Newsweek reviews ‘Black Snake Moan’
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
The latest issue of Newsweek features a review of the film Magic Negro Saves White Nympho, I mean, Black Snake Moan 
, director Craig Brewer’s follow-up to 2005’s Hustle & Flow. There’s also a little quote from yours truly:
There’s no polite way to describe Craig Brewer’s “Black Snake Moan,” so let’s get it over with. Samuel L. Jackson stars as Lazarus, an old black bluesman who tries to cure Rae (Christina Ricci) of nymphomania by tethering her to his radiator with a steel chain. Revolted? Intrigued? Amused? If you checked all of the above, Brewer would be delighted. His film “Hustle & Flow” got two Oscar nominations (and won for best song) in 2005, but it also kicked up a lot of criticism that the story of a black pimp didn’t need to be told, especially by a white director.
“Moan” raises the stakes with both its reverse slave imagery and its disturbing depiction of sex addiction. “Having a white girl chained up at a black man’s house, that definitely seems manipulative,” says Carmen Van Kerckhove, president of the diversity-training firm New Demographic.
Here’s the trailer, in case you haven’t seen it:
[If you’re reading this in an RSS reader or Feedblitz email and can’t view the video, please click on the post title.]
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
drydock wrote:
Black Snake Moan,– god it sounds horrible. However, the storyline from Hustle and Flow sounds bad too, pimp wants to make it as a rap star– a movie version of the minstrel videos on MTV and BET.
But Hustle and Flow was a pretty good movie with excellent acting, particularly by Terrence Howard. The movie had a lot of complexity to it. It was funny to hear people dis it without seeing it.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 12:28 pm ¶
Rachel wrote:
I saw a picture advertising this movie the other day. My husband showed it to me and said, “Is this some twisted joke?”
I find the ad for the movie to be extremely racist and insulting, and while I agree with drydock that we need to be careful about judging a movie without seeing it. We also should give our hard earned movie just so we can make up our minds about how offensive something is.
As a member of a Black white interracial relationship and as an anti-racist person, I found that promotional picture to be a horribly racist caricature of Black men and to a lesser extent relationships between Black men and White women.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 1:43 pm ¶
Rachel wrote:
I meant should NOT give our hard earned money away.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 1:44 pm ¶
Zeta Phi Beta 1920 wrote:
I personally think that we should boycott the movie to its fullest extent. Sam Jack has already made a booboo with his flop-of-a-hit “Snakes on a Plane”. Props to what Rachel said; black-man/white-woman relationships are already stigmatized enough in this society and it’s like they said, curiosity killed the cat.
In fact, I think it’s a type of sick curiosity that will draw in audiences with just the title name “Black Snake Moan”. I mean, where do they get their inspiration? I just…ugh…never mind.
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 2:35 pm ¶
Nadia wrote:
“In fact, I think it’s a type of sick curiosity that will draw in audiences with just the title name “Black Snake Moan”. I mean, where do they get their inspiration? I just…ugh…never mind.”
ewwwww!!!! that hadn’t occured to me before you said that, but i’m sure it occured to the movie producers. great, way to reinforce the myth of the black man’s penis *and* the myth that it’s the reason why non-black people date black men.
and the website is moanmovie.com? really, what were they thinking?
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 5:44 pm ¶
Sylvia wrote:
…
DO NOT WANT.
(This seems to be my motto for 2007.)
What the hell? Kindly black man (with chains!) saves white woman from her overt and shameless sexuality?!
Next thing you know, there’ll be movies of black men dressed up as confident large dark-skinned black women dating insecure black men who want to date light skinned, skinny black women… Good thing Hollywood hasn’t gone there yet!
Posted 15 Feb 2007 at 6:30 pm ¶
cazza wrote:
The typical white woman’s fantasy? Just reading Frantz Fanon’s Black Faces White Masks. Writing in the 50’s describing this very stereotype of the black man and the white woman. White women would never willingly have sex with a black man now would they! They’d have to be chained to the radiator first but oh the joy, the secret delights that lie in wait for them when they submit to the huge black snake! Plus ca change!
I’m sure it’s going to be a hot favourite in the dirty video collection for a certain kind of person!
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 7:30 am ¶
cazza wrote:
PS your site is now bookmarked.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 7:32 am ¶
squidfly wrote:
Black Snake Moan is a Blues song composed by Blind Lemon Jefferson, circa 1920’s, It’s actually a great song. As far as the movie is concerned, I try not to practice contempt prior to investigation.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 11:16 am ¶
Rachel wrote:
cazza,
That’s a white man’s fantasy, not a white woman’s fantasy.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 11:34 am ¶
Y. Carrington wrote:
Same ole racist misogynist shit. But I’ve got a question: Will someone PLEASE tell me why Sam Jackson keeps taking all these goddamn Tom roles? I thought he was supposed to be the baddest mutha-shut- your-mouth in Hollywood! I guess he ain’t that bad after all.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 1:11 pm ¶
coco wrote:
i knew there was a reason i was avoiding this movie.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 1:25 pm ¶
kesha wrote:
same ‘ol chuck, shuckin’ and jivin’ BULLSHIT.
i’m not seeing this.
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 5:58 pm ¶
Ms.Go wrote:
The funny thing is, Craig Brewer probably thought he was being all rebelious…when he really was just following the status quo.
If HE REALLY wanted to rebel, he should have made Sammy L.’s and Christina’s character normal folks who fall in love and have a hot love scene.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 11:15 pm ¶
cleveland wrote:
This director is basically betraying himself as a racist who seems to have some really perverse sexual issues over degrading caucasian women.
In Hustle and Flow, the white female was pimped for money by the black male characters i.e.- a WHORE, although the black male `rappers` were glorified for their brainless music full of swearing and nonsense rhymes.
To follow that up, this racist now has constructed a movie out of a southern white female being chained to a radiator and kept hostage by a black male, `for her own good` were assured. This guy is sick and racist- he should be shunned, If a white male director featured moives that were specifically designed to BRUTALLY denigrate and humiliate black women no one would give him the time of day.
Sick twisted BLACK reverse racists are apparently OK though-
Posted 21 Feb 2007 at 7:19 pm ¶
antonette wrote:
This is in response to rachels comment. I quess white women never harbor racist feelings or stereotypes huh? That comment is just truly delusional.
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 11:19 am ¶
Kefa wrote:
I can just hear black women now…”he couldn’t find a black woman to chain up??”
Posted 28 Feb 2007 at 1:43 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
Incredibly racist. Why if there was a movie called “White Snake Moan” but with the colors and roles reversed?? There would be an OUTCRY! This is ridiculous…
Posted 28 Feb 2007 at 11:55 am ¶
Kel Reichelt wrote:
I’m tired of black people getting a pass on issues no matter how racist they are. You know they can say/do whatever racist thing they want and that’s their right but once a white person says the slightest thing defending their race they must be a neo-nazi. I don’t want to hear excuses about the director or the “real” message of the movie or some other excuse, the fact of the matter is that the display and title of the movie is overtly racist and I certainly hope the white people in this country will take a stand against this kind of thing. Oh, wait I’m supposed to be riddled with white guilt right? C’mon wake up people…
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 12:49 am ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Kel, actually the director of the film is white.
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 11:32 am ¶
Sewere wrote:
Kel said,
You are aware that the director, producing studio and marketing agencies are not owned by a secret cabal of blacks just itching to milk you for every drop of that precious white guilt…. right?
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 12:20 pm ¶
kim wrote:
Reich- mon…
Me, too.
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 12:33 pm ¶
kim wrote:
Sewere-
How did the presence of guilt become the offense of the offended?
How did the idea that Blacks will become outspoken at continual denials of access (to justice, fair economic play, schooling, to inconspicuous ‘being’) become synonymous with the guilt trope?
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 6:34 pm ¶
Blake wrote:
I dont understand how people can call this film racist. Before someone uses that word they need to understand the meaning. First of all if the film was PREJUDISTIC it would be towards African American people rather than whites. The moviw showed Whites and Blacks in undignified roles. Both sides of the track were presented. YALL just mad cause some white hoe was chained up.
Posted 04 Mar 2007 at 7:19 pm ¶
Zannie C. wrote:
the issue, Blake, is that threats of subversion of the white master-black slave relations have existed since emancipation and this movie just plays on this fear once again; take Birth of a Nation, one of the most notorious examples of the Black males running rampant on white females, the ideal standard of all that is womanly. Clearly Ricci is hardly representing an ‘ideal’ in this case but her inability to stop from writing with sexuality distorts her to be a sort of danger, oh, “she got the sickness.” Oversexed AND crazy, Ricci fits all the proper roles of the gendered Other. And Jackson’s going to “make her right” by dominating her? It’s all too familiar…
Posted 13 Apr 2007 at 4:07 pm ¶