Surprisingly good take for the Guardian.
I could be wrong, but I don't recall hearing the words Marx or Marxism uttered even once in the film. The Queen's Gambit had more mentions of Marxism-Leninism.
From the article:
But it largely ignores his Marxist, anti-capitalist politics
Except the first time they show him on screen they use his "we don't fight capitalism with black capitalism" quote! They use the very quote this author is mad at Cory Booker for leaving a part out of!
This is a 3000 word essay mad at the fact they didn't say communism in the movie.
Everyone should read @bad's comment because they are right. It's a good movie and a very honest portrayal of Hampton AND of Hampton's politics.
Akin Olla ... is the host of This Is the Revolution Podcast
Its always a podcaster :deeper-sadness:
I swear on my life leftist can't just like a movie anymore.
Doesn't that quote play in the background while the shot is focused on different characters? I saw someone say the same in another discussion thread.
If I remember correctly, it was playing while Hoover was giving a speech, BUT he stopped talking to let the clip play so it wasn't like he was talking over it (I just rewatched it right now and yeah they let it play so it wasn't being talked over and even though it wasn't the focus of the scene it was the focus of the moment).
Even still, the first time the actual character is in the movie not on a video, he talks about not accepting liberal reforms (a school got a building name changed) and says that revolution flows from the barrel of a gun and that they only believe in revolutionary culture.
Nice, I've been meaning to watch it so I'm glad to hear it isn't as watered down as the other film portrayals of civil rights leaders.
I've said it before somewhere, but its honestly the best, most honest portrayal of a revolutionary I can remember.
I have some nitpicks of the movie, but overall I loved it. Its probably more enjoyable and eye-opening for people who knew nothing of the story or were just taught that the Panthers were the black version of the KKK instead of uber-online leftists who have read books about Hampton and watched other docs about the Panthers.
I don’t get why people wanted the movie to be a documentary on the Black Panthers’ activities. It’s not even a biopic. It’s a crime/snitch movie about Hampton’s betrayal by O’Neal. It tells that story and it tells it well. How much Marx or Mao were mentioned didn’t really factor into the movie’s quality, and even then, the BPP’s political inclinations are made abundantly clear. I guess it’s too bad they didn’t use the word “communism” so all the criticism could be directed at other aspects of the movie.
The movie is far from perfect, I particularly hated that it was told from the perspective of the rat. But it was a much more radical depiction of Fred Hampton than I expected to get in a Hollywood movie and I think it's useful as part of a pipeline to socialism. A lot of Americans don't know the history of the Black Panther Party or what they did for their communities because that is not taught in schools, and those same people don't know that the FBI and police departments have been assassinating black leaders for generations. This film makes Fred Hampton look great and also quite radical and revolutionary to the standards of your average American, even if it doesn't fully represent how radical he was; it makes the Black Panther Party look great; and it holds few punches in making the FBI and cops look bad, accurately showing Hampton's death to be an explicit assassination ordered by Hoover with Chicago cops executing him after the raid and hailstorm of bullets they fired left him still breathing.
I would've preferred a biopic of Fred Hampton as the radical revolutionary he is instead of what we got, too. And I think having grown men play the parts really downplays just how young they all were. The FBI brought the rat in at 17...17!!!! How different does that scene look with a 17 y.o. kid instead of Lakeith Stanfield who's about to be 30? And Fred Hampton was only 21 when assassinated. But I entered the movie skeptically and ended up really moved by all the Fred Hampton parts, especially the beginning and end where they show real clips. I think it's one of the more explicitly radical Hollywood films that I've seen.
A lot of Americans don’t know the history of the Black Panther Party
THIS. I'm not American but took high school in America, and in pretty conservative places. I remember being taught Black Panthers were terrorists. This movie isn't perfect, but I think it's such a good start for people taught almost nothing or worse than nothing.
Dude isn't really a socialist but Tim Black had a pretty good breakdown of the movie. Was it perfect? No, of course not. If you really think that Hollywood is going to finance a movie that would truly undermine everything they stand for then you need to log off for a while and read. It was well done and definitely worth watching. Fred Hampton is one of those people who no matter how much I read about or listen to, I always feel like I'm hearing it for the first time. That's mostly because as a 90s suburban white kid I never even heard his name until I was 23, and even then had to dig to find good information on him. Like Tim says in the video, if this gets more people to look into who he is and what he stood for, then that's a good thing. Stop shitting on it.
Check out "The Killing of Fred Hampton" on Vimeo. Made in 1971 so maybe lacking some context we know now.
Is it worth watching though? Or is it a waste of time if you are a Marxist-Leninist?
That's good to know, I will watch it. It's good to see hollywood coming out of cold war propaganda period.
Yes, it's a good movie and I enjoyed it a lot. The points mentioned in this article didn't strike me until long after I viewed it.
The writers seem pretty cool too, judging by the interview with them that I heard on Pod Damn America. They explained Hampton's speeches were too radical to whitewash the anti-capitalism, and they said that Warner Bros. allowed a lot more anti-capitalist and anti-cop content than they expected. However, they didn't say that the studio didn't demand any cuts either, and I was left with the subtext that the suits demanded cuts that the writers were too professional to mention. If that's the case, I'd put my money on it being the Marxism.
That sounds great, I like American cinema, big fan of Kubrick for "Full Metal Jacket" and "Doctor Strangelove". It's good to see more mainstream hollywood films presenting an anti-capitalist narrative.
FMJ and Strangelove are remembered as simply being movies.
Yes, in my opinion the fact that they were really great films made by a real auteur, a master of cinematic language, is part of what makes them so good. A lot of the time propaganda doesn't work very well because although the message is good, it cannot really succeed as art.
FMJ, especially, has a vocal chud fan base who fetishize all the fucked up things in the movie.
Apologies, what is chud? I am new here and google is not giving me anything. Based on the context I imagine it is some sort of slang for people who are not very bright?
It stands for cannibalistic humanoid underground dweller and is reference to the movie CHUD. We use it to describe reactionaries/right wing extremists.
The intended political message was fine. It was the dull prestige film visual language that makes it look lib.
They're more dialogue focused ImO. so the visuals in service to that. Hence most of Fred's activism was shown as speeches which was contrasted with most other dialogue with Fred being with his wife already. Reinforcing the liberal distinction of the political separated from the domestic. Also so much took place in cars jesus.
Yeah all the new woke blacksploitation movies are white washing history
I recommend the movie. Maybe not as radical as people like us want, but I still think it deserves more credit than to be called white washed blacksploitation
I've gotten two people to join up w DSA after making them watch and talk about it afterwards. It can be a powerful radicalization tool.
I agree, even though this film is probably the least guilty of that.
Yeah :this: . I knew Fred was a communist so I sort of inserted that knowledge that into every scene, but it could be read differently and I think that was intentional.
Studios feel safe making movies about ACAB now, but Marx and Lenin are still too spicy.
