MichiganBulletinOnline

BELOVED

by Bernice Powell Jackson

It really doesn't matter whether you like Oprah Winfrey or not. It really doesn't matter whether you agree with her philosophy of how she runs her talk show. It really doesn't matter whether you think Oprah looks good, having lost weight, or whether you think she should be on the cover of Vogue and Ebony.

   All that should matter is that Beloved is a powerful movie about a painful subject which is an integral part of the story of America. All that should matter is that Beloved is based on a book written by a great American author who has received both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel prize in literature. All that should matter is that this movie can be a gateway to dialogue about race in America, but only if folks go to see it.

   It's sad to me that one week-end more people went to see silly movies than those who went to see Beloved. It's sad to me that tens of thousands of African Americans will go to see movies which focus on easy sex, drive-by shootings and loud music, but only a few will go to see a movie which teaches them something about their ancestors. It saddens me when a demeaning and silly movie with a silly and demeaning title like Booty Call has a larger box office when it opened than Beloved did. It's sad to me that millions of White Americans have decided that Beloved is a movie for Black people, when the reality is, it is as much the story of White American history as it is of Black American history.

   Make no mistake about it. Beloved is not an easy movie to watch, nor was it an easy book to read. It is not easy to hear the story of Sethe, a woman who was gang raped when she tried to escape from slavery and then when she was successful, was forced to have her baby in the forest by the side of the Ohio river and then ultimately chose to kill her child rather than have her be returned to slavery.

It is not easy to hear the story of her mother, who was hanged while the small Sethe watched. It is not easy to learn that slaves, especially those who tried to run away, like Sethe's husband and her mother, were forced to wear bits in their mouths and collars and muzzles, like animals.

It is not easy to see the whip marks on her back, so many scars that it looked like a cherry tree, or to hear her talk about being beaten when she was pregnant. None of that is easy, but unless you watch it or read these stories of our nation, you cannot begin to understand why more than a century later we are still dealing with race issues and why they just can't be papered over and forgotten.

   Beloved is named for the ghost of the murdered child, the ghost who first inhabits the house in which Sethe and her daughter Denver live and then the ghost who, embodied as the teenager she would have been, returns to her mother. I'm sure many literary critics have written about the character Beloved, surmising who or what she stood for. For me Beloved stands for all the pain which my ancestors had to endure pain which no human should have to suffer. The pain of abduction and auction blocks. The pain of being owned by another human being. The pain of being made less than human over and over again. The pain of birthing children whose only future was to be slaves and of having those children, and sisters and brothers and husbands and parents sold away from you. The pain of beatings and rape and back-breaking work.

   Beloved is the ghost of all that pain that will not just go away, but returns to haunt us over and over again. Beloved stands for all those who died in the Middle Passage and all those who died in this land when we chose to make human beings into chattel and she haunts us to this day.

Beloved stands for all those children who died because of slavery, whether by their mothers' hands or by their masters' hands, and all those children who lived, but whose potential was killed by a lifetime of slavery and she haunts us to this day.

   No, the movie Beloved is not a fast-paced action movie with jive-talking partners. No, it is not a comedy and it has no rap or hip hop or pretty theme music nor a sexy, young male star. No, it does not have a happy ending or romantic leads. It does have outstanding acting and a powerful story.

   And it really doesn't matter whether you like Oprah or not.

Review of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winner novel, Beloved:

 Adapted into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey as Sethe and Danny Glover.

Related Web Sites

Vibe Magazine Online

Hip Hop Home Pages (Over 100)