deerstalker
https://blackgirlnerds.com/on-its-25th-birthday-seven-shatters-white-devilry-tropes/
In David Fincher’s neo-noir horror Seven, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a veteran detective in an unspecified urban police department who is just seven days away from retirement when a disturbing serial killing case falls in his lap. Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) is a new transfer who gets assigned to be point on the case, even as Somerset and the rest of the supervisors can already see it’s way above his pay grade. As Mills’s brash and compulsive persona clashes with Somerset’s staid introspection and careful considerations, they discover their serial killer is murdering based off the seven deadly sins. The race to catch him before the seven days are up becomes a fight for the detectives’ survival and ultimate humanity.
When Seven first came out in 1995 the content was beyond shocking. The grisly murder tableaus were unlike anything we’d seen on screen at that point, and Fincher’s stylish filmmaking elevated each scene in such a way that the movie never felt exploitative in spite of the horrific plotlines. The bulk of the violence takes place off-screen, and we as the viewers are left to process the aftermath of each horrendously escalating crime scene along with the detectives who also were seeing this level of emotional and physical carnage for the first time.
Watching Seven today is as stunning as it was back then, maybe even more so now that the gritty camera work has been remastered in high definition for new TVs. I normally leave the room during the Lust murder investigation — that sword dildo remains visually way too much for me to handle. But this time around the Sloth scene — the victim that John Doe (Kevin Spacey) had been torturing for a year in his own bed — also had me legitimately dry heaving as I fled to my home library safe space thanks to the crisp digitization of the original grainy film stock. The intricacy of Seven’s story and Fincher’s delicate touch with the subject matter remains a singular feat of filmmaking that I wish more directors, horror directors in particular, would return to more often.
What ended up surprising me the most in revisiting Seven after several years away is how the movie absolutely shatters white devilry tropes, in particular within law enforcement narratives. First, the serial killer John Doe reveals his belief that he is doing God’s work in torturing and murdering his chosen victims based on their violation of one of the seven deadly sins. White devils are often framed as anti-heroes, but in Seven he is only a hero in his own estimation, not in ours — a different kind of white devil entirely.
Second, John Doe’s victims are all white folks, which is a far cry from many other white devil narratives like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Death Wish, and others where the violence is predominantly acted out on Black and Brown bodies. In spite of the uber-urban setting that would stereotypically feature gang violence and the like, the only crime we see in Seven is by a white man against other white people. Going deeper, this violent criminal also happens to be independently wealthy and highly educated, contrasting other portrayals of white crime in cop movies that are blamed on drug addiction, poverty, or a lack of education. Somerset notes that John Doe has anonymized himself by choice, and whiteness is what gives him this privilege.
The third, and arguably the most forward-thinking aspect of the movie, is that virtually every single Black person in Seven is in protector roles. The only Black lawbreaker on screen was in fact paid to lie by Detective Mills himself in order to cover his mishandling of a crime scene. Unlike most cop movies that rely on racial stereotypes of criminality or presumed pathology in which a white anti-hero goes after minorities often with impunity, the white devilry inherent in Seven is enacted solely on other white people, and it is a Black narrator who witnesses and testifies to it.
At the end of Seven, bad cop Mills, who murdered a suspect in cold blood, is arrested immediately, unlike what tends to happen in real life. Could this be because Det. Mills’s victim, for once, is white? It’s possible. But given Fincher’s other choices in the movie, from casting to narrative arc, Mills’s arrest is yet another white devil trope deconstructed. After all, Mills himself was a more traditional white devil in Seven, an anti-hero cop who did what needed to be done to see his kind of justice served, even if he didn’t follow the rules he was supposed to.
Before the movie’s explosive ending that has become so iconic over the past two and half decades, many people continue to hear Brad Pitt’s voice screaming, “What’s in the box?!” Every time we see a sealed package, Somerset makes an observation about John Doe’s victims and “forced attrition.” He notes that John Doe has selected his victims for violating a deadly sin, but instead of giving them an opportunity to atone over the long term, he makes them choose right now. The Pride murder chose to overdose rather than call the police after John Doe mutilated her face; Greed was required to cut seven pounds of flesh for penance.
But forced attrition is nothing new to white devils, especially in today’s world of cell phone cameras and instant uploads to the cloud for mass consumption. How many stories have we heard recently about folks being openly racist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and all of the above — until they get caught, and all of a sudden they are crying and sorry. Were any of John Doe’s victims requiring penitence actually repenting, or did they just want to survive? Were any of these real-life folks caught out in the bigotry actually sorry, or just sorry they got caught?
What’s particularly wild about Seven is that back in the days before online booksellers, certain books used to be flagged by the FBI and CIA if they were checked out of a library. Books like Mein Kampf and other evil-disseminating texts were on the list because of limited copies. But now, anyone can buy these books from sellers who have no obligation of disclosure, and publishers can now discreetly continue to print and sell copies of Mein Kampf without oversight.
For the closing line of the film, Somerset says: “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.’ I believe in the second part.” It’s the only brief moment of hope in Seven, one of the bleakest stories ever put to screen, and Somerset’s annotation has only grown more relevant to real-life as the years have gone by. That said, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police and the incredible outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter movement that has begun inspiring structural changes to American law enforcement, I think Somerset might finally have been encouraged to concede — just a little bit — to the first part of Hemingway’s statement, too.
The post On Its 25th Birthday, ‘Seven’ Shatters White Devilry Tropes appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
In David Fincher’s neo-noir horror Seven, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a veteran detective in an unspecified urban police department who is just seven days away from retirement when a disturbing serial killing case falls in his lap. Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) is a new transfer who gets assigned to be point on the case, even as Somerset and the rest of the supervisors can already see it’s way above his pay grade. As Mills’s brash and compulsive persona clashes with Somerset’s staid introspection and careful considerations, they discover their serial killer is murdering based off the seven deadly sins. The race to catch him before the seven days are up becomes a fight for the detectives’ survival and ultimate humanity.
When Seven first came out in 1995 the content was beyond shocking. The grisly murder tableaus were unlike anything we’d seen on screen at that point, and Fincher’s stylish filmmaking elevated each scene in such a way that the movie never felt exploitative in spite of the horrific plotlines. The bulk of the violence takes place off-screen, and we as the viewers are left to process the aftermath of each horrendously escalating crime scene along with the detectives who also were seeing this level of emotional and physical carnage for the first time.
Watching Seven today is as stunning as it was back then, maybe even more so now that the gritty camera work has been remastered in high definition for new TVs. I normally leave the room during the Lust murder investigation — that sword dildo remains visually way too much for me to handle. But this time around the Sloth scene — the victim that John Doe (Kevin Spacey) had been torturing for a year in his own bed — also had me legitimately dry heaving as I fled to my home library safe space thanks to the crisp digitization of the original grainy film stock. The intricacy of Seven’s story and Fincher’s delicate touch with the subject matter remains a singular feat of filmmaking that I wish more directors, horror directors in particular, would return to more often.
What ended up surprising me the most in revisiting Seven after several years away is how the movie absolutely shatters white devilry tropes, in particular within law enforcement narratives. First, the serial killer John Doe reveals his belief that he is doing God’s work in torturing and murdering his chosen victims based on their violation of one of the seven deadly sins. White devils are often framed as anti-heroes, but in Seven he is only a hero in his own estimation, not in ours — a different kind of white devil entirely.
Second, John Doe’s victims are all white folks, which is a far cry from many other white devil narratives like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Death Wish, and others where the violence is predominantly acted out on Black and Brown bodies. In spite of the uber-urban setting that would stereotypically feature gang violence and the like, the only crime we see in Seven is by a white man against other white people. Going deeper, this violent criminal also happens to be independently wealthy and highly educated, contrasting other portrayals of white crime in cop movies that are blamed on drug addiction, poverty, or a lack of education. Somerset notes that John Doe has anonymized himself by choice, and whiteness is what gives him this privilege.
The third, and arguably the most forward-thinking aspect of the movie, is that virtually every single Black person in Seven is in protector roles. The only Black lawbreaker on screen was in fact paid to lie by Detective Mills himself in order to cover his mishandling of a crime scene. Unlike most cop movies that rely on racial stereotypes of criminality or presumed pathology in which a white anti-hero goes after minorities often with impunity, the white devilry inherent in Seven is enacted solely on other white people, and it is a Black narrator who witnesses and testifies to it.
At the end of Seven, bad cop Mills, who murdered a suspect in cold blood, is arrested immediately, unlike what tends to happen in real life. Could this be because Det. Mills’s victim, for once, is white? It’s possible. But given Fincher’s other choices in the movie, from casting to narrative arc, Mills’s arrest is yet another white devil trope deconstructed. After all, Mills himself was a more traditional white devil in Seven, an anti-hero cop who did what needed to be done to see his kind of justice served, even if he didn’t follow the rules he was supposed to.
Before the movie’s explosive ending that has become so iconic over the past two and half decades, many people continue to hear Brad Pitt’s voice screaming, “What’s in the box?!” Every time we see a sealed package, Somerset makes an observation about John Doe’s victims and “forced attrition.” He notes that John Doe has selected his victims for violating a deadly sin, but instead of giving them an opportunity to atone over the long term, he makes them choose right now. The Pride murder chose to overdose rather than call the police after John Doe mutilated her face; Greed was required to cut seven pounds of flesh for penance.
But forced attrition is nothing new to white devils, especially in today’s world of cell phone cameras and instant uploads to the cloud for mass consumption. How many stories have we heard recently about folks being openly racist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and all of the above — until they get caught, and all of a sudden they are crying and sorry. Were any of John Doe’s victims requiring penitence actually repenting, or did they just want to survive? Were any of these real-life folks caught out in the bigotry actually sorry, or just sorry they got caught?
What’s particularly wild about Seven is that back in the days before online booksellers, certain books used to be flagged by the FBI and CIA if they were checked out of a library. Books like Mein Kampf and other evil-disseminating texts were on the list because of limited copies. But now, anyone can buy these books from sellers who have no obligation of disclosure, and publishers can now discreetly continue to print and sell copies of Mein Kampf without oversight.
For the closing line of the film, Somerset says: “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.’ I believe in the second part.” It’s the only brief moment of hope in Seven, one of the bleakest stories ever put to screen, and Somerset’s annotation has only grown more relevant to real-life as the years have gone by. That said, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police and the incredible outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter movement that has begun inspiring structural changes to American law enforcement, I think Somerset might finally have been encouraged to concede — just a little bit — to the first part of Hemingway’s statement, too.
The post On Its 25th Birthday, ‘Seven’ Shatters White Devilry Tropes appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
Amidst the current state of the world, many folks find themselves (once again) explaining race, systemic racism, and the fight for equity and social justice to children. The teacher in me will always, ALWAYS, recommend books to support any lesson and conversation. Keeping that same energy, here are some of our favorite books to engage children and adults in justice discourse.
Let’s read the revolution!
PreK – 3
Woke Baby by Mahogany L. Browne, illustrated by Theodore Taylor, III
Day one. That’s where you start and that’s where this book begins. From that beautiful Black baby raising their fist in the air, to the abolishment of ceilings (glass or otherwise); this is a must read for every little revolutionary.
A is for Activist written and illustrated by Innosanto Nagara
A is for Activist is packed with alliteration and consciousness. “Kings are fine for storytime/Knights are fun to play/But when people make decisions/we will choose the people’s way.” Don’t let the age recommendations fool you, everybody can get these lessons.
Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo
This book tackles exclusion and creating your own spaces when a boy and his elephant are kept from Pet Club and stumble upon a girl and her skunk who were also turned away. There’s conversation here about how when one group is marginalized, others are as well. These kids didn’t fight to be included, instead they made their own INCLUSIVE club. There’s something to be said about having a seat at the table and something else to be said about building your own table.
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
“There will be times when you walk into a room, and no one there is quite like you.” This book tackles feeling different, being fearful of being the “only” in a room and finally, celebrating that individuality is the standard- not conformity and homogenized experiences.
Middle Grade
Internment by Samira Ahmed
Set in a “not-so” dystopian America where Muslim Americans must be “registered,” Layla Amin and her family are considered threats by their neighbors. The Amins find themselves and other fellow Muslims placed in internment camps by the Exclusion Authority. There is violence and brutality within the camps; people are missing, and this teen and her new friends are determined to activate. With the help of an ally and her Jewish boyfriend who is outside of the camps, a slew of blog posts shed light on the systemic abuse of her people.
“We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices” edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson
This book carries the voices and artistry of 50 diverse leaders in the literary and art worlds. Poems, letters, art, and personal essays cover 96 pages and include the voices of Sharon Draper (Out of My Mind), Jason Reynolds (All American Boys), Jaqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming) and more.
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia
While Delphine and her sisters visit their mother, whom they haven’t seen in some time, they attend a Black Panther Youth Camp and discover their mother’s work in social justice. During this crazy summer, the girls learn both about their family and their country.
Teen
The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives by Eloise Greenfield
Poet and children’s book author Eloise Greenfield is known for her exquisite rhythmic writings. In this book, she details Black pre-natal care through the historic background of African midwives and the ancestry brought to America by enslaved Africans. This books uses poetry, prose, and essays to make connections between Black births from the time of slavery to present-day America.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
This memoir follows the life of a LGBTQIA+ activist and prominent journalist George M Johnson. He takes his readers on a journey through personal essays that illustrate memories of having his teeth kicked out by bullies at five years old, times of going to flea markets with his grandmother, his first sexual encounters, and more. It is a telling of the trials and triumphs of a boy growing up Black and queer.
Lifting As We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne
Much of the history shared about the woman’s suffrage movement is surrounded by stories of Susan B. Anthony and the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1913. During that same time, Black women were fighting not only for the right to vote, but for the basic civil right to be treated as an equal human in America. Author Evette Dionne uncovers the “forgotten” truth and voices of the Black women (like Ida B Wells and Mary Church Terrell) who shaped the suffrage movement, civil rights and abolitionist history.
Adult
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
“Well, you shouldn’t wear red lipstick anyway. On your lips, you look like a clown.” The chapter about microaggressions had me ready to fight Jennifer who said this to grade school aged Ijeoma. Ijeoma Olu’s examination of race in America is an accessible read that tackles everything from intersectionality, police brutality, affirmative action, the school-to-prison pipeline, and so much more. First giving a definition of racism, she moves through each chapter inserting her lived experiences, illustrating what’s wrong, and the harm that results. Educating yet a book that will make you uncomfortable, it is certainly worth reading and rereading again.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
I’m grateful that even before I was able to purchase my own copy of this extraordinary book, chapters of the book were required reading in my curriculum and the author, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum was mentioned in plenty of lectures as a Communications major. This one is a blessed resource on the development of racial identity and a framework on thinking and talking about race when it comes to our children. A book so powerful and necessary for educators, parents, students, and practically everybody under the sun to read–but educators of all ages and grade levels, especially non-Black ones, should have a copy and read to gain a greater understanding of the blindspots, folks in their position, can miss.
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris
There are some troubling statistics regarding Black children, especially Black girls in the K-12 school system. Black girls in high school are 6 times more likely than their white female counterparts to be suspended. Black girls are 3 times more likely to receive 1 or more in-school suspensions than white female students. Black girls are also twice as likely to receive corporal punishment than white female students. There are more troubling statistics that will make your heart hurt. Monique W. Morris, who is also the co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute brings to light, in book form, the terrifying move to criminalize Black girl children in schools and the tactics that defeat, dismiss, and demean them. The complexities of the issue include taking a look at poverty, incarceration and dropouts and offers tactics to help protect our girls who live in systems that were never created to protect them.
This list in barely a drop in the bucket of books out there that you can read to up your knowledge on the social justice, racism, and all topics that surround and branch off, and now is a great time to dive in head first. Let us know what books you are reading during this time.
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The post Read the Revolution: Books for Social Justice Discourse appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.