In the half century since Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton was killed by Chicago police, no major Hollywood studio has released a film about his life – and only a small handful of narrative films have registered the revolutionary group that he helped to form.
But a new chapter begins with the premiere of Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah”, a complex double portrait of Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), the FBI informant who betrayed him. Warner Bros. released the film simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters on Friday.
In recent interviews, film writers and artists described “Judas and the Black Messiah” as a welcome remedy to conventional American films that portrayed the Black Panthers as one-dimensional militant caricatures – or excluded them altogether from stories about the social upheavals of the 1980s. 1960.
“In many films, Black Panthers are marginalized or ignored,” said film critic Odie Henderson. “You see the fists raised, the guns, the leather jackets. You are a fetishist. But who were the Panthers?”
King tries to answer that question, emphasizing how Hampton and his colleagues in Chicago saw themselves as community organizers who were dedicated to ambitious social programs (including free meals for local children), popular activism and a philosophy of black self-determination.
The film also highlights the charismatic Hampton’s natural abilities as a leader, showing how he skillfully forged the Rainbow Coalition, a multiracial alliance that fought against economic injustice and police brutality, and the way he brought together local activists with heated speeches.
Congressman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., Co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party, which is portrayed in the film by Darrell Britt-Gibson, said in a telephone interview that he hopes viewers will get “an appreciation for the seriousness of the ideology and Panther Party philosophy. “
“The Black Panther Party leaders were dedicated agents of social change” who studied ways to remake society, Rush said, adding later: “We were not just a bunch of automatons who don’t think.”
“Judas” is broad in scope. In the words of columnist William Lee of the Chicago Tribune, the film “does not shy away from Hampton’s anti-police rhetoric or violence”, including a dramatic standoff and a 1969 shooting that left one party member and two policemen dead.
“The film is not a pro-Panther rah-rah narrative or an anti-Panther narrative. It is very steeped in historical understanding,” said David F. Walker, a comic book writer whose comic book about the Black Panther Party was published last month.
Hollywood has long been accused of misrepresenting American history, centering the stories on white saviors while minimizing – or occasionally erasing – black lives and legacies, even in some films about the struggle for racial equality.
In recent decades, Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” (1992), Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” (2014) and other black-led projects have helped the public to better understand the icons of the civil rights movement. But few narrative resources focused on the Black Panthers Party for Self-Defense, the revolutionary organization co-founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966 in Oakland, California, which eventually expanded to a national and international party.
Of course, there were notable exceptions. Mario Van Peebles followed the organization’s arc in “Panther” (1995), which is not available on any streaming service; Tanya Hamilton told the story of a fictional ex-Panther (Anthony Mackie) in “Night Catches Us” (2010); and several acclaimed documentaries explored the group.
But the most typical (and stereotyped) fictional representation of the Panthers, critics say, appears in Robert Zemeckis’ Oscar winner, “Forrest Gump” (1994). In a brief but revealing scene, the title character of Tom Hanks participates in a meeting of Black Panthers clad in leather with weapons drawn, all boast and slogans.
King, who has directed episodes of comedy series like “High Maintenance” and “Shrill”, expressed dismay at this kind of hyped presentation, telling The Atlantic in a recent interview: “I hate it. I hate it. They are always unsmiling.”
“These are caricatures,” said King, who wrote the script for “Judas” with Will Berson (from a story by Keith and Kenny Lucas). “I think this caricature is often considered a replacement for real entertainment.”
Walker, the comic book designer, pointed to “The Black Gestapo” (1975) – an exploitative image about a black watchman who starts a “people’s army” to defend Watts residents – as a particularly “laughable” example of the way entertainment has distorted images of the black liberation movement.
Henderson, who reviews films for RogerEbert.com, said he believes “Judas” offers an important balance not only for older titles, but also for at least one high-profile release that is competing for Oscar nominations this year: the docudrama of Aaron Sorkin “The Chicago Trial 7.”
Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who was briefly the eighth co-defendant in the eponymous trial, plays a supporting role in Sorkin’s film, and Hampton (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is seen only fleetingly. In a narrative about 1960s radicalism, the Panthers’ anti-capitalist aspirations and anti-racist goals appear to be “later,” Henderson said.
Interestingly, several notable Hollywood personalities from the 1960s and 1970s – Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, “Easy Rider” producer Bert Schneider – supported the Panthers.
“In a way, Hollywood liberals were instrumental in donating money to the Panther cause. But in terms of when it came to making films about them, it was just easier to make them a cartoon,” said Trey Ellis, twice Emmy – winning screenwriter and novelist who teaches at Columbia University.
And yet, given the way popular films shape our understanding of history, today’s filmmakers have the opportunity to revisit the past, reevaluating the people and social movements that hover over America today.
Ellis recalled that when he co-wrote the script for a 1995 HBO film about the Tuskegee airmen, the first African-American combat pilots in the Army Aviation Corps, few films or television programs dramatized his heroism.
“When I wrote it, nobody knew who the airmen were, although there were some documentaries,” said Ellis. “The fact that they have now become part of the American conversation about black history – I am very proud of that.
“I think, hopefully, ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ will do the same thing,” said Ellis.