Did Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave (’13), which was filled with brutality and sadism, qualify as black misery porn?
No, it didn’t. Not once did I think to myself, “This is a real downer.” Partly because Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s “Solomon Northup” was and is a great character, and because McQueen’s film amounted to much more than subject matter — it was and is a masterful, deeply affecting human drama.
That said, read this Wikipedia page about Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” (2019) and explain to me how RaMell Ross’s film adaptation (Amazon/MGM., 10.25), due to screen at Telluride and open the New York Film Festival a few weeks later…tell me how this doesn’t feel (from a distance at least) like Black Misery Porn in bold caps.
