Cookie's Wins and Fails (and Disappointments) of 2016 [Down to #8]

[cookie]

#8 FAIL - The Birth of a Nation

 

 

WARNING: The following entry will be discussing a very sensitive topic and delve into the background of the director, producer, writer and star of The Birth of Nation. Reader discretion is advised.

 

I deliberated whether or not to include The Birth of a Nation on the "fail" list. Objectively speaking, the film received positive reviews, and while it underperformed at the box office it did not cost a lot to make, so the failure isn't grand enough for me to have considered it otherwise. However, the controversy surrounding this film is perhaps greater than the film itself, and the studio and director, producer, writer and star Nate Parker's attempts to address the issue did, if anything, only make the situation worse, so it was difficult for me to ignore it. In a sense it could've been a movie all on its own; it's a story of grand ambitions, an industry reacting in panic and the sins of the past coming back to haunt the present.

 

Let's start at the beginning: the 2016 Oscars was not without controversy. For the second year in a row, nearly all of the acting and directing nominees were Caucasian, the lone exception both times being director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (for Birdman and The Revenant respectively). Some will argue that the lack of diversity was simply a lack of non-Caucasian actors and directors good enough to be nominated, others will argue that this is just a symptom of a deeper issue in Hollywood. The latter is undeniably true, but the academy's failure to acknowledge diversity twice in a row still didn't sit well with a lot of people, and it's not like the industry didn't notice; rules were quickly changed as to how the academy members would vote, and studios scrambled to acquire minority-starring films that would be put up for Oscar contention.

 

From that mess sprung up one early contender: Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation. The true tale of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in pre-civil war Virginia had been a passion project for the Beyond the Lights star since he first learned about the story in college. As he made his way into filmmaking, Parker was repeatedly told that a Nat Turner dramatization wouldn't be greenlighted under the Hollywood system; they said a big war film with an African-American cast wouldn't play well internationally, it was too violent, Turner was responsible for the deaths of several white landowners etc. Parker however was undeterred, telling his agents after Beyond The Lights was finished that he would not act in another film until The Birth of a Nation was made. Parker successfully managed to raise most of the film's budget through several investors, and production on his long-awaited epic began in 2015.

 

Flash forward to Sundance 2016. Birth had just finished its first screening and was greeted to a standing ovation from the audience. The same night Parker had several studios offering millions for the rights to bring his masterpiece to theaters and eventually to the Oscar podium. Netflix reportedly offered up to $20 million, but because they squandered their efforts to get Beasts of No Nation nominated the previous year they were turned down. Fox Searchlight eventually won the distribution rights, paying $17.5 million. The stage was set for the story of Nat Turner to be brought to the masses, which Parker hoped would start a conversation around race relations in America.

 

 

The moral of this story is that no matter how well-intentioned your movie is, it can all be brought down by circumstances that had nothing to with the film itself. About two months before Birth's October release the media was ablaze over the resurgence of a sexual assault case from 1999. The allegations were as follows: while sophomores at Penn State (a university that would be embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal a decade later) Parker and Birth's co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin took advantage of an intoxicated student, reportedly passing her unconscious body to each other and, according to some sources, more individuals. The victim, whose name shall remain anonymous, was not made aware of the assault until she visited a doctor, and taped conversations between Parker, Celestin and the victim seemingly confirm their involvement. During the court process the victim is said to have been repeatedly harassed by Parker and Celestin.

 

Parker was acquitted on all counts, but Celestin was sentenced to at least a year in prison. Students on campus argued that race played a part in Celestin's conviction, as the victim and most of the jurors were white, but since Parker was acquitted at the same time it can't be said for certain. The conviction did get overturned years later, mostly on the grounds of ineffective counsel, and a second trial was dropped due to other witnesses not being immediately available. The harassment reportedly didn't stop after the case wrapped, including an incident where a private detective hired by Parker and Celestin passed an image of the victim around campus. The victim later filed a complaint against Penn State for failing to provide her protection, and she later fell into a depression aided by substance abuse until she tragically took her own life in 2012.

 

What didn't help was that The Birth of a Nation featured a fictional rape scene that served as a motivator for Turner's rebellion. Setting aside the disturbing implications, making that the main motivation for Turner to rebel against the slaveholders I feel undermines the actual reason for his rebellion, which was mainly his religious beliefs. Actress and sexual assault survivor Gabrielle Union, who herself starred in Birth of a Nation, criticized the decision to include the rape scene and shared the concern surrounding Parker's allegations.

 

The reason why the Oscar backlash plays a big part in this story is that, presumably because of the pressure, Fox Searchlight and the other bidders rushed to purchase the distribution rights to Birth of a Nation without doing any background checks on Parker, and thus Fox did not anticipate the controversy until reports of the case started leaking out. The studio scrambled to find ways to address the controversy, but Parker apparently wasn't willing to do any damage control, instead asserting he was completely innocent and initially showed no semblance of guilt. Industry sources state Parker would ignore directions from public relations experts, and his lackluster responses only worsened the situation. One could argue that he was in an unwinnable situation, but there's little excuse for how it was handled.

 

Because of the low domestic box office (the film closed after nine weeks grossing only $15.8 million) the international release was cancelled and it is looking highly unlikely that Birth of a Nation will even be in contention once the Oscar season arrives. After the film's release Fox Searchlight was quick to sweep it under the rug and promote Jackie as their big Oscar contender instead. Perhaps if the critical reception was better Birth could have still been considered for awards despite the controversy, but it just doesn't seem worth it at this point. Reviews were positive, but they weren't glowing, and some have argued that the atmosphere surrounding Birth's Sundance premiere played a big part in the initial outstanding reception.

 

Now, I'm not going to play judge and jury on this case. There is a lot of back-and-forth regarding to how the court case was handled back in 2001, but one can't deny that the way Parker and Fox Searchlight tried to handle the situation in 2016 was anything short of disastrous. On Parker's part, his responses to the allegations were clunky at best, ignorant at worst. On Fox's part, the fact that they made no effort to research the film's creator only makes them look stupid, but then again they were apparently not the only ones. This would've been more unfortunate if it were the only possible contender with an African-American cast for the Oscars, but with films like Moonlight and Fences looking to be strong contenders for Best Picture and acting nominations, there's little reason to pay attention to The Birth of a Nation outside of it being a curious piece of history, and with all that said, there's a good reason why this in on the "fail" list.

 

Edited December 27, 2016 by cookie

[elcaballero]

Great write-ups so far! Also, thanks for the fair and reasonable summary of The Birth of Nation controversy.