History Died for Our Sins: Guilt and Responsibility in Hollywood Redemption Histories

Abstract

I now recognized my invisibility. So I'd accept it, I'd explore it, rine and heart. I'd plunge into it with both feet and they'd gag. Oh, but wouldn't they gag ... Yes, I'd let them swoller me until they vomited or burst wide open. Let them gag on what they refused to see. (Invisible Man)1 It is our knowledge, and refusal to know, that we are ceding .... We lash ourselves to these ideas..in order that in spasms of our fixed fury we do ourselves no injury, in order not to see injury we have done, and do. (Stanley Cavell)2 Even as it has become commonplace to lament Americans' lack of historical knowledge, continues to generate vast revenues from historical films. Titanic, which cleared over $1 billion, is just latest in a series of historical dramas (Amistad, Schindler's List, Ghosts of Mississippi, Mississippi Burning) biopics (JFK, Nixon, Michael Collins, Malcom X, Hoffa, What's Love Got to Do With It?) and inumerable period pieces that go to great lengths to convincingly reproduce past. Indeed, much has been made of fact that Americans are reading less and relying on movies more for information past.' Arguably, it is just this demand for history that leads historians to worry that collective memory of past events is beginning to blur into dramatic, fictionalized, and commodified accounts. History is increasingly screened. Much contemporary analysis of filmed history thus tends to focus on question of whether that medium accurately portrays past rather than on how past may come to mean differently when represented in visual rather than verbal format. From this vantage, criticisms of historical drama will focus on distortions of truth, while defenders will point to imaginative ways in which drama makes history accessible or meaningful or emotionally present where traditional printed history has not. While there is much to learn from these debates, question of historical accuracy should not elide other avenues of investigation. The question is not only how much we know of past, but how we come to know it. Framing question solely as one of historical accuracy or authenticity mistakenly assumes that film is primarily historical period depicted on screen rather than contemporary audience. As Thomas Cripps puts it: movies teach us the culture of time in which they were released rather than of era they were about (Cripps 155).' This paper attempts to shift focus away from whether historical dramas get history right and toward status of history as a set of narrative practices (with distinct rules and genre conventions) and political implications of apprehending past in such a fashion. Historical films ought to be historically responsible, but fleshing out what it could mean to be responsible to past ought to be one of central questions in any analysis of how movies mediate a new relationship to history and to past. It is in this context that I present what I take to be an emerging genre of film, which I am calling Hollywood redemption history. Marking a self-conscious departure from Eurocentrist narratives, a new set of stories past is taking shape, explicitly intended as anti-racist narratives.' Marginalized groups are being given a chance to have their story told. Yet in all films of this genre, point of identification character is a charismatic white man who fights (or comes to fight) against oppression that is central issue of film. Or, rather, central issue of film turns out not to be marginalized group's history, but salvation of lead character with whom audience has identified. Films that illustrate genre include Dances With Wolves,6 Schindler's List, Amistad, Glory, Mississippi Burning, Ghosts of Mississippi, Long Walk Home, and City of Joy. In first section of this paper, I will try to situate my concerns these historical films in terms of contemporary discussions of history, memory and trauma. …