Sinners: Community, Duality, and The Temptations of Our Oppression
We are all Sinners…
***Spoilers ahead***
Credit: Warner Bros.
I remember my first time seeing the original trailer for Sinners with some mild disinterest. The whole “one actor playing twin roles” bit has never really intrigued me, and I’ve had a pretty…negative view of Michael B. Jordan’s emotional range in his previous films. As a fan of Ryan Coogler, I feel pretty shameful about that notion looking back, not only because of how much I wound up loving Sinners (a lot), and Michael B. Jordan’s performance (a lot), but because of my lack of faith in Coogler, a director whose films I adore. Coogler, well recognized after Fruitvale Station (2013), and even more so with Creed (2015), brought style to the MCU with Black Panther (2018). Coogler has few (if any) misses on his impressive IMDB page. Even with my admiration for Coogler, my interest in Sinners was initially lukewarm, at best. As a dad to a fresh four-month-old, getting to the movies is a bit tougher than before, but when I saw early reviews, I quickly realized Sinners needed to be experienced. After a sick spell and busy dad days, I found time to sneak away to a Saturday night showing at the movie theater in my old neighborhood in Singapore. As the movie finished, I couldn’t help but feel I had witnessed a new classic, for the genre of horror (recently becoming just the fourth horror film to cross the $200 million in the US), but also a new Black classic. Sinners is more than a vampire movie, and Coogler’s new masterpiece forces us to question how we view our relationships with race, music, community, sex, death, and so much more, in a story I believe will stand the test of time.
I believe that great art and storytelling have the capability of inspiring and reaching a wide range of audiences, even when complexities may only be understood by a few. This was personally evident while watching the film here in Singapore. To see Sinners, while being Black, is an experience. There were at least five jokes I laughed at in the theater, with absolutely zero reaction from the rest of the audience (Ya’ll Klan?). To be brown and see Sinners, is an experience. Coogler’s commitment to telling the stories of a brown South, including Indigenous communities, the Latin community, and the Asian community, presents a wider view of a Southern reality rarely told. Again, to be Black and see Sinners, is an experience. Even more specifically, to experience this movie while being Black and from the South, felt especially unique. I grew up with my mother sharing stories about playing in the cotton fields of Camden, South Carolina, as a child, and her mother’s experience of living in the Jim Crow South. Coogler’s commitment to portraying the Black Southern experience is a devoted part of the unsparing gift that Sinners is, which I could feel 9000 miles away as the sole Black person sitting in my theater. To feel so deeply connected to the South, yet to be so far away. It’s quite a paradox to feel so deeply connected to a space I have spent most of my life running away from. Coogler conveys this feeling in the first act of the movie. As Stack tries to use his worldly experience to make Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) feel small about being from the South, Annie tells Stack, “All that war and whatever the hell you been doing in Chicago, you right here back in front of me”. New York made me, California changed me, but the South raised me. No matter how far I travel the world, I’m always drawn back home.
This isn’t a paradox, it’s more the duality of one’s yearning to connect to community, which is one of, if not the most, dominant themes of the movie. This yearning is accompanied by a grief of being separated from our respective communities, whether geographically, culturally, or spiritually, within life and death. We long to connect to the spaces that recognize in fuller ways more than most, and the things we will do, or will be deceived into doing, to connect to spaces that we believe will hold us safe. This duality is an important tone throughout the movie, as the characters look for their respective versions of community, safety, and freedom. With subject matters around music, sex, race, and death, Sinners shows Ryan Coogler pull off an exquisite display of subject double entendre, well beyond the presentation of the twins of Smoke (Michael B. Jordan) and Stack (Michael B. Jordan).
Not quite a musical, Sinners stylistically flirts with the idea of being one. Music is one of the dominant themes, from the very beginning, in the movie’s opening dialogue the audience is told how “music so true can pierce the veil between life and death” and how cultures throughout time have used this gift of healing to connect with their ancestors. This healing is personal to Ryan Coogler who has mentioned how his late uncle, a jazz player “had an outsized impact” on his life, stating,
“I felt very guilty when he passed away that I wasn’t there enough, and that pursuit of my dream took me away and robbed me of these experiences of being home. This film was a love letter to him and that exploration of the music that he was obsessed with.” (The Atlantic)
Coogler has mentioned in interviews how after his uncle passed, he would play the Blues to remind himself of his uncle, conjuring him to memory, so it’s easy to assume how this becomes an intimate theme to the film. Coogler brings a duplexity to this theme throughout the film. We see this duality of music pull at Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), who is later dubbed “Preacher Boy”. With Moore, the audience is presented with the dueling forces of jazz and gospel pull at Preacher Boy throughout the film, demanding his decision. At the climax of Sinners, we see Sammie conjure the spirits of past and future in the film’s arguably most stunning scene, but even more subtly we see the duality of music playing throughout the film. In the opening/final scene of the movie, we hear “This Little Light of Mine” as Sammie enters the church. We see his father preaching for Sammie’s repentance, with Remmick (Jack O’Connell) flashing in between shots, mirroring the pastoral movements of Sammie’s father. Coogler presents the audience with an early allegory for the infamous story of Robert Johnson, as we see Sammie at a crossroads for his life. The song selections deepen this dueling theme for Sammie, as we later see Remmick first singing “Pick Poor Robin Clean” in his initial approach towards Sammie and the juke joint. Playing both “This Little Light of Mine” and “Pick Poor Robin Clean”, it’s hard to ignore the similar cadence count, for the two songs representing the choice Sammie is being asked to eventually make with his life.
Credit: Warner Bros.
The twins are the most obvious visual representation of this consistent duality displayed throughout the film. Coogler presents literal visual divides of them throughout the film, but the shot that has stayed with me is the “We cousins” scene with the twins in the midst of buying the eventual juke joint. As the twins wait, we see this shot (above) of the twins, split on the screen…foreshadowing the future for both Smoke and Stack. It’s this same “inside/outside” dueling theme that becomes a pivotal point of livelihood for characters as the film progresses. Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who is biracial in the movie, not by today’s standards, but through the scope of the Jim Crow era’s “one drop rule” is forced to struggle with the duality of her privilege throughout the film, living both inside and outside whiteness as a passing Black woman. After Smoke ghosts Mary, we hear how Mary opts into her whiteness by marrying a white man. When Remmick [hilariously] asks, “How’d SHE get here”, Mary later explains she’s granted the protection of the juke joint because her “momma’s daddy was half Black”. Later, Mary chooses once again to step outside of the culture, step outside of Black safety, believing she can negotiate with the devil. The belief Mary has in her privilege to navigate the all-consuming danger eventually leads to her very own consumption. Mary is the first victim of the ultimate lie Remmick sells throughout the film.
One of my best friends Teddy, preached a sermon that stays with me, with the message “the virtues won’t save us”. It’s often the belief that a virtuous life will grant our way into heaven, when ultimately that’s not what grants us our salvation. Whether metaphorically, or in the juke joint (which quite literally used to be one of the safest spaces for Black folks to commune in the Jim Crow South), everyone in Sinners looking for a form of salvation, even if truly disguised as escapism from the horrors of the world. The real horrors of Sinners are not the vampires. We see two main horrors presented which are married so closely together: Racism and Capitalism. Sinners shows how it’s not the virtues we look to for self-preservation, but actually in the sins themselves. The sins are different for each of the main characters. power/wrath for Stack, money/greed for Smoke, gluttony/alcohol for Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), and lust for Pearline (Jayme Lawson). Exploration into these sins might provide an escape from the horrors of the realities outside the juke joint, but ultimately doesn’t grant access to the salvation our sinners truly seek. The recognition of these sins is not meant to bring shame. Each character in the movie is a survivor during the Jim Crow South, and what we do to survive should only bring shame to the institutions that coerce us into those decisions. Each of these sins is notable in one way or another, but the biggest sin, while always present, finds its clearest and most subversive presentation through the movie’s main antagonist, Remmick.
Remmick’s first real appearance on screen, comes 40 minutes into the movie, as he is fleeing the Choctaw, winding up at the door of a couple (Joan and Bert) who are revealed to be followers of the Klan. The Choctaw have clocked Remmick, but Remmick is cunning enough to see he has a new life with the couple who have answered the door, meeting him with guns to his face. As he drops to his knees pleading his case, Remmick leans into white victimhood to connect with his eventual first victims. This is the sin Remmick presents: whiteness, and the system that comes with choosing it. Remmick brings the lie that your privilege and proximity to privilege will save you from the horrors of the world, first deceiving Joan and Bert they’ll be safe from the Choctaw or what could be “fair skin niggers”. Coogler has been known to write morally complex antagonists with alluring messaging. His Black Panther movies present Killmonger and Namor, two complex antagonists with attractive messages [and valid points] about the approaches to the conflicts they respectively face. Remmick is no different in his moral complexity and is arguably Coogler’s best villain to date. Remmick’s smooth, cunning nature, combined with his multilingual (and his multi-talented fellatious tongue) and Irish background makes him the ideal candidate for the seductive message of whiteness as salvation. This message finds a subversive storyteller with Remmick, whose ethnic identity is pivotal to his makeup. It’s important to note, that just as Mary is not white in the film, the same reigns true for Remmick. Remmick is not white, nor does he see himself as white, he merely presents himself as such. In the same fashion, Remmick is not human, nor does he see himself as human, he merely presents himself as such. Most vampire history points to the origins of the creatures hailing from the central Europe region, most notably Transylvania, but Remmick’s origins are different. This specificity is key to the understanding of the antagonist’s message. The Irish in America weren’t originally seen as “white” and Remmick has been around [more than] long enough to understand this.
Credit: Warner Bros.
With Remmick, we are again presented with the duality of a multilayered villain. Just as we see Remmick as the embodiment of vampires in the movie, we also come to recognize him as the embodiment of whiteness, and the death it also brings to those who choose it. Remmick brings death to Bert and Joan, whom he brings to the juke joint as they initially try to talk their way in. As culture vultures do, Remmick brings whiteness with them, because they’ve “heard tale of a party..dranking, food, blues music” and they want in on it all. Culture vultures, just like vampires, siphon the life out of their victims and communities they feed off of, with the trio thirsty for Preacher Boy’s talents. Rejected, Remmick [quite literally] makes a fool’s gold offer and even proposes to sing his way into the juke joint. As the trio sings “Pick Poor Robin Clean”, Stack and the crew watch with recognizable and relatable Black skepticism, before sending them off, already suspicious because…the white folks ain’t got no soul. As they are sent off, Remmick tells the crew “We’re gonna walk real slow, in case y’all change y’alls mind”.
Not too far down the road, the trio sings “Will Ye Go, Lassie Go” quite literally inviting their first victim to join them in their quest for death. Mary becomes the first person lured away from the community, into death, because she believes her proximity to whiteness will save the juke joint. The sufferings of capitalism and racism blanket the juke joint, threatening to shut down one of the few safe spaces for Black folks to commune. It’s Mary’s belief she can “feel them crackas out” to see what they really want because she knows “They’ll tell her more than they’ll tell you [Smoke].” Mary does not fear the danger she recognizes, but as I’ve learned: just because you realize a train crash coming, doesn’t prevent the train crash itself. If culture vultures can’t sell you their message, to steal yours, they will seek those who look like you, who are close to you, to sell you the message for them.
And with this, Coogler holds a mirror to the audience, showing us through the apex of the film, how each one of us can be co-opted into conforming with the systems that look to rob us of community, and ultimately kill us. Our proximities to privilege only make us more vulnerable, but make no doubt about it, just as “we are all sinners”, we are all vulnerable. Mary’s prideful flirtation with “passing” in and out of whiteness ultimately leads to her demise. As Mary is welcomed back into the juke joint, bringing eventual death with her, she is a victim more than an enemy. The recent public commentary around Mary, and Grace Chow (Li Jun Li) falls flat in understanding this notion. Grace’s shriek of an invitation to Remmick is not a betrayal to the Black community (though the wounds between the Asian and Black diasporas tempt us to believe this) but representative of a mother’s traumatic response to seeing her husband die, and desperate attempt to get back to her daughter. This temptation into intercommunal [and intersectional] cannibalistic decision-making is the chaos Remmick and whiteness bring. A whiteness preying on the vulnerable, hiding out in the dark, prowling on those most susceptible, coercing them into betraying themselves and their communities, from Cornbread on a bathroom break, those who already started walking home, or Grace’s husband, who went to start the car. On this journey, no one escapes death. No one is safe, we are all victims and all susceptible—the pressure to conform seeps in from every angle, through the joys and horrors of the night.
No insurgent intellectual, no dissenting critical voice in this society escapes the pressure to conform…we are all vulnerable. We can all be had, co-opted, bought. There is no special grace that rescues any of us. There is only constant struggle to keep the faith, to relentlessly rejoice in an engagement with critical ideas that is itself liberatory, a practice of freedom.
– Bell Hooks
Remmick has an intimate proximity of understanding to the struggle of the Black South, an empathy, without fully understanding. Remmick comes from a space that has been robbed, slaughtered, co-opted, and converted. The horrors of capitalism and racism coerce us into believing the American Caste System is THE global sociological truth, but Remmick has lived long before this lie of rewritten history. In the second musical summit of the film, Remmick and his crew of the dead sing the history of Irish systemic struggles with “The Rocky Road to Dublin”. As the musical number intoxicates the viewer, it forces you to think about the conversion and castration forced upon Ireland by the British. The line is blurred between Remmick pleading his empathy to the juke joint, almost singing “We come from the same pain” and the audience recognizing the use of his poetry to bring the very same death that was brought upon him. Remmick recognizes the whiteness that has brought upon Black pain and suffering. He is even sympathetic to the grief because it was that same whiteness that consumed his people. Remmick looks to take advantage of the respective grief held by each remaining member of the juke joint, whether Mary’s longing to connect to Blackness after her mother’s death, Smokes familial grief alongside Stack, Cornbread’s longing for financial safety, Grace’s longing for safety in her even smaller minority community, with her family, and the overall grief held in the Black South. In the third act, Remmick tells the crew left in the juke joint, “…This world has already left you for dead. It won’t let you build; it won’t let you fellowship. We’ll do just that, together, forever.” But what does whiteness do? It places itself in front of the line, presenting itself as the savior to the same death it brings. Remmick sells a message of safety which HE can only gift, presenting himself as a white savior, offering salvation to a hell he now dances in. Remmick tells the crew, “I am your way out…They [The Klan] was always going to kill you, I just happened to show up at the right place, at the right time.” Remmick becomes his oppressor and a missionary of his oppressor’s message.
The duality of death and salvation is consistently present throughout the film. Not just death itself, but in the approach to death. Annie first speaks to the notion of death while talking to Stack in the first half of the movie when referencing their dead daughter. This is later brought up as Annie forces Stack to promise that if she is bitten, that Stack kill her, because “I have someone waiting for me on the other side, and so do you”. What does it mean to die, and what does it mean to die while still living? This, ultimately is the enigma of an offering presented by Remmick. What is the cost of the safety and “equality” Remmick believes in? In the final act of the movie, Mary pleads Remmick’s case stating, “After we kill y’all, we gon’ have heaven right here on earth”. Remmick presents salvation through death, inverted from how Annie preached about death to Stack. Annie spoke of a death that connects us back to our ancestors, into truer forms of community. Remmick’s presentation of salvation through death is much different. Remmick’s offer of salvation is one that siphons, and forces an unornamented and disingenuous uniformity while taking all life and culture in return. What does whiteness do? It drains the life exactly how Remmick tells Sammie before baptizing him, “I want your stories, and I want your songs.”
This is the lie sold to us all. You must be willing to give up the depths of yourself, your community, and your class brethren, to find safety from the horrors of the systems crushing us all. But a lie doesn’t care who tells it, whether it is the devil in their truest form or the devil dressed as an ally. Your oppression will not save you, from the horrors of these systems or death itself. Your privilege will not save you from the horrors of these systems or death itself. This is what separates Coogler’s antagonists from the true revolutionaries. Your virtues, your knowledge, your sins, your choice to sacrifice yourself, your comrades, or fellow class members, will not save you from what we all must confront daily. In the end, the dueling forces of Sammie’s father vs Remmick are both wrong. Just as Sammie isn’t saved by Remmick, he isn’t saved by the church, nor in it. Quite the opposite. Remmick uses Sammie’s religion, and the words of the church in an attempt to bring death to Sammie, in the same way his ancestors were converted, persecuted, and slaughtered by the church. Delta Slim had reminded Sammie that the religion forced upon the African diaspora wasn’t his originally, and Remmick reminds Sammie once again as he uses the tongue of the Christian church attempting to evangelize Sammie. Remmick even preaches the Lord’s prayer back to Sammie, stating “Long ago, the man who sold my father’s land had forced those words upon us. I hated those men, but the words still bring me comfort.” As Remmick baptizes Preacher Boy, looking to deliver him from the god who was forced upon him, he continues, “They told stories of a god above and a devil below, and the LIES of a dominion of man over beast” reminding Sammie the god he prays to doesn’t exist. Remmick continues his sermon “Creed on earth, heaven, beast and god… we are woman and man, we are connected, you and I…to everything.” Remmick repeats the cycle of death which whiteness brings, becoming an apostle of the message that he hates. In the end, whether Sammie is saved by God, or God in community is up for your interpretation.
Just like each member in the juke joint, eventually, death comes for each one of us, and no matter how early or late, we all must meet death. Whether we choose to die before our natural demise is one of the conflicts Coogler forces the audience to contemplate. The heaven on earth we find will not be in whiteness, but is at the heart of the communities which shows us a truer version of salvation. While there is so much to interpret, Coogler reminds us that neither our privilege, nor our oppression, will not save us, but community will. It always has, before us, during this life, and will be waiting for us in the next. Sinners, is a cinematic experience, not just a movie theater experience, it is an experience with art. As fascism grows in a society that is embracing anti-intellectualism, great art is a necessity more than ever. Coogler…is one of them ones.
Sources: YouTube, IMDB, Screen Rant, The Atlantic, Literary Hub, Deadline, TikTok, CBC
