![]() In short, Parker instrumentalizes the violation of women to justify the violence of men-a pattern that’s all too familiar both in narrative drama and in real life, and that makes clear why rape survivors might want to steer clear of The Birth of a Nation regardless of the director’s personal history. ![]() In the context of the movie’s plot, the army Nat raises functions primarily to defend the honor of a violated wife. These rape stories, though they are no doubt accurate composite portraits of the grim reality of life under slavery, had no role in the historical Nat Turner incident they’ve been inserted to make Turner’s quest for justice less abstract and more personal, as if slavery weren’t concrete and personal enough. Nat’s wife Cherry (Aja Naomi King)-a house slave at a plantation nearby-has a slightly more substantial role, but it’s too soon sacrificed on the altar of another sexual-assault subplot. Basically the known facts are that Nat Turner and a band of slaves escaped. Needless to say there are many gaps to fill and Styron created an imaginary story of a young slave who engaged in slave revolt in 1831. ![]() The previous August, Turner, a enslaved preacher and self-styled prophet, had led the only successful. The written record of the real life Nat Turner is very scant because all there is is the 'Confessions' recorded by his defense lawyer. Gray is a pamphlet published shortly after the trial and execution of Nat Turner in November 1831. ![]() Gabrielle Union, as a fellow slave at the Turner plantation whose forced prostitution is an important driver of the revenge plot, gets barely a line to speak. The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection in Southampton, Va., as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Parker, who seems more confident as an actor than as a director, nonetheless makes the tormented Nat into a sympathetic hero. Most of the black characters-including, unfortunately, the central one-are nearly as thinly written as the white ones. ![]()
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