Don’t Confuse Representation with Liberation
As a work of cinema, Sinners was stunning. Its setting within communities of color in the Jim Crow south, rich with blues culture and Black American folklore influence, was well-researched. That allowed for a refreshing take on the much-played vampire genre. Ryan Coogler’s hit horror film was loved by audiences and critics alike.
Through a communist analysis another truth is revealed. While Sinners captivated audiences and became the most Oscar-nominated movie of all time, with a mostly Black cast, we must not confuse representation with liberation. The film contains some seeds of liberation. But its message falls short of a road to working-class solidarity.
The film follows protagonists Smoke and Stack, young Black men. They have returned to their hometown in Mississippi to start their own nightlife business serving their community, They face friction from local Klansmen.
Black-owned business has long been touted as a pathway to liberation under white supremacy. But can these brothers successfully join the owning classes without becoming vampires?
Even on their first night of operations, they face the contradictions inherent in their position as aspiring capitalist business owners. In their juke joint, they want to serve to Black community members. But they find that many can only pay with the wooden nickels given to them by plantation bosses. This currency was only accepted at company stores. It was designed to keep them dependent within the Jim Crow system.
The brothers are immediately in conflict with one another: They are forced on the first night to choose between prioritizing profit and serving their community. This reveals the contradictions inherent in seeking liberation through ascending the capitalist hierarchy. Faced with this choice, the brothers decided not to turn anyone away.
When the vampire antagonists of the film are introduced, they try to convince the brothers to submit willingly to vampirization. The leader of the vampires is an Irish vampire named Remmick. He appeals to identity, operating from his own experience as an Irishman whose culture was marginalized under British imperialism.
Though white, Remmick offers the brothers a post-racial society through oneness with the vampire collective which operates as a hive mind. “I am your way out,” he says. “This world already left you for dead. Won’t let you build. Won’t let you fellowship. We will do just that.”
He offers them the power and growth potential they are craving, but at the cost of their humanity. This is a striking moment if read as an allegory for the false promises of class mobility.
By the end of the film, Smoke has died in a brave last-stand shootout with the KKK, and Stack survives as a vampire. One brother chose a revolutionary sacrifice for his community, showing us how resistance dies without collective organization. Without organization, the struggle fragments. Some fall resisting, others are absorbed by the system.
Throughout the film, we feel the impacts of racism as a force around them. From the conflict while they purchase their venue from a white man, to the segregation of the shops, to the KKK appearing to punish the characters for their attempt to become business owners.
Historically, capitalism has demanded white supremacy to maintain its machinery. Whether it was plantation owners profiting from the transatlantic slave trade or Jim Crow creating structures to keep Black folks in an exploited labor class. Even now, racism, the prison system, and capitalism maintain these practices through prison labor. The ills of capitalist exploitation shown in Sinners still exist today. But now they wear a different mask.
Celebrating our own and other cultures can be a beautiful thing. But class unity and organization are what all workers must remember. We cannot submit to the seduction of culture which promotes nationalist ideas that separate our class and keep us from revolution.
In the struggle we are only free if we are all free. And we can only reach that goal with strong political leadership and organization. In the face of this, the task is not to choose between surviving or “ascending,” but to build collective power. There is no liberation in any kind of capitalism. Only the organized struggle of the working class, conscious and united across the imposed divisions, can put an end to this system.
Read the ICWP pamphlet To End Racism, Mobilize Masses for Communism here