Robbins' choice of making Poncelet white is strategic and does not
misrepresent reality.  Yes, more blacks and latinos are put to death
proportionally, but whites are also put to death.  By making Poncelet
white, he doesn't eliminate race from the film, but makes it more subtle
and multifaceted.  Poncelet comments that it's his turn to die since the
governor needs to follow the previous two black victims with a white.
Similarly, Prejean lives within a black community, committed to preventing
the strategic condemnation of this population to a life of crime and prison
through education and religion.  Not only is Poncelet white, but he is a
rabid racist, admiring Hitler, wearing a swastika, and spouting epithets.
All of these elements avoid a simplistic black/white dichotomy that effaces
some of the more complex issues surrounding capital punishment.
 
Were the "dead man walking" a black man, clearly identified as the victim
of a racist system, the film would serve as a simplistic condemnation of
the death penalty.  But by making the murderer a neo-Nazi-wannabe, an
anti-capital punishment believer is forced to question his or her own
beliefs.  Robbins did not make a film whose goal is to lobby toward the
ending of capital punishment; he made a film whose goal is to shake the
settled roots of everyone's beliefs and force us to question why we believe
what we believe.  I have always firmly been against the death penalty, but
after seeing Dead Man Walking I feel that I understand my only belief
system more and see the flaws within it, comprehending the very real (and
not immoral) motivations that fosters capital punishment.  Similarly I
believe that a thinking audience member who is pro-capital punishment would
be forced to confront similar feelings and revelations.
 
The entire film avoids neat dualities and simplicities.  To accuse Robbins
of not understanding the issues sounds to me like condemning him for
presenting the multiplicity of issues and the various sides of those
issues.
 
>In Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1996 Miller Farmer wrote an article
>"Distorting Dead Man's Last Wish".He is an Atlanta attorney, represented
>persons sentenced to death, including real life Pat Sonnier.
>
>"...In the fabricated Matthew Pncelet, Robbins and Sarandon not only
>steamroll the truth, they also ignore the racial politics of the death
>penalty with its gross ower-representation of African Americans andd
>Latino persons on the nation's death rows and, particularly the
>outrageous over-representationn of African Americans on Lousiana's death
>row... The fabrications of the film "Dead Man Walking" expose Robbins'
>and Sarandon's lack of understanding of the political and social issues
>surrounding death as punishment."
>
>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.
>
>Jonna Roos
>
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]