Cinematic Soul Food Movies Where Black Lives Do Matter
The tsunami-like effect of the Black Lives Matter movement is not only sweeping us forward towards an uncertain future but, like a riptide, pulling us backward through ignored history. It is a time to look forward as constructively as we reassess the trajectory of the journey that stretches behind us. One of the ways where we can do both is by revisiting the movies made over the years, some of which we may have seen, many of which we probably haven’t, where Black lives really do matter; where we can spend virtual time with characters who are pursuing the everyday things that matter to everyone. Call it the whole nine yards of life itself.
The seam of movies, dramatic and documentary, that reexamine the transgressions, oppressions, and flagrant crimes of racism, from slavery to Jim Crow, from housing to schooling, from schooling to policing, is rich and deep. But what about movies about breaking bread or breaking up, or about killing time on the neighborhood street just before dinner? And what about movies where two charming and goofy characters like Kid ’N Play are simply focused on throwing a perfect House Party (1990), or where a working family man named Stan (in Charles Burnett’s achingly poetic 1977 Killer of Sheep) holds a warm cup of tea against his cheek and dreams of a better life? We are talking about simple, down-to-earth, straight-to-the-heart movies where the characters just happen to see brown or black faces when they look at the mirror.
This article was first published here.