This movie and GONE WITH THE WIND can't BOTH be true . . .

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2013)

. . . so let's use some common sense to resolve this cinematic contradiction. Tempting as it may be to give the more recent "history" of slavery the "benefit of the doubt," this fallacious mode of thinking gives in to the "tyranny of the NOW." In WIND, black workers in Georgia get room & board, are generally well treated, and are proud to fight side-by-side with their white owners to perpetuate the only civilization they've ever known during the U.S. Civil War. In 12, on the other hand, Peach State slaves frequently demean each other with the "N-word," are mercilessly raped and flogged, and cower on run-down plantations devoid of ballroom dancing. Which of these pictures is more accurate: WIND's or 12's? WIND's vision, in which Blacks work patiently toward a better tomorrow, was given the Best Picture Oscar for 1939--a distinction that is re-validated each year it is not revoked (not to mention the fact that WIND set all-time box office records). In today's climate of Political Correctness, its dozen Oscars would be snatched away quicker than you could filch 200 victories from Joe Paterno if there were anything truly objectionable or inaccurate about it. By contrast, 12 has a much more meager musical score, and its lack of action scenes classify it as low-budget fare relegated to play only at so-called "art houses" to date. This probably is for the best. Whereas WIND was a stepping stone allowing Blacks to take home their first Oscar (presaging Jackie Robinson with the Dodgers, everyone with the NBA, and Obama in the White House), 12 seems Hell-bent on perpetuating racial conflict today by its implication that white American Southerners of the early 1800s were racist beasts (with the men looking so scruffy in their unkempt beards that they could fit right in with today's Boston Red Sox!). Just as documented anti-Semite director Mel Gibson's flogging "torture porn" was a widely perceived and obviously delusional attempt to besmirch American Jews a few years back in his PASSION OF THE CHR!ST, 12 director Steve McQueen's use of flogging torture porn (against the plantation's most compliant and best worker, no less!) may have a similar misguided ulterior motive. Draw your own conclusions.