Unclear and Present Danger - A Time to Kill

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched “A Time to Kill,” Joel Schumacher’s 1996 adaptation of a 1989 John Grisham novel by the same name.Starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey, with supporting performances from Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris Cooper, “A Time to Kill” concerns the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, a black man on trial for capital murder after killing the two men who assaulted his 10-year-old daughter. When Jake Brigance, a white lawyer who previously defended Hailey’s brother, takes the job to keep Carl Lee out of the execution’s chamber, the small Mississippi town of Canton, where the film takes place, is plunged into chaos. Brigance and his team must navigate national attention, a skilled and ambitious prosecutor, and a revitalized Ku Klux Klan, willing, able and eager to derail the trail and stop Brigance by any means necessary. All the while, Brigance must handle the strain on his family and his marriage.The official tagline for “A Time to Kill” was: “A lawyer and his assistant fighting to save a father on trial for murder. A time to question what they believe. A time to doubt what they trust. And no time for mistakes.”You can find “A Time to Kill” to rent or buy on demand at iTunes and Amazon.For our next episode, we’re watching “Chain Reaction,” a science-fiction thriller directed by Andrew Davis and starring Morgan Freeman and Keanu Reeves.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodAnd join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more. Our latest episode of the patreon is on the 1995 cyberpunk film, “Virtuosity.”

You got a dollar, Jake. What would you do? I figure there's a lot of people out there tied to all the raping, killing. It'd be sympathetic to a man who took the law in his own hand. Even if he was black. Our society cannot condone men who take the law into their own hands, no matter what the circumstance.

How do you wish to me? Not guilty, Your Honor. Yeah, you're sure you want to be known as the man defendant that murderer? Why toss away a promise in career? I really like to help you with the trial. Have you ever seen a man executed? What I suggest you do is you go watch a man be executed.

You watch him die. You watch him beg. I don't like your politics, but you do have passion, and that's something Carly needs right now, and maybe so do I. If you was on that jury, what would it take to set me free? You sat me down and you said to me, What I can offer you is a chance to save the world one case at a time. He's taking justice out of your hands and put it in his own. Tell them, boys, we need some clan down here in camp.

We're getting calls. At home. Sweats. Your marriage is on the rocks. You're about to have an affair. Lately, you've become much more interested in getting your face on the news than what's going on with your own family. Don't let those bastards grind you down. I set out to prove a black man could receive a thing.

black man could receive a fair trial. That's not the truth. So until that day, we have a duty to seek the truth, not with our mind, but with our hearts. Do you think he was crazy when he did it? No, he wasn't crazy. I saw it, blood. I got so scared because I thought that was you. Drop the case. I quit now on all this for nothing. No. You waged all our lives on this. Do you think the jury should convicts to Conviction turn him loose Do you think they deserve to die, Mr. Haley?

Answer the question. Callie, don't answer that question. Yes, they deserve to die, and I hope they burn in hell. Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of the decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the Substack News. newsletter on Popular Front, and I'm the author of the forthcoming book, When the Clock Broke, Conman Conspiracists and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s, which is coming out June 18th,

and is available for pre-order. So you can do that if you like. Long-time listeners who are aware of the continuing story of, does John know the title of his book? No. Well, John was like reading the book title. I know the first part because I came up with it, but the subtitle is a little bit of a mouthful and I didn't write it. So sometimes I get a little confused. But I'm getting there. For this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched a time to kill a 1996 legal thriller, legal drama, based off of John Grisham's 1989 novel of the same name.

The fact that the novel came out in 89, it was written in the 80s. I think it's quite relevant to this movie and it's like general vibe. Time to Kill was directed by Joel Schumacher, who I think around this time is also about to or currently directing Batman Forever, the third Batman movie. And we know him from this podcast from his previous film, Falling Down, written by Akiva Goldsman, you know, prolific screenwriter. it. This was a big blockbuster movie, came out right in the middle of the summer, made a ton of money, starred kind of everyone. Top of the line, actually, is Sandra Bullock, even though she's very much a supporting character in the film.

She was huge at this time. Yeah, but she was gigantic. But starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, also gigantic. Matthew McConaughey also pretty big. Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Ashley Judd, Donald S. one keeper southern one shows up both sutherlands both sutherlands neither of them with a good southern accent no um how many movies are there is a double sutherland i don't know there's a few i think there's a few yeah has there been a triple southern one because no i don't know what's your name

sarah seven right well i don't know who looks like disturbingly like don't southernly yeah they like they all are pretty close yeah stars pretty much all the all the heavy hitters of the mid nine These, Time to Kill takes place in 1984, although it feels like it takes place in the 90s as well. But anyway, Time to Kill takes place 1984 with 10-year-old girl, Tanya Haley, who is black, is abducted, raped, beaten and attempted murder by two local white men, Billy Ray Cobb, James Willard. They dump her. She survives, and the sheriff, played by Charles Dutton, Ozzy Walls, arrest the two men. Then Tanya's father, Carl Lee Haley, played by Samuel Jackson, contacts Jake Brantz, the lawyer played by Matt McConaughey. And they know each other because Brantz had defended Carl's brother earlier and says, hey, what are the odds that these guys are going to get off?

And what would you do if you or me? And McConaughey, in a studying application of his professional duty, just lets that stand. the next day or sometime later when the windy two men are being arraigned Carl Lee has hidden himself in the courthouse emerges with what I believe is an AR-15 and kills the two men

as well as injuring a police officer resulting in the loss of his leg McConae takes the case or Brigand takes the case and thus begins a boiling southern thriller where in an effort to get revenge on McConaughey and stop Carl Lee from getting any kind of defense,

the brother of one of the dead men kind of resurrects the local clan. There are bombings, there are shootings, there are kidnappings, lots of violence, lots of chaos, in disorder. All the while, McConaugan's life is falling apart as his wife, Ashley Judd, is frustrated with this decision to take this case. And he's also growing closer to a sort of new legal assistant played by Sondra Bullock, a brilliant young lawyer who plays a pretty pivotal role in the defense. As the clan begins to target Jake and target everyone around him, as things begin to look bleak, he struggles to win this case for Carl Lee and get him off lest his client receives the death penalty. A Time to Kill. Kid, you can find it to rent on Amazon and iTunes.

It is, I think you could probably find a Blu-ray somewhere. I'm not sure if this has been released. The tagline for A Time to Kill was, experience a time you'll never forget. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. That sucks. That's a bad tagline. Yeah.

And a Time to Kill. was released on July 24th, 1996. Let's check up in New York Times for that day. All right. Here we go. Here it is. Senate approved sweeping change in welfare policy. Big role to states.

President welcomes bill, but still sees room for improvements. The Senate approved a comprehensive welfare bill today that would end the longstanding federal guarantee of cash assistance for the nation's poorest children. and give states vast new power to run their own welfare and work programs with lumps homes of federal money. The vote was 74 to 24. Democrats split with 23 voting for the bill and 23 opposed. 51 of the 52 Republicans voted for the measure, which calls for the most sweeping welfare changes since the New Deal, and is similar to the House bill passed last week.

The Senate approved only two of the four amendments most ardently sought by President Clinton, who said he would assist on further improvements as a condition of signing the legislation. One would guarantee Medicaid coverage for people who might lose such as health insurance because of new restrictions on welfare eligibility. The other would retain the federal guarantee of food stamps for the poor, denying states the opportunity to set eligibility and benefits for food aid financed by the federal government. Jamel, I think you know much more than I about the story of both of this legislation and

its results. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the great failures of Americans. policy in the last 30 years. Right. So this bill, which would eventually become, be signing to law as temporary aid for needy families, is the replacement for aid to families with dependent children, which is a New Deal era program that was originally conceived to provide assistance to women without men in the home to work because the idea was that men would receive a family wage, right?

And here when I say men, I mean, specifically white men, would receive. receive a family wage, and households without men and them needed some way to get by. The state would sort of take up some of the slack. Part of what happened in the first decades of AFDC was, you know, it was very much like administered like a social program. There would be check-ins from the state, like determining eligibility, that kind of thing. It went, so the implementation was not like racially, there was no, nothing in the law, this is like black, we can get it. But because of prevailing cultural attitudes, namely

that black women did not belong in the home, they belonged in the workplace. For black women who did not have men in the home, it was very difficult for them to receive AFDC, but some did. This difficulty helps spur a major welfare reform movement, welfare rights movement in the 1960s, which pushes the federal government to reconceptualize AFDC as more akin to an entitlement. That if you fall under percentage of the poverty line, you get it automatically. There's no one from the state agency coming to check in. There's no one coming to determine your eligibility. It is for it to be structured much more like SNAP or any other anti-poverty program worth that.

A lot of these changes end up happening. And accordingly, like a lot more black people. or become eligible for AFDC, which kind of begins to spend the end, spell the end of the program, because very promptly, it already there's this, there's like this association, this argument, right? It's sort of like, you know, black people are moving up north and northern city isn't getting, you know, getting out of welfare. But this sort of like just makes us even more widespread, this connection between welfare

assistance and black people. And it becomes a major political football through the 70s. and 80s, and into the 90s, Clinton in his 902 campaign makes reforming welfare part of his pitch to white suburbanites. Republicans have also made reforming welfare a major part of their platform. And the two sides converge and produce this bill, which is based in part on Republican experiments in Wisconsin in particular, where there were policy experiments in what's called Workfare. You must work to get assistance. Anyway, this TANF. ends AFDC as an entitlement, so that no longer exists, give states block grants to allow

them to design their own programs. And what ends up happening is it's just like a major cut to the program. And a lot of states benefits to families shrink dramatically from, you know, be equivalent today of, you know, $1,500 a month to a couple hundred dollars a month in today's dollars. And because it's a block grant, it's continued funding depends on Congress kind of like requisitioning new funds, especially if you want to increase the benefits. And Congress just has not been interested in doing that. So the actual value of the benefit has declined kind of precipitously over the last 15 years or so. And so in effect, it's like a program that like, I mean, it exists. And in some states, it's like okay. But in many states, it's effectively a

that program. Welfare, as people understand it, doesn't really exist. Yeah, right. Okay, what else do we have here? Political memo, Clinton's use, there's not very much national security news here. Clinton's use of incommency, the little plans loom large. As President Clinton barnstorms the country these days, ahead in the polls but running like an underdog. His campaign proposals do not do much, do not so much constitute a platform as a portable

flag deck front porch planked with row after row of small but worthy ideas. In the last few months, the president had come out in support of curfews for teenagers, uniforms and schools, a national registry of sex offenders, and a crackdown on deadbeat dads. He has come out against truancy, violence on television, teenage smoking, and teenage sex. He hardly ever proposes spending federal money or passing a new law or opposing an iron claw to do a rule. Instead, Mr. Clinton asked city, states and private sector to join him making it sound like an irresistible crusade to go raring into the 21st century united and strong as he puts an address to high school students outside Los Angeles on Monday. And in doing so, even in his opponents can see this

president is refined the time-tested technique of taking credit for the sunrise into a high political art. So, I mean, this kind of tells you a lot about Clinton, actually. You know, Clinton was reviled as this liberal by conservatives and Republicans, but his message was often quite conservative, especially on social issues in a certain way. I mean, the Clinton vision always had, especially was pitched to certain constituencies, was always about a certain an idea of old-time American small-town virtues that was influenced by, you know, communitarians around him, which was a bigger influence in 1992 than 1996, I think. But this is a big part of, you know, Clinton's pitch to people who had once been Reagan Democrats,

who had kind of socially conservative values, but still considered themselves Democrats. It's kind of funny to read these issues today. I don't think anything like this would become political anymore. I mean, uniforms and schools, curfews for teenagers. There was a lot more fear. I mean, back then, I mean, it's interesting how these issues changed. Teenagers now are like, everyone's worried that they're completely basket cases who just look at their phones. Yeah, the worry is that teens today don't have enough sex and don't like

smoke a drink enough. Yeah, they're not, they're not rambunctious enough. And back then they were very worried that they were violent and sexual teenagers were really scary. And now it's like, what's wrong with you guys? You're not, you're not doing the things you're supposed to do, which is to be scary. It's funny how these things go. And even conservatives are like, there's something wrong with teenagers. They're not rebelling enough. Although now we're seeing that they may be and not necessarily waste the conservatives like. So, yeah, that's just a interesting little time capsule there about the concerns of the era. And Clinton's kind of small, see conservative values when he was on the campaign trail.

You know, obviously Clinton was a little bit of a hypocrite because, I mean, that was the Republican knock against him, which had something to it, which was, oh, he preaches all these family value shit, but he himself is a philanderer and a user of drugs, not a very prolific user of drugs. if you believe him, and kind of a boomer lay about hippie, no good Nick. And, but I think that was the contradictions of Clinton was that he could both appeal to people who saw, you know, who could see themselves in the, in him in many ways. So, and I think we're going to talk a lot more about that with this movie. I think that's, there's not anything else on this page. I think, um, there's an article about. Israel's foreign minister, trying to mend ties with Yasser Arafat. They actually met and emerged smiling at a different time again in the relation in the Middle East.

But anything else look interesting to you here? Nothing else really, nothing else really pikes by interest. Peaks by interest. Yeah. So let's just move on to the movie. yeah um a time to kill uh this movie lands kind of right before you even could start it john what is your history with therapy have you seen the time to kill before yeah i saw this when i was 11 or 12 i actually weirdly saw in india on vhs in the country of india on vhs at my parents friend's house in india and they they they put this movie on to keep me busy and

I was maybe a little too young to watch it I think 10 or 11 is a bit young to watch this movie Yeah, it definitely made an impression I don't think I saw this movie as a kid This is very much like a thing I saw as an adult Although it's entirely possible that I Because it seems familiar It seems familiar and I've seen it before this

This viewing here But I almost certainly saw at least like clips Have been on TBS or USA or one of those channels I watched it two years ago maybe three years ago, recently I kind of just like making my way through all of the Grisham legal thrillers for my own edification. And I have to say like, of the batch, which, you know, includes the firm, the Pelican brief, the rainmaker, of the batch of these Grisham movies. I like a time to kill a lot. I don't think it's particularly good, to be clear. But I find

it a fascinating object. And I suppose that we're going to talk about. Because this is, This is the movie that is very much about race, capital A, capital R. I think it's very much understands itself to be a commentary on racism in America. But it is a very, to my eyes at least, it's a very kind of like triumphalist, like 90s, you know, post-sical rights take on that, which is to say a time to kill in Schumacher, like, you know, Schumacher with all of his, you know, literal sweatiness this is the sweatiest movie ever made there's a scene

where Ashley Judd who I mean looks great in this movie is like looks like she's like dripping with sweat like she was just sort of like sprayed with with mist before the scene

they're like they're in the house too and so it's just and it's very funny to be how everyone there's no there's no point in this movie where no one is wet yeah everybody's drenched constantly they're just like

it's the south it's very humid um yeah and they're in mississippi so which is in fairness quite humid uh but no this movie posits racism as basically like an anachronism that exists in these like specific backwards places and we got i kind of mention how it's unclear when this movie takes place it could the movie is supposed to take place in the 80s um but it feels like it could be the 90s as well with the kind of the television newscasters and all that stuff And it's sort of the movie to me seems to be saying, look, you know, racism is still around, but it's like in these like pockets.

He's like these backwards pockets of America where people still liberally use the inward. And there's a lot of, a lot of inward use in this movie. Ehris forget. A lot of Keith. A lot of Kurtward Smith calling people ninjas. Yeah. Yeah.

But racism kind of exists. in this concentrated form in these particular backwards places. And those places attract, right? Like, they attract provocateurs, they attract race hustlers. The end of the L.A.P. shows up. And the very kind of like sticking at the Al Sharpton kind of move. In fact, I think implicitly the movie is saying like this kind of thing does an existing where else.

That's why it's a spectacle. Because like only in these small, these towns, only in these sort of places where modernity has touched yet, do we have this kind of backwards? this. And even, I mean, frankly, it's like even the scenery looks like you're in the 1950s and 60s. It's like, you know, people in basic living in shacks basically. Right. Yeah, like the blacks are portrayed almost. I mean, look, there are parts of Mississippi that are still quite poor and backwards, but they're portrayed almost as like sharecroppers. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, look, this movie's politics are really interesting. I think I, I, look, this movie is very. goes down easy like it's easy to watch it keeps you it keeps you glued to it but if you I mean this movie is like if you scratch at it a little bit it it's it's it's politics are if not conservative the kind of reactionary um in a way that's like it's very much a text

of 90s liberalism in a few ways um first of all the the movie's depiction of the south um although it's a little bit more racist than the New South kind of D.L.C. Clinton Democrats would like half you think is very Clinton in the sense that young, upwardly mobile lawyers form the backbone of a New South that is trying to move past racism. Now, but they're also law and order, right? So the main character, um, has a disquisition with Sandra Bullock, who's a northern liberal, and he says, I believe in the death penalty, you know, this guy obviously should not, you know, get the death penalty for this vigilante killing. But, you know, the fact of matter is, like, you know, you liberals don't understand what it's like in the South and, you know, certain amount of, you know, of handing out capital punishment. And the movie's very pro giving people. beatings and so on and so forth and torture and shooting and um yeah there are multiple scenes

where macaonaughey is throwing a punch at some Klansman yeah charles as dutton you plays the sheriff is like beating the shit out of someone beating out of clansman mostly beating you know you got to talk about the class issues of this movie you're mostly beating up poor whites you know like yeah they are portrayed as racist but it's like it's all the it's no one I mean I think the movie kind of implies there's an implicit racism among, the judge name is noose, which is real subtle. There's an implicit kind of racism among the more middle class people, but the movie really does pin the racism of the, of it on the most backwards and poor people in the community,

which, you know, is, again, it's kind of a liberal elite scapego, which is just like, oh, it's these backwards yokels who are inwardting all over the, place and trying to bring back the clan and we just got to, you know, we just got to crack down on them and that will solve racism. And also, like, it's conservative in its opposition to what remains of civil rights discourse and politics. Like, the movie is really down on the NWACP who and the black pastor who are both, like, portrayed as like race hustlers that don't have Samuel Jackson's interest at heart. They're trying to gin up their own issues and they're also corrupt. So it's really conservative in that regard, just being like, oh, yeah, these special

interest groups, but he's a decent man. And it's so Clinton, clintonian, forgive me for saying this kind of neoliberal for like, it's perception that's like, you know, this yuppie, this yuppie guy on his own with this little. rag-tag coalition he puts together is what's, you know, these are the kinds of people you can count on, not the old institutions or infrastructure. It's kind of like, you know,

principled individuals applying themselves to social problems, young people who, you know, you know, and this is very of a piece with Clinton's whole shtick. So it's definitely like a little more dire of a picture. It's a kind of Yankee picture of the South for sure. So it's not totally.

in the and the DLC wheelhouse. Clinton Wheelhouse, he would be a little bit more nice on the Bubba's. But it's in that definitely feels very the way race, class, the South was thought about in the 1990s for sure. And it's not, like, I don't know, okay, two weird comparisons I thought about watching this movie. The movie is basically pro-vigilantism. I mean, and it's making.

it makes it very difficult to say shooting these people who obviously sort of have a coming. Can you really argue with it? But weirdly enough, I thought of the godfather were watching this movie because the beginning of the godfather is the man, you know, it's the, you know, it's the guy coming to the godfather because his daughter has been assaulted and saying, you know, I believe in America, but the system failed me. This guy and saying, I need to go back to the old ways of vigilantism. Samuel Jackson doesn't go to the godfather. He takes it into his own hands, but he's also saying, like, you know, the legal system, I don't trust the legal system. I'm going to go immediately to vigilante violence. And usually, and usually that's a highly right-wing,

you know, theme in films. And often, I mean, this movie is just taking a often extremely racist notion of protecting families and women and just flips the colors essentially. Right, right. And says like, well, is it okay? You know, the traditionally oppressed people, is it okay if they went out, you liberal, would you really have a problem if they went out and killed, you know, these racist rednecks? And, you know, the movie really, you know, you see Klansmen get beaten on and you see these guys get shot. And you can't help but kind of root for the violence against them. But, yeah, it's, I think that that's what's really strange about the movie.

It kind of like reverses traditionally an extremely racist plot about vigilanteism or extremely racist tropes or mythology about vigilanteism. And she said, well, what if we made the guy black and what if we made, you know, the villains white, then what? Yeah, I mean, it, the movie looks. I mean, the movie literally posits Jackson's character getting off as being like a civil rights victory. It would be a grand civil rights victory, like the most important one in Mississippi, if a black man could engage in basically, like, okay, I'm not going to say that, engage in vigilante violence against white men in the way that you would have happened in the reverse. a couple decades earlier.

In fact, I think a character at one point says one of the clansmen says at one point, you know, if this were 10 years ago, we would have hung in by a tree with his balls in his mouth. That was key, a keeper Seidel had said that. Right. And it is sort of, I mean, more like 30 years ago, maybe. Eh, 20. 20. Yeah, 20. 20, yeah, 20s.

Yeah, 20s. Yeah. 20s. No, it's that so much about this movie is. kind of vision of race is strange. Like, I think I think, I think, one of the things I keep coming back to, right, is it's sort of Charles has done in place the sheriff, he's an elected chair. And so, like, this county has obviously progressed enough to elect the black rat sheriff,

although we do learn that he was like a football star as well. So there's, there's that. But then on the police force, there's like, you know, some of those two burn crosses also workforce. Some of those work forces will spare across the situation going on on the police force or one of the cops is a Klansman which we discovered the movie kind of tells

you not explicitly, but then by the end of it's very clear. And so it's like it's clear that not everyone is okay with the fact that Charles has done is the sheriff. So there's like, there's some progress, there's some tension. White characters kind of

liberally use racial slurs during the, when we see the jury deliberations, the foreman is, like, dropping the inward during deliberation, which seems like it'd be a problem. Seems like you want to tell the judge that was happening. But then again, Judge News might say, you know, who cares? Judge News, yeah. Kevin Spacey's character plays kind of the unscrupulous prosecutor. Also seems to harbor some kind of racial prejudice, but like it's, is quiet about it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's quite.

weird and it is very you're right that it's very much like a liberal conception and from the 90s of where racism exists and how it takes shape it's also I mean not to use this word

the sense to which the movie doesn't even attempt to interrogate not just the class differences among whites but like the class difference between the black booting the film and the whites like yeah and and in thinking about solutions to racism in addition to the movie

solution being um you know where we can all be vigilantes then we'll all have a quality the movie the film was also you know like well if you know the children of carl lee and children of brigand can play together then that is progress are our race problem um and which is This is a very kind of liberal idea of, this is like a very kind of liberal idea of racism is being primarily about your soul, personal relationships, personal prejudice, personal bias, and nothing really material or structural or, you know, something that shapes people's life outcomes. Well, it even refutes. Okay, so you have Samuel Jackson's character is given the opportunity to give his take on race. And he's just like, he says to Matthew McConaughey, like, listen, smug white liberal, you're not really, my friend, you know, you'll never really understand what it's like to be. Like, I hired you because you're part of them, you know.

And but in the end, the movie kind of refutes that his, you know, probably well-earned pessimistic notion of race relations and says, actually the smug liberal was right. you know, there is hope for justice in this respect and people aren't so bad and they can be friends. But if that was true, the movie is based on a miscarriage of justice. Like he was obviously they tried to get him off by reason of insanity. He was obviously not insane. Right. Like he killed the guys in full knowledge of what he was doing and it's difficult to blame him from the sense of view of point of view of human emotions. But from the point of view of the law, he killed them and probably should have absolutely not face the death penalty. And I don't think anybody even then, even if this was really in the 80s, would have sought the death penalty for somebody

who committed a vigilante killing like this. But like, you know, I guess it's trying to saying, well, he didn't really need to do that because, you know, they could have convicted these guys with the white jury. Um, you know, and I think, I just, I think actually in the, in the modern more hypocritical world of race relations, perhaps. An example like this of two poor people who were involved in extremely high-profile racist crime would be what a conservative prosecutor in a southern state would love to get a prosecution for because politically it gives them an alibi about racism and says, look, we take our black constituents seriously and we're fighting the worst aspects of racism without actually doing

anything structurally to help you know help poor people in any way so it's like it just misunderstands what the actual politics of racial crimes would be or would be transitioning into like the better movie would be like

oh you have a you know a conservative who's cynically seeking these guys I mean you can't make a movie out of this who's cynically seeking to prosecute these people, but at the same time, like, advocating objectively racist policies that would, that would, you know, keep the characters of the movie in poverty,

which they're perceived to be. Yeah. I mean, so it's interesting to make that point, because that's a, that is an actual archetype for Southern politics, especially in the first half of the 20th century. So most people will know Strom Thurmond as, you know, arch racist of 20th century, present to Canada, the Dixiecrats. Like, you know, a guy so toxic that when Trent Lott, you know, was like, you know, if you had been elected way back when we were to probably his problem, so he immediately had to resign. Yeah. Probably when he had to resign today.

Oh, not at all. Today he would have been like, yeah, I met what I said. I could be a, you could be very close to an open claimsman again in politics. It's funny you mentioned this, John, because this, this notion, like conservative politicians who kind of use their willingness to kind of, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, not protect blacks, but sort of like prosecute crimes against blacks, sort of defend blacks. They use that as sort of proving their kind of liberal, racially liberal, upon a few days, despite being quite conservative.

And so, like, Strom Thurman is kind of one of these guys who in the 1930s as a circuit judge helped persuade two suspects and the killing of a white man, but also a black man, to turn themselves in. Part of what was happening at one of the suspects was like the cousin or brother. of a woman he was having an affair with. Strom Thurman, cute scumbag throughout his entire life. But this is, especially for

so-called, like, new South politicians in the earth of the 20th century, sort of like, look, you know, we are against mob violence, we are for, you know, fair trials for blacks, whenever. That was considered to be sort of a sign of enlightened, enlightened,

you know, racial sensibilities. The governor of Mississippi during the in 1948 his name I cannot remember was one of these guys as well even as he becomes a you know

staunch opponent of the new civil right to play. George Wallace was one of these guys. Quite notably when he was a circuit judge in Alabama was known for giving a fair hearing to black clients, black lawyers, that sort of thing and as governor in his first

run for governor tried to run as a kind of like racial moderate and sort of turned and the other direction when it was clear you could not win state white office with those kinds of politics. So yeah, I mean, it's it's funny that this movie kind of gets the politics wrong there. In real life, Kevin Spacey's character would be eager to defend or it would be, would not, would not prosecute Carole or find some, find some way to avoid a prosecution. Yeah, it's an extremely easy political way to make it look like you're not a racist when you can, in fact, be racist, is to go after the most egregious examples of racism

or provide, you know, criminally prosecute people who are obviously, you know, guilty of some racially motivated crime. And then you don't have to deal with any kind of structural issues. I mean, and I think that that's, the movie is, like, sort of like, temporarily a little confused, right? it because it's like yeah I think this is your point you're making earlier like are we in the world of the new south or are we in the world of of Jim Crow and lynchings at regular lynchings and and it's not a very clear picture of the state of southern politics as they would have

existed around the making of the movie or even when it's meant to be made yeah right right and my I mean like I've been saying I think the only explanation for why you would have this sort of ambiguous setting is, I mean, this is a very kind of 90s liberal, you know, especially Hollywood liberal conception of what racism was. We've gotten past racism generally as a society and that it exists as almost like this, as like this virulent infection in certain places that only needs to be rooted out where it, where it flares up. And as the movie suggests, sort of responsibility.

lies both with racist, but with the clan, the literal clan in this case, and with, you know, so-called race hustlers, people who make a living chasing racial conflict. I think it's, yeah, absolutely. I think it's kind of absurd that getting these guys, that getting him off would have been hard, even in the south of this era, because I think even quite racist people, just as we were saying it would be a political alibi, even quite racist people would feel some sympathy would be like, well, in this particular case, I can sympathize with vigilantism. I suppose no, because I guess there is a sense among, you know, racism as an ideology that it's like extremely

important to always reinforce, like the legal order is supposed to bind black people in a way it's not supposed to bind white people. So, like, vigilantism is a, is an opportunity that is granted to white people, but not necessarily to black people, right? So, like, yeah, it's like, well, yeah, it's okay if a white guy does it, you know? Well, what's interesting. So I'm currently reading, because I'm going to write, I'm writing an introduction for it, for a new edition.

I'm reading Walter White, that former secretary of BNWACP in the 1920s. He wrote a novel called The Fire. in the Flint about a young black doctor after World War I in southern Georgia. Strange about the book, the town in the book, it's very clearly a recreation of the town I'm mom's from because I was like, I'm reading it and I'm like, oh, this, this description of this town sounds exactly like my mom's hometown. Anyway, one of the things the book hammers on, the white hammers on in the book is how they were sort of like impunity, you know, whites have kind of general impunity for crimes

against black, but especially sexual crimes, especially sexually assault, especially assaults on young black girls. And in the context of the book, in the deep into the Jim Crowell, it's sort of even white, white to disapprove this sort of thing,

don't respond to it, don't try to prosecute it. Because as you say, there's a larger social, were to preserve. And if you're to start prosecuting crimes against black women and black girls, then where would it, where would it all end? But that dissolves, right? Like the Jim Crow in this movie no longer exists. And although the social, the acculturation, the Jim Crow is still quite strong, that, you know, one of the interesting things that happens with the

fall of Jim Crow is it does allow kind of the class politics, the white class politics in the South, it kind of takes center stage a bit more and allow middle class whites to, as we've been saying, kind of like give themselves a kind of, um, uh, allow themselves to say, we, we will oppose crimes by the lesser orders of us, right? Like the lower order of wives. Um, as a kind of show of goodwill to black elites in particular. And so this is all for me. This will say, I actually, think that if this were to happen in real life in the 90s, a middle class white jury in the South would let him off. I totally agree with you. Completely let him off. Precisely because they would see the perpetrators as not belonging to their particular, to their community, right? And the prosecutors would be able to really successfully play, I mean, fairly or not. I mean, they were guilty. But the strategy, the prosecutors would definitely be with a middle class white jury would be like don't view don't view yourself as having any

solidarity with these people because they're not you're not one of them right yeah like these are these are an underclass these are a mob that you don't want to have anything to do with and and southern whites would definitely respond to that because among other things going on you know there's always systems of class differentiation so like you know this movie kind of revolves around that notion is just like you know, you don't need to have solidarity with your racial

brethren. You should just have, you know, uphold a system of justice. Well, what is actually implicit in that system of justice? It's kind of a class order. Right. Right. It is a class order. This is a common subject of my work, right?

It's important to understand Jim Crow as like a system of like, class oppressive as much as anything else. The structure of that somewhat alters in the post-Gim Crow world. Right. I mean, what's striking is that the movie, I mean, the movie is confused a little because that, you know, McCona Hay's successful appeal in the end is basically, an excuse my language to your listeners, I'm doing this once.

His appeal to the jury is essentially, Carl Lee was behaving like. a white man and those those rapists were behaving like niggers yeah exactly and that's the that's the that is the that is the ideological route of the whole movie and why it's so fucked up in reactionary and that's like the that's like the little hinge the little reversal that the movie does and what makes it kind of like low key low key racist or fascist or something i don't know yeah i think you're exactly right It was it was it was trying to be like who are really the so-and-so's now you know right right yeah And in the thing about that resolution is it kind of allows the social order I mean the movie presents it as a victory

No it's not so insane Maybe it's like a victory for black people but it really leaves the social order intact Because if if if if black people are found behaving as there's post to behave, right, like in this animalistic way, then like, yeah, you can, you can throw the book at them. Like, who cares? Right. And he even says that. He's like, oh, a crack, a crack dealer who murder somebody should get the death penalty. Who is a crack dealer? That's obviously racialized term in the context of the times in this movie. He's saying he avers that in other cases, he thinks that black people convicted of crime should get the death penalty. And his belief in the

death and also it kind of lays bare what the death penalty really is because his support for this guy's vigilanteism essentially is is of a piece with his his belief in the death penalty that's also weird because it's basically saying like you have a right black people have a right like it's a weird right that is being granted in the movie right it's it's saying you have a right to this kind of Hobbsian pre-social order behavior that was once reserved to to whites only, right? So it's like, you're allowed now to break the social order a little bit to reinforce it. You can kill, you can kill to reinforce the social order. You are empowered to do, deputized to do that essentially.

And that's like empowering and an extension of the rights, you know, and it's a certain kind of integration or universalization of rights, but it's an integration in the kind of dissolution of the social compact because it's basically saying like, yeah, there are times when we don't believe in the legal system and you just seek revenge and kill people. And that's an insane. The movie enshrines lawlessness as, as, and, an illegal thriller as being, like, morally and socially necessary and acceptable. As much as I, and it manipulates the audience with the absolute horror of the crime committed and the sympathetic, oh, of course, who is not going to want to identify with father in that situation? I don't think there's a normal person in the world. I mean, I'm as liberal as they come, but I can't help, but I want to see that, like, when those people get shot when the when the when the when the white cracker clansman rapists get killed there's

not i'm emotionally manipulated into into being like yeah good for them i'm not like that's horrible i'm like yeah you know like yeah this is this is what this is what is what is kind of horrible about this movie is that it's just like yeah you know some white guys get killed that i don't really like and maybe that's okay and that's the movie that is a that is a the movie is a basically a a defense of lynching under certain circumstances yeah I mean yeah this is that's what it is it's it's a lynching I mean in the movie and it's it's so strange to put it in the south it's so strange to put in this racial context but the movie is basically saying under certain circumstances, and if you flip the races, the movie becomes clear and the weirdness of it

becomes evident. Under certain circumstances, lynching is justified. That's all it's saying. And, yeah, just, just, justified to sort of like it and it justified as a, a, what's sort of I'm likeing for a, as like patriarchal right, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, this is justified because you, you, you're, you're, defending your family, defending women and children.

And there's something interesting about how this movie kind of vibes in that way with the Million Man March, which I think it happens this year in Washington, D.C. No, the year prior, it happened to the year prior was called by Louis Farrakhan. And Louis Farrakhan, you know, it's funny. I think if we talked about this before, but in any kind of mainstream political discourse, I think people slot Lewis Farrakhan on the left because he's like nominally against racism, which tells us something about how people conceive the role like where racism

or being against racism falls some sort of like political discourse but Lewis Farrakhan is like a patriarchal like nationalist he's like he's a right winger he doesn't believe in like you know small government but he is he is on the political right

as far as the African American community goes and the Million Man March you know people went to it for different reasons but certainly one of the One of the themes is sort of like black men kind of reclaiming their manhood, black men taking their both, both, both, both looking at the state of the black community and saying this is because black men have not been behaving as proper patriarchs. And then like this, this, this, this event being kind of a celebration and affirmation of, of, um, the role of patriarch. And there's some, there's just something about, you know, these two, this movie filmed probably around this time. in this event, how this movie is kind of sending the same message, right, that, like, that racial equality will, will, will be a world where both black and white men can affirm their

patriarchal, their manhood through, through, through, you know, violent defense of their families. And the legal system will say, that's a-okay, right? Strange equality. Yeah. It's a, yeah. It's just, it, that makes me. think, what do you think Clarence Thomas would think of this movie? I think Clarence Thomas would love this fucking. Yeah, he would be like, this is right. You know, he would be like, take an AR-15. I think this is Clarence Thomas's politics in a nutshell, weirdly. Even though we were, even though we were saying it's Clintonian liberal for the first half, he's like, you should be able as a father to take an AR-15 and blow a bunch of people away. Uh, and you should

be let off for that. Guy, Clarence Thomas would like watch this movie. in that sort of like he'd be so horny afterward. Yeah. And I think it's also just because like, well, there's a certain acceptance in Clarence Thomas of like of racism as such. You know, he's just like, well, that's the way the world is. It's a nasty world. Sometimes you just got to shoot some people. And you got to be like, I think that he, the subtle way this movie kind of reasserts racism and also research a very nasty class struggle would just be like, he would be like, yep.

that's the way it is. I think I think this is totally compatible with our initial assessment. This is very clintony, just because sort of like so much of Clintonian liberalism was quite reactionary. Yeah, yeah. Did have this sort of like very conservative view of family, of the state, of race relations. You know, it's funny because, you know, everyone talks about the famous sister soldier moment where Quentin, and this is in my book, I'm sorry to use that phrase, but I have to.

We've talked about this on the publisher, so please. You know, the Sister Soldier moment where he denounced black radicalism, but Sister Soldiers was coming out of a black nationalist tradition, and if you read her memoirs and what she writes about welfare and what she writes about capitalism and what she writes about the family, it's functionally identical to Clinton's discourse about those issues around the same time. So it is really, it was the irony that I was like, I was like, this person is actually quite conservative and was, you know, for her views on race, which appeared radical, was lambasted as a leftist, wild-eyed leftist radical. But if you actually dug into it, had extremely conservative

views about the black family and was opposed to welfare, thought welfare, you know, there would, they're very small amounts of, there was very little daylight between her views and a conservative or a Clintonian liberal on those issues, which I thought was just fascinating. But yeah, so I think just going back to that, that the, the conservatism of the time, even though it seemed to be a time of triumphant liberalism, It really, and this movie kind of by flipping race, racial roles, I mean, I think that that was a, there was a weird moment where we thought or, where it was presented that certain amount of colorblindness was like sort of the best that could be achieved. And so like the idea that a black guy could kill, could commit vigilante violence, which was also like a sign of progress in a certain respect. but yeah it's just so strange to look back at it and see an era which was lauded you know as a as a as one of

triumphant liberalism really had such deeply conservative underpinnings no I yes I think what one of my takeaways from us doing this podcast so far but also just reading um kind of histories of the 90s including your own book job is that I think I think kind of understate the extent of what's 90s was a very conservative decade and in a lot of ways sort of like very much continuation of the 80s and it's sort of like in its in its attitude towards um towards uh cultural changes like I think of the 90s is like what if you could do the 80s but like multicultural kind yeah I think that's right and and essentially that was Clinton's policy regime which is just like we're going to do a neoliberal system with with job training and making sure that you know

minorities don't feel quite so bad um and uh yeah i think that that just then it just all starts to make sense yeah all right i think we should wrap up move on uh that that is our show and i always read to do this um i'm going to recommend that people watch the time to kill again it's a very easy movie to watch i said so we're reporting this on Tuesday. I sat down at like 8.30 to put it on. And I was like, you know, I've seen this before. So I'll have it on. I'll pay attention. I'll take notes, but also do other things. And I just kind of sat there in less the time. Yeah, it's really compared. I mean, like, as much as we had problems with it, it's pretty compelling as a piece of Hollywood movie making. It's

it's, it'll, it goes by fast. There's a reason this movie gross like over a hundred billion dollars. Yeah. Everyone was like, I got to see this movie. It's very, it's got a lot of twists and turns. It's very dramatic. It's very violent. All right. That's our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, and wherever else podcast are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review for how people find the show. And you can also just respond to people who are like, this is a bad movie review podcast

because we're not a movie review podcast for politics podcast that talks about movies. Yeah, we discuss the political content of movies. I mean, if you want movie reviews, go to. Go to, what's it called? Go to be. Letterboxed or whatever. Yeah, and you can follow me on Letterbox. I'm Jay Bowie at Letterbox.

I don't have one yet, but I should get that. I like it because sometimes my biggest haters fight, like, look for me on it and it's just like write, write unhinged things. And I just find it really, I find, I find disliking someone so much that you would go to the, like, movie review account to, uh, to hate. Yeah, that's pretty funny. It's pretty funny.

I almost admire that level of attitude. You can reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week, in feedback, we would email from Deanna title 90s computer culture, SpyCraft, the Great Game. This is a response to our Johnny Nomotic episode. Hi, Jebel and John. You've had some great discussions of 90s-era computer culture in recent weeks while covering Mission Impossible hackers and Johnny Nomotic. I'm wondering if you have thoughts on one particular corner of that cultural story. based that I don't think has come up yet in 90s PC gaming.

I recently played through a point-and-click adventure game called SpyCraft, The Great Game, which was released in 1996 by the Game Procedo Activision. The player character is a rookie CIA agent who joins a team tasked with investigating a series of assassinations, threatening to derail a treaty between the U.S. and Russia. It's basically a PC game version of a post-C.-war Hollywood thriller with the same themes and preoccupations you highlight on a podcast. renewed relations with Russia Africa called the Soviet Union

denuclearization and the threat of loose nukes, disillusioned ex-operatives turning into mercenaries and mobsters and a certainty of cynicism regarding America's role in world affairs that doesn't quite tip over to any actual critique. It's also interesting kids from one of those full motion video games, they got hot

for a little while in the ideas that then died off when 3D graphics had easier, cheaper to create. As it turns out, Spycraft features a handful of that guy character actors playing major roles, Charles Napier, Dennis Lipscomb, and James Karen. And although it was not officially endorsed by the CIA, it does feature former CIA director William Colby and former KGB General Oleg Kalugan appearing as themselves in minor roles. There's also a fascinatingly Bush 2-esque president character who speaks with a Texas accent

and has a propensity for verbal goofemops, like when the player character is something for a rogue operative codename harmonica. and the president video calls you to remind you how important is that you track down this harpsichordfeller, possibly coincidence, but by 96 Bush was already very popular the governor, so who knows?

And then there's more of the email just kind of describing the game. It seems to have been very successful at the time, but it's now regarded as something of a forgotten classic. Maybe it's been overshadowed by a different, very different post-foot-war spy game.

Gold 9-07, which came out of the following year. You've both mentioned playing Goldnigh back in the day, but either of you have played Spycraft. No, I didn't. I remember seeing, like, ads for it in computer PC gamer or whatever, which I read at that time. But I'd ever played it. Now I kind of want to play it's from your description.

I think the rest, or did you play other games like this frame in the 90s? Do you have any thoughts on how the film tropes represented and Claire Paz Canada have influenced PC video game culture or vice versa? Sincerely, Deanna. So this is very funny. I've read this email. It was a long one, but I read this email because it was a long one, but I read this email because This is very funny to me. I actually,

there's a documentary coming out on SpyCraft at some point in the next year. And I did the voiceover for it. Oh, really? Yeah. I did narration. And I have, I have a copy of the game that I have played. So,

John, if you want to play it, I can send you my logging code to play this game. Yeah, please. I love that. Yeah, I've never played this.

I, when I, when I first, doing this documentary, first I heard of it. Actually, William Colby, and Kulugan were like directly involved

from the making of the game. So it's sort of like almost CIA endorsed. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it was fascinating. I don't but I think of PC gaming and computer culture, I think of games like DeusX. Like I played a hell of a lot of that, the first one

back in the day. But I can't really think of any spy games. There was sort of a, there was a fun like kind of James Bond ask spy game called No One Lives Forever, which is an amazing game and is currently stuck and kind of writes hell, like it's ever going to get re-released. But, yeah, I don't, I, I don't play enough of this kind of genre. You know, here's what I'll say.

I'll say that both the 90s spy thriller genre of films and the video games do have like common ancestors in that like both are heavily, you know, shaped by the work of Tom Clancy. And the Tom Clancy, several of the Tom Clancy book series, or one of the book series, the Rainbow Six book series did become a series of popular video games, tactical games where you're doing lots of like taking down terrorists and rescuing hostages and kind of like Eastern Europe. So there's Rainbow Six, there's Ghost Protocol, and a whole set of those games. And so those have been quite influential, and those in turn, right, have influenced games like You know, Call of Duty and the like.

Far Cry, which I play, I think I play with Far Cry 4. I played one of those Far Cry games back in like the late 2000. Which everyone came out in like 2008 or 9, that's when I played. So yeah, that's, I don't have a very shallow understanding, but that's where I, there's, there's obviously some like cross-pollination. Thank you for the email, Dian. Episodes come out every two weeks, and so we will see you then with Chain reaction.

Directed by Andrew Davis, previously with a fugitive. Two researchers in a green alternative energy projects forced on the run when they are framed for murder and treason, starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weiss. Fred Ward is in this movie, Kevin Dunn, Brian Cox, a lot of people in this film. And yeah, I've ever, this is the one Andrew Davis I've never seen. so I'm that excited for it and it is available on HBO Max at the stream as well as Apple TV

and Amazon Trent so that's our next movie on the Patreon by the time you listen to this our episode of Virtuosity will be up so you can check that out and I believe after Virtuosity we are watching a movie Wait, I have seen this movie

You've seen Chain Reaction? A long time ago or maybe it's just all blurring into one big movie in my head. We're watching a movie called The Revolutionary, starring a young John Voight. So that's our next Patreon.

So Patreon's $5 a month, UnclearPod. Well, Patreon.com slash Unclear Pod. You can find it. Join the community. We'll watch this other set of films from the Cold War. All right. our regular reminder to pre-wrote a John's book

if you're interested and we I think we'll be doing some book-related event over the summer that will provide more details as I get to close to it. So stay tuned for that.

All right. For John Gant, I'm Jamal Bowie and this is unclear in present danger. We will see you next time. You know, I'm going to be able to be.