Monday, October 29 2018, was a very difficult English class for me. We viewed a series of media that forced us to relive the past, and acknowledge that our history is far from perfect. Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if we did not educate ourselves on the world’s past? Do you think that history would repeat itself? Would we ever evolve as human beings? I think about this all the time, and there is no right answer I can tell you. But in my opinion, I cannot see how we would grow as a society of individuals without reminiscing on the good, the bad, and the ugly of our history. And one thing that really helps us to learn, is literature.
Literature can speak to us on a variety of forms: it can connect to things in our daily lives and has the power to reveal to us new discoveries about ourselves, that can even exist on a larger scale. That is what is so magical about it– each person can read one novel and have 1,000 interpretations that differ from that person that sits next to them in class. What I enjoy so much about Beth McCoy’s 243 class is that we do not just read novels, we focus on the ways that that novel can impact humanity.
In class, we learned that it is important to focus on who the real Sidney Poitier is, in order to understand the comparison to Not Sidney Poitier. Through the watching of films Sidney Poitier starred in, I recognized a connection regarding the characters he chose to play, and his race. Although his race does not define him, it does seem to limit the characters he can portray in Hollywood Films. One example is the character of Noah Cullen in The Defiant Ones, a African American convict running away from the police. His fellow partner, Joker, who is white, often throws racist insults towards Cullen which propels him to understandably react violently. This film focused on how, although both men come from two separate races, they are forced to get along in order to elude their capture. As a viewer of this film, I was subtlety reminded of all the oppression and senseless violence African Americans had to unfortunately experience in the past, and this oppression was present within the film. It was identified through the treatment of Cullen and Joker, or the privileges Joker received that Cullen did not.
The movie starts out with both characters escaping, and then contemplating which direction they should go in order to begin their fleeing from the police. Cullen had to convince his reluctant partner to settle on trying to catch a train to Ohio, for he knew he had limited freedom in the South because of his race. Another example is through the interaction of the two convicts with Billy’s mother. Billy’s mother convinces Joker to stay with her, while Cullen insists on moving forward with his journey. In doing so, Billy’s mother sets him him up with a trap. She points him in the direction of a swamp with undoubtable quicksand and bog, whereas Joker in that moment is safe, until he becomes aware of her plan and comes to his senses.
The consistent theme between the characters that Sidney Poitier plays and the poor treatment they encounter , not only this one. It was seen when he play Homer Smith- an African American itinerant worker who encounters a group of East German nuns, who believe he has been sent to them by God to build them a new chapel. He does a lot of labor for them- driving the nuns to mass in his car, performing roofing repairs, and building a chapel for the nuns. The only payment he ever receives is “insurance” and a stubborn thank you from Mother Maria.
I cannot prove that Sidney Poitier was put into this character because of his race, but I can say that it did remind me of our nation’s history which I think is important to keep in mind when we read novels like I Am Not Sidney Poitier among others, and sometimes when we watch certain films and read different literature, we are advised to keep in mind that there was a time that was very different.