Meet the cast of this summer’s most intense movie. #DETROITmovie pic.twitter.com/ncyG8Wihhw
— DETROIT (@DetroitMovie) July 7, 2017
Next month an oft-forgotten story is coming to the big screen. Kathryn Bigelow, the only woman to have won an Academy Award for Best Director of Hurt Locker, lent her talent to produce a film called Detroit. The story she seeks to tell is based on true events.
In Detroit, in the summer of 1967, the community was rioting after police raided an unlicensed after hours bar called the blind pig. Inside the bar, 82 African Americans were celebrating the return of two soldiers from the Vietnam War. Police decided to arrest every one there. While they attempted to arrange for transportation for 82 people , a doorman, who later and identified himself as Walter Scott III, threw a bottle at a police officer.
Even after the police left, the community was still angry. They began rioting and looting. Because it was Sunday, much of the action went unchecked. Buildings were burnt down, stores were looted, firefighters attempting to extinguish fires were shot by rioters who had stolen guns from stores that had been raided.
By Tuesday, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered federal troops be sent in to the city.
As you can imagine, during all of this chaos and confusion, police who may have already held racist ideologies about Black folk, were tired and overwhelmed. They made no distinctions in the arrests they made of suspects vs local citizens. Women who were arrested were reportedly stripped and fondled, while officers took pictures.
Despite everything that was happening on the street, the most egregious example of police brutality came from the Algiers Motel. It’s the motel incident that informs the plot of Detroit.
Police responded to a call that shots had been fired. There they found two White female cosmetology students, who had traveled with a group of several local Black men to the hotel. After everything was said and done, the police had killed three Black men and tortured the rest by throwing knives at their feet and threatening to kill them in some type of sick game. None of the officers were held accountable for their actions.
The story is certainly one that needs to be shared. Until I did my own research, in preparation for this very article, it wasn’t one I’d ever heard before.
Today, people are talking about Detroit on Twitter but not because of the story.
Instead, they’re discussing this picture of the cast.
That’s a wrap on the #DETROITmovie LA press weekend. pic.twitter.com/dGwN1mCZkz
— DETROIT (@DetroitMovie) July 9, 2017
The reaction to this image, for some people, has not been favorable.
I still don’t understand why there are no black women in the main cast of #detroitmovie pic.twitter.com/PNIGtdRa10
— Hanna Flint (@HannaFlint) July 10, 2017
Haven’t you heard? Black women don’t live in Detroit. 🙄
— inTranslation (@MsEnglish1) July 11, 2017
It wasn’t long before people started swearing off seeing the film.
There’s no black women then I’m not watching. Thanks.
— Reformed Guttersnipe (@RegularBlack_) July 13, 2017
Interestingly enough, there are Black women in the film. If you look at the trailer above, you’ll see that Samira Wiley has a role as a front desk attendant in the hotel. Victoria, our senior editor, had the chance to attend an advanced screening and mentioned that there are Black women in the movie. They just play background roles. There are mothers, sisters and girlfriends. And, according to her, they have speaking parts.
So this image wasn’t necessarily a picture of the entire cast, it’s the principle cast, for which Black women are not included.
Once people explained that the story wasn’t about the Detroit riots at large but mostly what happened at the hotel, someone argued that the film has been improperly named.
If you’re gonna name your movie Detroit, maybe choose a narrative that’s more inclusive to the people who actually live here.
— Mike Tré (@TheMikeTre) April 12, 2017
In other words, don’t put our city in your title if the narrative you chose only tells a fraction of the whole story.
— Mike Tré (@TheMikeTre) April 12, 2017
I get the emotion behind the tweets. Black women have been so forgotten in almost every facet in life, it would seem that in a story that directly affects our lives, we would be able to occupy some space. When Black men are beaten, tortured, abused and killed, it is often Black women who are left to deal with the aftermath of that. And unfortunately, in the media and in the historical accounts of some of the biggest movements of this nation, Black women are either pushed to the margins or forgotten about entirely.
I can see how Black women looked at the image and felt this was another way in which we were being excluded.
But that is not the case for this film. Black women were included, they just weren’t represented in this picture. And there were those who argued that perhaps Black women weren’t featured in the picture because they’re not seen as marketable or as important. But this is a picture from a press event. I’m sure, in retrospect, the studio should have sent a Black women out there to promote the movie as well. But when there are 14 principle characters, I can see how a background role wasn’t priority.
As I mentioned, Victoria saw the film. And when I told her about the backlash it was receiving on Twitter, she, a Black woman, didn’t agree.
“I just think it’s sad and putting out the wrong message about the film, going after it and possibly putting a bug in other people’s ears/minds about the film before anybody knows the full story or know whether or not they would support it in the first place. We all spend too much attacking something without real knowledge about it or experiencing it, yet we say we want more Black stories…”
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