Review of 13th (2016) by John C — 24 Oct 2016

I came away from this movie noting that the subject of prison slavery was effectively overlooked. The film's title "The 13th" had me hopeful. Sadly, it comes off to the informed as more disinformation, and to all the masses who conveniently continue to claim ignorance of all things mass incarceration related, I think it is yet another safe place to say you dipped your toe into the problem. You can say you watched this movie, and all the rest of your otherwise unconcerned friends can agree that it is an excellent film. People will sip warm cider over the coming holidays and say, "yeah, we've got a real problem", but remain clueless, and basically unmotivated to do anything about it.

It is my belief that the film had no solutions, because it was a smoke and mirrors propaganda piece. I don't believe that it was intended in any way to actually wake people up to the reality of the situation- that America did not abolish slavery. I do not believe that Ava had permission to teach people how the 13th made slavery a function of the state...

An institution of the state.

This "The New Jim Crow", on film. Just like that book did much to popularize the mass incarceration issue, and introduce the same old info to a new generation of scholars and tv talking heads- neither that book, nor this movie says much about the undeniable connection between the 13th Amendment exception, and real physical slavery and slave wages being paid to forced laborers.

With that being said, I do not believe it to be coincidence that the entirety of so inclined intellectualism in America suffers from collective blindness to these facts. At this point, it comes across as either willful ignorance, or these people and social justice groups are being co-opted to keep the real issue of slavery's continuing financial incentive out of the mainstream conversation. People need to be confronted with the simple question of whether or not the 13th totally abolished slavery. They need to be forced to answer Yes or No. The film took great efforts to avoid this, as easily as it would seem for it to have been proposed. Presumably, once a person has admitted that the 13th did not actually abolish slavery, the film had the logical follow up question- do you support slavery?

If the viewer is still on board with reality and humanity, they should answer No. With that cleared up, there should be no problem getting the public behind a movement to abolish 21st century slavery and human trafficking. "Remove the exception from the 13th!" should have been this film's closing battle cry. Common could have just as easily penned lyrics specific to the "stupendous lie", as Frederick Douglass referred to it, and Ava could have ended her movie with a far more impactful anthem soaring over the scrolling credits- complete with a call to action.

Instead, finding slavery in this polished propaganda piece is like finding Waldo. You would have to have one hell of a good eye to see it.