As Black History Month begins, we celebrate historical black figures who have made important contributions to the world who are often overlooked because history books really only want to talk about old white men. Some of these overlooked black figures are shown in the movie Hidden Figures, which portrays the true stories of three black women, Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, working at NASA to help put men on the moon in the face of racism and sexism.
I watched this movie about two weeks ago with my family and loved it. It was a great movie, and while I could go into the details of why, that’s not the point of this article. When we were leaving the theater, we were talking about the movie, of course, and my mom said something that just rubbed me the wrong way.
“I wish there were more feel good movies like this one.”
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she just meant movies in general. But it got me thinking. Why should a white person ask for a “feel good” movie about racism? This movie was a feel good movie sure, it was amazing to see strong black women overcoming the obstacles that a racist, sexist society had put in front of them. It is important to have this kind of movie, and more of them would surely be good.
But it wasn’t made to make white people feel good. We don’t get to ask for movies about racism that make us feel good. Racism should not make us feel good. When we see racism in film, we should be uncomfortable, we shouldn’t be wishing the movie didn’t make us feel bad. We have a history of being oppressors, and we need to be aware and acknowledge that.
“We don’t get to ask for movies about racism that make us feel good. Racism should not make us feel good.”
So when we ask for movies about racism that don’t make us feel bad about the racism, we do an injustice to everyone who has been and continues to be oppressed by our racist past (and present). We ignore that racism does not feel good, that it does not always give us happy endings where no one dies, or where white people turn against the injustice, and everyone comes out a winner and a lesson learned. It just doesn’t happen. Racism is violent, it kills, it hurts, it destroys. We cannot ignore this or ask for it to be ignored because it makes us uncomfortable. It isn’t up to us to make this decision, and it shouldn’t be.
Asking for more movies with racism that are more positive isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Giving minority children positive representation can really be inspiring as they grow up seeing people of color in strong, leading positions. It is actually something that we need more of. But when asking for more of these types of movies we must be fully aware of why we’re asking for them and it’s imperative to recognize that these movies are not needed for us as white people to feel better about ourselves.
