And now, the film is already available on Apple TV. Emancipation tells the story of Peter (Will Smith), a man that escapes slavery and attempts to lose his captors by traversing Louisiana’s unforgiving swamps.
Some entertainment pundits questioned whether Apple would maintain the film’s release schedule. After all, the Oscar slap is still a point of debate to this day.
Some are not convinced that Smith has atoned appropriately for his actions. Apple was probably tempted to wait until the noise surrounding the actor died down before releasing the movie.
They took a gamble and the first trailer received a rousing response from audiences and critics that lauded Emancipation as a possible Oscar contender. Naturally, this generated even more debate. Many wondered whether the Academy would reverse Smith’s 10-year ban if he won Best Actor.
Those conversations don’t matter at the moment because the film has a rotten tomatoes critic score of 44 percent. Reviewers called the film ‘Overthought,’ ‘Manipulative,’ and ‘Relentlessly Grim.’ So clearly, this isn’t the guaranteed Oscar darling people expected. But the Oscars don’t matter to me.
Emancipation piqued my interest primarily because I noticed the somewhat contentious conversation it had sparked among black moviegoers on the internet.
I watched the trailer and immediately wrote the movie off. I have nothing against Will Smith, and you won’t catch me boycotting any of his films because of that Oscar slap. That said, I have no interest in watching movies about slavery or racism or any of those grim topics that black storytellers love.
And I almost always avoid films and shows with a predominantly black cast. Additionally, I have no interest in reading black authors, excluding a few exceptions. The next time you go to town, walk into a Ugandan bookstore and browse the African section. Guess what you will see?
Books about war, aids, colonialism, and the like. As an African, I honestly don’t get the appeal. I don’t read N.K. Jemisin’s work, but I applaud black authors like her for daring to tackle fantasy. If black authors want to grab my attention, they need to send their characters to space or place them at the center of the next great fantasy epic.
I have no interest in following the harrowing tale of an African orphan starving to death on some street corner. I thought I was unique in that regard until I saw significant pushback online from other black moviegoers who accused Emancipation of continuing to exploit black pain.
Now, I won’t sit here and claim to understand their perspective, because most of them live outside this continent. I won’t watch Emancipation because stories of that nature have never appealed to me.
Interestingly, not everyone shared my perspective. Some black moviegoers argued that movies like Emancipation matter because they tell important stories, the kind we cannot afford to forget.
We all know the quote. Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Peter’s trials in Emancipation are based on Gordon’s story.
Gordon was a real slave. He captured the public’s imagination when abolitionists used pictures of his back, torn by a slaver’s cruel whip, to highlight the ills of slavery.
I am sure stories like Emancipation have an audience, but my stance remains unchanged; surely there is more to black people than all the atrocities they have suffered.
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