In 1989, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Andre Braugher starred in the American Civil War film Glory. The movie was about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first all-Black regiments in the Union Army. The actor who played Robert Gould Shaw, the White colonel in command, narrated the film.
Glory depicted the regiment’s encounters with blatant racism, how they earned admiration through battle, and their heroic attempt to capture a Confederate fort, which resulted in the regiment’s annihilation.
The film won three Academy Awards, as well as awards at the Golden Globes and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. It also won an NAACP Image Award. No one had anything negative to say about Glory until the 21st century.
A decade ago, a movie buff saw Glory for the first time and wrote a glowing review. Most commenters stated that they first saw the film in high school and offered further praise. However, one commenter described Glory as the kind of movie that would face substantial criticism today since it has a White character tell a story about Black people.
“I don’t necessarily think that’s an unfair criticism,” the commenter said.
However, the critique is unfair because the screenplay was based on the book One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment, and the movie was not about “Black people”; it was about the regiment Shaw commanded.
Apparently, that commenter was influenced by Black film critics who began to take offense and reject films like Freedom Writers (2007), The Blind Side (2009), and The Help (2011) as “White savior films.”
This “subgenre,” according to sociologist Matthew W. Hughey, author of The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption (2014), is a film based on a supposedly true story that portrays a White central character as a messianic figure. By the end of the film, the White character has either physically saved a minority character from an unfortunate situation or morally redeemed a person or community of color.
The previous movies listed could be labeled “White savior films,” but Hughey also cited Glory as an example of a “White savior film,” even though Glory did not meet his own definition.
Hughey was reaching to incite controversy.
A columnist once advised an aspiring writer on how to impress his editors. He told him to choose a movie that everyone likes and then write a review about how awful it is. Nowadays, Black film critics label films with White lead characters and minority co-stars as “White savior films,” even if they do not match the definition.
These Black film critics are claiming that these films are “awful” only to be provocative.
If that’s what these Black film critics want to do, so be it—it’s a free country. However, if these Black film critics are so eager to reveal and condemn a “White savior film,” they should be just as enthusiastic to point out its opposite—a film in which the African American tradition greatly impacts the White protagonist.
The same year Hughey published The White Savior Film, Reggie L. Williams, an associate professor of Christian ethics, published Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, is well-known to World War II experts for his opposition to the Nazification of the church, his clandestine trips to inform the Allies of German resistance to the Nazi regime, his efforts to assist Jews fleeing Germany, and his involvement in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, which led to his execution.
Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace aired as a television movie in 2000. This movie primarily focused on the Nazi inquiry into Bonhoeffer’s activities, his imprisonment, and execution, but it did not show how Bonhoeffer developed his theological framework that became world-renowned.
Williams’ book focuses on the origins of Bonhoeffer’s theology.
As a young man, Bonhoeffer left Germany to attend Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The seminary’s dogmatic presentation of the gospel soon frustrated him, but Bonhoeffer met a Black student who brought him to Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church.
While visiting Abyssinian, Bonhoeffer discovered a spiritual depth that he had not experienced in German churches. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Abyssinian’s pastor, had a significant impact on Bonhoeffer. Powell taught Bonhoeffer about the “gospel of social justice” and how White churches failed to apply it to systems of injustice like segregation in the South and racial discrimination in the North, and the church had a moral responsibility to fight against oppressive forces.
When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, the Nazis had come to power. He began to oppose the Nazi regime and infused Powell’s ideas into the German church.
Angel Studios produced Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin, debuted in theaters last month. Unlike the made-for-TV movie, this film depicts Bonhoeffer’s growth at Abyssinian Baptist Church. By presenting what motivated Bonhoeffer’s theology, this Bonhoeffer film demonstrated the global significance of the African American religious tradition and how it influenced resistance to the Nazis.
Unfortunately, Black film critics are too busy searching for White saviors, leading them to overlook Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus.
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