Well told story full of racism

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2000)

THE GREEN MILE-starts out with an older man, remembering the time he was much younger and working in 'the green mile', the prison cell block, prisoners were put in, before being electrocuted in the electric chair. The real story starts when a huge black man, John Coffey comes in, who much later in the film turns out to be able to heal people in a mysterious way. We also get acquainted with the other prisoners and wards. One of the wards is not as nice as the others, but a frustrated sadist. The story is well told with great eye for detail, also the actors, with Tom Hanks as main character are giving excellent performances. The film loses (great part) of its' credibility when John Coffey starts working his miracles. It is not very clear why we need to see not one, not two, but THREE electrocutions(of which one goes wrong and never seems to end).
But what is mainly disturbing about this film is not so much its' length or the unnecessary flashback (why not start right away with the story?), but the portrayal of its charachters. The film seems to be trying to tell us, that we should be nice to all, no matter what or who, not be racist, but it does it in a very stereotypical and disturbing way, and thus sending the opposite message. As Hall already once argued, a representation of, for example violence, is not violence, but a message about violence. The huge, muscled black guy, is really a softy who is hardly able to pronounce grammarly correct sentences. It is very surprising nobody protested against this terrible stereotype, which I supposed has been overcome and belonged to the past, where blacks were thought simple and stupid. The nice wards are all good christians (after all, we are in the south of America), and therefor it is impossible that someone who is able to perform miracles has done any harm. And indeed this 'angel' turns out to be innocent. Yep, the Good and the Bad are not to be mixed up, ignoring roughly the enormous grey area in between. Surprising then that it is OK to treat the nasty ward, Percy, in a very cruel manner. OK, he is a very bad guy, but weren't we supposed to be nice to all? * 1/2 out of five