Race and Subjectivity in Twelve Years a Slave
Twelve Years a Slave is a film directed by Steve McQueen in 2013 raising the issue of slavery in the 19th century America in its historical, ethical, and traumatic dimensions. Along with these ones, another implicit problem addressed in the movie is the value of humanism. By means of moral contradictions, the director dwells on particular dangers of subjectivity within the treatment of other people.
Subjectivity of interpretation endangers the ultimate truth about the initial freedom of all divine creatures. For example, Solomon Northup’s second master Edwin Epps is persuaded that, according to biblical principles, slaves must be treated as property with numerous abuses and humiliations. When a liberal Canadian Samuel Bass expresses opposition to slavery as a deeply inhuman phenomenon, Bass compares his workers to animalistic ignorant baboons. As a religious fanatic, Epps is unable neither interpret the Holy Bible appropriately, nor to acknowledge the equality of all people independently of race. Instead, he insists that Afro-Americans are sinful and mean, although evil is rooted in his perverse soul. In such a way, race appears as a way of subjective manipulation that annihilates the value of humanism.
In addition, subjectivity and race are shown as relative and changing issues in comparison to universal rules. When Bass is trying to prove that there is no righteousness in slavery, he comments: “Suppose they pass a law taking your liberty, making you a slave. Suppose… Laws change, Epps. Universal truths are constant. It is a fact. A plain and simple fact. And what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike” (Twelve Years a Slave). In such a way, humanism is shown as a fundamental law sticking to which prevails people from moral degradation and the ill of abusing others.
Conclusively, in his film McQueen illustrates that matters can be manipulated and subjectively ignored at the expense of narrower interests or racism, but subjectivity hurting humanism itself always gets a reckoning day.
Works Cited
“12 Years a Slave”, director Steve McQueen, 2013, https://123movies.is/film/12-years-a-slave-3134/watching.html, Accessed 27 Jan. …
