whole generation of African
> Americans and Latinos to prison. In doing so,they just wipe the problem
> under their carpet.
>
 
 
        While there's no doubt that this is the case, and while there's
no doubt that any document claiming to document "capital punishment" in
the US is going to have to address this problem, I don't think a
filmmaker bears the same responsibility. I don't have to be arguing that
Robbins' political credentials are unimpeachable (beleive me, I wouldn't)
to say that I have no doubt he's aware of the racial politics of capital
punishment. He might very well not take that consideration far enough for
either of us, but lets face it, any liberal worth the paper his politics
are written on (and with liberals that often about all there is) can
quote statistics about the racial/ethnicdisparity not only on death row
but in sentencing in general.
 
        I think in raising that objection you face the prospect of that
movie with an African-American murderer, and you come out with a movie a
lot more politically problematic than the one you've already got. Think
about the number of white people who have come out of the movie with a
feeling that that guy DESERVED to die and then consider how many more
such people would have that feeling if the murderer was not white. We'd
end up with a much less effective polemic than we do with a white
(racist) murderer. And there's also the question of presenting ANOTHER
black male rapist/murderer to the already saturated american imagination.
 
        Alternatively, you have pictures of black men on death row all
over the place and keep your white protagonist or have the nun uttering
platitudes to somebody about the racial imbalance we're talking about. I
don't think either of those options would work very well either.
 
        I guess you might answer that you wouldn't make the same movie,
and there I'm with you. I think it did often take the easy way out. I
personally was annoyed with Robbins' obsession with the notion of
"getting everyone in" as far as this particular crime is concerned. His
excessive responsibility (which I would contrast to the really cynical
satire of the much better Bob Roberts) to "everyone's perspective" is a
fantasy which ultimately points to the narrative's desire for
control-through-knowledge rather than to any real discursive pluralism.
The figure for that desire, which I see as pretty sick when it all comes
down, is the saintly Sister. Its with Robbin's representation of her work
among black people that I reallt find the film's racism being manifest.
The black characters there are present, as far as I'm concerned, only to
demonstrate (further) the nun's (I'm sorry I can't remember her name,
this 'the nun' thing is I'm sure annoying) goodness. And when their
thinking IS respresented, its only for them to represent a problem for
her because they can't understand her defending a racist. This is despite
the fact that many of the people in the community are far more away of
the disparaate effect of the death penalty than any middle-class liberal. It
left such a taste of condescension in my mouth that it got in the way of my
 enjoying the
better parts of the movie.
 
 
Sean Desilets
Tufts University
 
 
 
 
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