MovieChat Forums > 12 Years a Slave (2013) Discussion > I'm not White or American and this movie...

I'm not White or American and this movie made me really ashamed

posted 10 years ago by bobloblah
44 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching this movie and it has wrecked me. Just the fact that even the decent slaveowner couldn't hear Solomon's truth and needed to tell himself that he saved his life. What don't we see? Why do we live with such complacency when so many terrible things are happening in the world?

The wife of the nice slaveowner comforted the mother by saying she would forget about her children....

This movie made me reflect, if I was in those times and subject to that society, would I have the courage to be an active abolitionist? Or would I consign myself and be a guy who goes along with a monstrous system with some *beep* notion of being a nice guy? I would like to tell myself I'd be an abolitionist but I'm not that sure...

Even though I'm indian and canadian, I'm still privileging from sweatshop labor, colonialism, racism, inequality, and all that other *beep* I feel closer to a slaveowner than I ever thought I'd imagine.

I loved this movie to death. The acting and direction were the best of any recent movie I've seen except maybe Birdman (although with much more substantive subject matter). Did anybody else feel this way? Do you feel any moral impetus upon experiencing his plight?

[–] Elephantlips 10 years ago

He's a fictitious character, and it's a movie. So no.

[–] cataclysm1071 10 years ago

Um, nobody in this movie was fictitious. This was a true story

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Poetist 10 years ago

Slavery is propaganda?

What's next, the holocaust?

Hmmm.... let's see you tap dance out of this one.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] Poetist 10 years ago

What is there to "tap dance" out of, dumb fck? He never said slavery was propaganda. You did.

Oh, so we resort to names, because you can't speak any facts or better yet keep your mouth shut, to leave a little doubt you are a fool.

Listen, you ignorant fck, this jerk has been trolling and trying to downplay slavery.

Where is there a propaganda?

Do you know what that even means?

It means: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

His words: Its a propaganda film.

The subject of this movie is slavery; the theme is that it is bad. How is this film misleading? How is the information untrue. Slavery is in the history books.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Poetist 10 years ago

What lies? You idiot.

Please list them or shut the F up.

Better yet, go back to school and bury your head in a book, because you will never find any lies in my post.

[–] damonikastephens 10 years ago

Don't feed into Rvabread. He's trying to downplay slavery and thinks it's not as bad as the Holocaust. Even when we proved him otherwise.

[–] Black_Lies_Matter 10 years ago

You suggested he said slavery was propaganda. That's a lie. He never said that.
You seriously couldn't understand what I was referring to from the get-go, even though I copy and pasted it and put it into quotes, before I responded to it?



Wow. I'm not sure whether you're more of a coward, more of a liar or more of a dumb fck.

[–] Poetist 10 years ago

Damon:

Don't feed into Rvabread.

Okay, I think I got it - Barry is also Rvabread.

Jeez, I don't know why people find the need to create multiple accounts just to spout off the same crap as they did under another name?

Senseless.

[–] littlegeorgie 10 years ago

No...not quite. It's two different guys. One is quite serious. One is anything but serious.

This is my entry from earlier today...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/board/thread/239674647?d=240135078#240135078

[–] Black_Lies_Matter 10 years ago

So, you just post another lie and then run off like a yellow-bellied coward?



[–] AntiSpielbergForce 10 years ago

So, you're defining propaganda in a way that suits your viewpoint. "Propaganda is what the other guys do. We don't do it, cause we're the good guys. And let's repeat that in newspapers, TV and movies so you don't forget." The greatest propaganda coup of democracy is convincing people that democracy doesn't need propaganda to sustain itself.

This movie is propaganda. It's created to change people's views. It's misleading because it shows a concentrated part of the excesses of the time period. It's biased from the viewpoint of modern morality. The OP and other people who feel "guilty" or "ashamed" are very much being misled in the larger cultural context of their remoulding into timid creatures being a desired goal. I can argue that guilt and self-hatred in no way benefits a person or "people". It certainly benefits the persons and "peoples" who are not supposed to feel guilty though, but entitled or angry. You can claim that this movie highlights a real subject, but don't claim it's not propaganda and try to get away with it.

[–] activista 10 years ago

#AntiSpielberg

This movie is propaganda. It's created to change people's views. It's misleading because it shows a concentrated part of the excesses of the time period.

How is this film,which is based on a true story, since you don't seem to know that, propaganda in any shape or form at all? I don't see anybody calling the Holocaust films "propaganda" sine they are anti-Nazi films. And, uh, sorry, but NO one is asking white people to feel guilty about a damn thing just because you're watching a film about slavery. Funny how slavery is the only historical American topic that white people will say this silly bull**** about. Simply watch the film, acknowledge that it happened, and move on. The point is, thought, that the racism that was bred into both black and white people during slavery is still around to this very day---that's on legacy we have yet to shed, to some extent.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bek-12 10 years ago

Who was a fictitious character?

[–] caprica1999 8 years ago

Try again

[–] bureau203 10 years ago

Nope, I sure didn't. I'm white and American, and I still feel no guilt or shame. I had nothing to do with slavery. I've never owned a slave, or supported slavery in any way. Why would I feel guilty for what happened?

The idea that I hold some responsibility for slavery because of the color of my skin is as racist as saying a black man should be held responsible for what other black people did.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Yep.

[–] PaladinNJ (21528) 2 years ago

Well said. It's history. Learn from it. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Don't make others who had nothing to do with it feel like they are responsible.

[–] Thought_Criminal_J62377 10 years ago

bobloblah, you need to wake up and realize that slavery has been going on since the beginning of time, so the title of your post exposes you as naive and unfair.

I see Stupid People...

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

That's true. After the battle the attacking army would take people of the enemy's nation prisoners and they become slaves.

[–] Gemma_Philips 10 years ago

I just finished watching this movie and it has wrecked me. Just the fact that even the decent slaveowner couldn't hear Solomon's truth and needed to tell himself that he saved his life. What don't we see? Why do we live with such complacency when so many terrible things are happening in the world?

The wife of the nice slaveowner comforted the mother by saying she would forget about her children....

This movie made me reflect, if I was in those times and subject to that society, would I have the courage to be an active abolitionist? Or would I consign myself and be a guy who goes along with a monstrous system with some *beep* notion of being a nice guy? I would like to tell myself I'd be an abolitionist but I'm not that sure...

Even though I'm indian and canadian, I'm still privileging from sweatshop labor, colonialism, racism, inequality, and all that other *beep* I feel closer to a slaveowner than I ever thought I'd imagine.

I loved this movie to death. The acting and direction were the best of any recent movie I've seen except maybe Birdman (although with much more substantive subject matter). Did anybody else feel this way? Do you feel any moral impetus upon experiencing his plight?

I would be nore ashamed about having been ignorant my whole life about slavery.

I knew slavery was shameful before I saw this film like everybody else, but somehow you had gone through life until the point you watched this film knowing not how shameful slavery was .... and worse, you now feel responsible for for the slavery because, if you did not, why would shame be felt. You speak of complacency like we all indulge in it.

Some of us are very active to defend the rights of ethnic minorities and for no thanks, so your use of 'we' is misplaced.

As for colonialism, without that a worse nation than Britain would have colonised the Country. Be thankful it was them and not the Poruguese and Spanish who practiced genocide. Remember too the 13 Colonies of America still had native Americans after the British left, as did Canada ... it was the Americans who killed them.

The infrastructure of Canadian society, schooling, healthcare, justice, law, sanitation and commerce was put in place by the British before they left Canada with a democratic government. No other nation did this with any of their colonies. Britain did it with all their colonies.

So be further ashamed talking about Colonialism like it was a bad thing.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] sofia2173 9 years ago

"This movie made me reflect"

Well my good person, it should make you reflect but going through the board, you seem to be one of the few.If you bothered to ask yourself this question, chances are you wouldn't conform in that society as i'm guessing you don't tend to do in this one either.

This movie messed up inside. It caused me more emotional pain than anything I've experienced in my own life.

It made me feel ashamed too, not for being white but for calling myself a human being.

I knew about slavery of course but there is a big difference between hearing and seeing.

This movie changed my answer to the age-old question, is man good or evil.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] herbsuperb 9 years ago

I'm not White or American and this movie made me really ashamed

That's good. You don't have to be white and/or American to be ashamed of human slavery. Every race and culture on earth can share that shame, even though so very few living today have any real connection to slavery (mostly criminal enterprises these days). Arguing that only Whites and Americans should have guilt about slavery is fallacious to say the least. My words would be 'stupid' and 'ignorant'. Quite frankly, it is racist to hold that view. Non-white and non-American cultures were enslaving their fellow human beings long before America was even a thing. Cruelty abounded in those situations every bit as much as the cruelty portrayed in 12 Years a Slave.