Oh, Goodie, Another Bad Review for Black Snake Moan

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


black_snake_moan.jpg

I blogged a while back about the surprisingly positive reviews the repulsively salacious film Black Snake Moan was getting, with the only exception being the New York Times (that’s why I still defend the Times, mostly). The Nation calls attention to yet another hypersexual version of the sexual-abuse victim the movie sets the viewer up to rape all over again:

The icing on this particular cake is a PR campaign featuring a barely clad Ricci…kneeling at Samuel Jackson’s feet, accompanied by the soft-porn slogan “Everything Is Hotter Down South.”

And, like the New York Times, The Nation takes issue with the particular mix of race and gender in the movie. First of all, let’s remember that the hot young thing is chained to the radiator to cure her of nymphomania—which doesn’t actually exist, and certainly doesn’t cause sweats and chills of oh-so-hot-it-looks-like-an-orgasm kind Christina Ricci’s character suffers in the film.

But I digress. Here’s The Nation:

The two most powerful symbols of slavery in Black Snake Moan are writ large on Rae’s body: the chains around her waist and the rebel flag on her T-shirt. These images evoke the specter of white wrongdoing but also reframe her enslavement–which is supposed to be OK because Lazarus is black and Rae is white…What makes the movie truly offensive is that it employs race to peddle its brand of misogyny….

Misogyny, you ask? Really? Yeah, really. Here are two reviewers’ actual edited reviews, published on actual newsprint stolen from some trees in Oregon:

Brewer’s camera leaves the viewer free to savor the bared body of a victim of sexual abuse and rape tied to a radiator. And savor the male critics did. “All this envelope-pushing misogyny goes down relatively easily,” claims New York Post’s Lou Lumenick, who could “practically smell the sex and sweat” in what he dubs a “not insignificant contribution to global warming.” Todd McCarthy of Variety predicts that the movie “will find its most eager audience among college-age guys hot to ogle the young star in some very raw action.”

So the film’s claim to cure the woman of her nymphomania is an excuse for men to eroticize a young someone who’s been so abused she no longer has any meaningful form of consent to give. Who has the problem, again?

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate