I’ve been wanting to do this piece for a while now. I want to discuss why some movies are considered to be “divisive” and why I think it is important why movies SHOULD be divisive. One of the biggest reasons why I bring this topic up is mainly because of the audience reaction to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I remember seeing the film the night before it officially opened, and while I was personally blown away by what I had seen, I knew that people were not necessarily going to like it. Boy, THAT was an understatement. The film had split audiences right down the middle. On one side, you had people like me who loved the movie, and on the other, you had people who flat out hated it. Some people hated it so much that they created an online petition to remove the film from canon. Obviously that didn’t work, but what it did do, for me at least, was show that people were still really passionate about Star Wars. Whether you loved or hated the film, it revealed the kind of fan you are. I don’t think the people who hated the film are wrong. The movie ended up being very unexpected in how the story was told and what happened during that story. I was genuinely surprised at the film on more than one occasion. Rian Johnson, the director, took a lot of big risks with this movie and he knew that he wasn’t going to please everybody. You never can. So, he focused on telling the story that he wanted to tell and the results speak for themselves. This isn’t the first time that Star Wars divided audiences. The Prequel Trilogy was particularly notorious for being far too different and not as good as the original films. Younger people really liked the Prequels, while the older audiences hated them.
Now, the reason I bring up Star Wars as a discussion piece, is because Star Wars easily sparks discussion, and this is why I like the fact that Episode VIII was so divisive. It opened up a lot of topics about what people liked about the movie, what they didn’t and where the series goes from there. To me, divisive movies should exist to spark discussion. However, a movie that exists simply to be divisive doesn’t really warrant a whole lot of attention. Why? Movies like The Human Centipede exist simply for shock value, but there is nothing really substantial behind the facade. There’s no real social commentary or any sort of message outside of saying, “Look how shocking we can be!” While I do watch some of those movies, they generally don’t last in my memory for very long, because they are philosophically empty. There’s nothing really to discuss outside of how disgusting or shocking a movie can be. To me, that’s not engaging in intelligent discussion. Movies like The Last Jedi or any one of Quentin Tarantino’s films are worth discussing, because there’s a lot more to those films than what you see on the screen. Movies like Hellraiser and Martin Scorsese’s Silence are worth discussing, because the subject matter is so interesting and thought-provoking. The Blade Runner films are another example of divisive movies, but they serve a purpose. Blade Runner was about discovering what it means to be human and that’s something worth exploring.
One of the earliest examples and probably the most divisive movie ever made was the 1915 release of D.W. Griffith’s Civil War epic, The Birth of a Nation. This movie pissed off a lot of people, for very good reasons. While most people would agree that the first half of the film, was not overly controversial, except for the whole “black face” aspect of the film and the fact that it was based on the book of a former Klansman, it’s generally agreed that the second half of the film is what really angered a lot of people. Why? The movie portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as the good guys and the African-Americans as dumb, dangerous and inferior people, which is clearly not true. The film’s historical inaccuracy has never been disputed, but the portrayal of African-Americans was brutal. Yeah, it’s a racist movie, but as I declared in my review of the film, it was a technical marvel using techniques that were never used before. Even over a century later, The Birth of a Nation still remains one of the most controversial and divisive movies ever made. It’s something that continues to be discussed and debated. It will still continue to be debated long after I’m dead.
Quentin Tarantino’s films are often a subject for debate for a number of reasons. One: The level of violence in his films are often brutal, yet completely unrealistic and over the top. He’s been taken to task over movies like Django Unchained for the use of the word, “nigger.” Before anybody screams “That’s racist!” at me, let me explain: Context. The word itself has no power unless people give it power. The way it is used is what makes it repugnant, and I hate that word with every fiber of my being. Quentin Tarantino uses the word not out of racism but as a way of showing people how certain groups of people were treated before, during and immediately after the Civil War. It was the reality of the time, and that’s what Tarantino wanted to show. This is why I think divisive movies are important: They open up avenues to discuss how we as a people relate to each other and the world around us. In a lot of ways, and most people probably won’t admit it, movies are a way for us to open up to one another and have a thoughtful discussion about what we saw on the screen and how it relates to our lives.
Film-makers should not be afraid to make movies that make us uncomfortable or question what we saw. To me, these are the films worth exploring and discussing and audience members shouldn’t be afraid to see them. At the end of the day, movies can used as entertainment, tools, or a combination thereof. It’s a wonderful medium that can be entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time. Honestly, is that really so much to ask for?