Introduction
For centuries, the phenomenon of race and racial perception in society has been closely associated with artistic manifestation. However, despite the long-existing examples of significant artistic representation of race in popular culture, white privilege tends to prevail quantitively and remain more popular with the general public. In an attempt to explain such a phenomenon, scholars have coined a term known as “white visuality,” which means that the vast majority of visual art, including photography and cinematography, is still portrayed through the lens of the “white eye” (Herman & Kraehe, 2018). For this reason, very few directors tend to create motion pictures about race, as they are at severe risk of altering the real perception of race within society.
However, for directors willing to represent the story of their race through a movie, it is of paramount importance to create a narrative that would resonate with the viewer through empathy, and such an effect may be achieved both with the help of intersectionality and visual aid. The present paper looks into Ava Marie DuVernay’s (2016) documentary The 13th, which unravels the long-existing history of systematic racism in the United States through the lens of mass incarceration, geopolitical context and social contexts, and justice systems. Despite being a prime example of race representation in cinematography, The 13th also voluntarily tackles the question of how race and racism rates should be portrayed in order to draw the audience’s attention to the social issue behind the film.
To understand the application of the intersectional critical framework within the film, it is necessary to dwell on the plot of the documentary. Essentially, The 13th unravels the socio-political context of racism in the US since the issue of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution that abolishes slavery and grants freedom for every US citizen except for the cases of punishment for criminal offenses (DuVernay, 2016).
As a result, for more than a century, both the government and law enforcement bodies used this exception as a loophole for exercising systematic racism through various initiatives, including “was on crime,” “war on drugs,” Stand Your Ground bills, and other racially discriminating policies. In order to render the scopes of racism within the state, DuVernay intersects the phenomenon of the race with justice, gender, geopolitics, the US corporate elite, and socio-economic inequality.
Race and Gender
Primarily, it is necessary to outline the perspective from which the representation of race took place in the film. Since the movie places major emphasis on the mass incarceration movement and racism in its context, the notion of race is shown as predominantly male. Indeed, the director addresses the issue of criminalizing the image of the race through politics and media by depicting African American males as rapists and drug abusers.
Such a common misconception, according to the documentary, traces back to the 1915 film Birth of a Nation. The director’s choice was to explicitly address the plot of the aforementioned motion picture in order to later showcase racial oppression through the lens of people’s subconscious image of a black male with animal instincts and no moral compass. Hence, in terms of race representation in this film, the intersection with race plays a critical role in portraying the severe social consequences of the distorted image of race.
Furthermore, the film also includes a part where experts operate with a statistic that explicitly shows that the instances of sexual assault are far more common among white males attacking black females than black males attacking white females. Such information contributes significantly to the scope of race oppression and underrepresentation in society. Yet, the visual story accentuates the male perspective of being a black person in the US, as the narrative concerns the problem of incarceration.
Race and Justice
The primary theme that connects all the events taking place in the film is the realm of the US justice system and law enforcement. In order to secure the relevant representation of race, the director provides an explicit background on the incarceration rate increases over the past two decades, along with the shocking statistics concerning the justice system in the state. When addressing the statistic of ninety-five percent of prosecutors in the US being white as opposed to forty percent of the prison population being male African Americans, DuVernay (2016) appeals to the audience through the visualization of the racial discrepancies.
It is depicted in the film that the overall justice system in the state had become flawed since the very introduction of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that seemingly granted social freedom and full-scale citizenship to racial minorities. Instead, any social issue like the crime rate and drug abuse rate increase was immediately associated with the communities of color.
Such an intersection provides the audience with a deeper sensation of a problem that originated far before the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Moreover, DuVernay chooses to dwell upon the overall notion of justice and the former inmates’ inability to reintegrate into society regardless of race in order to show that despite the existing trend, the issue remains especially challenging for African Americans. Finally, the film underlines the idea that the scopes of mass incarceration and injustice, while talking about the whole state, initially stem from the corporate elite’s desire to go back to the thrive of slavery as a central economic tool. For this reason, it may be concluded that the representation of race in the US context cannot exist in isolation from the issue of justice.
Race and Corporate Elite
DuVernay dedicates a significant part of the film to the investigation of the US business segment’s relation to the thrive of systematic racism and mass incarceration. Essentially, the film emphasizes the idea that the governments’ cooperation with corporations through such initiatives as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) catalyzes some of the most controversial legislative bills as building more detention facilities or imposing severe punishments for minor offenses. In such a way, the corporate elite is able to make money from the increasing crime rates, with the victims mostly constituting socially vulnerable populations who do not have the ability to defend themselves and get rid of the accusations.
By portraying the notion of race through racism’s connection to the business owners and politicians, the directors have a chance to convey the scope of the problem and represent racial discrimination as not just prejudice against skin color. Indeed, the topic of racism is a complicated issue to tackle due to the fact that it remains invisible to the vast majority of the population, and it is the cinematographer’s task to connect the narrative with an empathetic image related to it. By providing explicit evidence, DuVernay attempts to shed light on a seemingly exaggerated problem.
Race and Geopolitics
In the global context, the issue of race representation and discrimination has been highly associated with the United States because it remains a leader in terms of racial and ethnic multiplicity within one state. For this reason, while driven by a relatively recently emerged trend of mass incarceration, DuVernay (2016) starts the narration with a detailed overview of black oppression in America, gradually composing an extensive timeline of systematic racism. As a result, the recipients who might feel confused about the origins and social patterns of African American communities in the US become more aware of race representation in the national context.
Thus, for example, the narration includes a part where civil rights activists discuss the problem of perception of African Americans across the states because they are displayed as immigrants who treat residents with aggression and compete with them in the labor market. In order to dispel such an image, DuVernay includes commentary from African American activists who describe their full-scale rights as American citizens and how they were first forced to come to American land in order to become refugees later and move throughout the country running away from Ku Klux Klan and law enforcement assaults. Hence, the representation of race intersected with geographical and historical context is critical in order to tell any visual story.
Race and Socio-Economic Inequality
The film dedicates much time and resources to dwell on the patterns of economic discrepancy in order to show the interconnections between systematic racism and mass incarceration. Thus, the experts claim that since the Jim Crow era, segregation made Black communities permanent representatives of the second class with no ability to move further. However, after the abolition of segregation, the war on crime and war on drugs continued to impose financial and social limitations on the Black communities, as punishment for cheaper drugs such as crack cocaine was considerably harsher, whereas money for bail or a lawyer was unsustainable for the overwhelming majority of racial minorities.
Instead, when incarcerated, African Americans served as a primary source of the national economy. Including commentaries, opinions, records, and statistics in the film is a significant tool in order to show how race has already become deeply integrated into the lives of an average American and people abroad. In such a way, the director does not simply play the race card to evoke empathy. Instead, she puts the notion of race in the context of society and the economy of the whole state, making it impossible to eliminate it from the picture or treat it in isolation.
Cinematic Representation of Race
Having considered the context of race representation in The 13th, it becomes evident that the problem of race, when serving as a primary theme for the film, cannot exist in isolation from other social phenomena. According to the research, a lack of critical intersection leads to the marginalization of a specific social group (Liu, 2018). What is meant by that is the fact that portraying a specific community solely from the perspective of racial affiliation makes the representatives of this community somehow isolated from other social groups.
Consequentially, when people see a film with a racially specific message, they fail to identify themselves with the experience and do not resonate with the film’s message. However, once the race is portrayed with the help of social aspects viewers have in common, regardless of race, the film is no longer perceived as a story about something distant; it brings the viewer closer to the characters of the story.
For example, when speaking of race in the context of the US justice system, the recipients may identify themselves with the narrative through the experience of living in a state with a fundamentally flawed law enforcement system. While 40% of the prison population constitutes Black men, the rest concerns US residents with different backgrounds. Thus, people with no direct correlation to race might as well face the challenge of reintegration into society and winning back fundamental citizen rights. By relating to an experience, the audience tends to perceive race not as an association with unlawful behavior but as a reason for law enforcement and the government to label someone a felon.
The same associations may be provided with the notions of gender and economic inequality. However, it is important to remember that while intersection provides a valuable framework for the rehumanizing race, the notion of race should always come first, and people are to understand that similar aspects of life remain more challenging and decisive for racial minorities. To convey this idea is a primary task of a cinematographer when representing race.
Conclusion
The 13th, an Academy Award nominee documentary directed by Ava Marie DuVernay, is a prime example of how the representation of race should not exist in isolation from other social and human aspects. The interconnection with other paradigms of human lives is crucial if one wants to avoid marginalizing a specific community. Thus, when applying the intersectional framework to race representation in cinematography, the narrator ensures a meaningful and deep connection between the story and the recipient.
References
DuVernay, Ava Marie. 2016. The 13th. Kandoo Films. 1hr., 43 min. Web.
Herman, David, and Amelia M. Kraehe. 2018. “Toward a Counter-Visual Education: Cinema, Race, and The Reorientation of White Visuality.” In The Palgrave handbook of race and the arts in education, edited by Amelia M. Kraehe, Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, and B. Stephen Carpenter II, 227-245. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Liu, Callie Watkins. 2018. “The Anti-Oppressive Value of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality in Social Movement Study.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 4, no. 3: 306-321. Web.