Annie is the backbone. The protector. The woman who warns, shields, and ultimately sacrifices. She carries the spiritual weight of the juke joint and the people in it—and that burden feels all too familiar. So often in literature and film, Black women are tasked to be strong, to endure, to die so others can live. Annie fits that mold, and I find myself asking: Why must we always carry the cross? Why must we always be on the line of defense? Her strength is noble, yes—but is it also tragic? Is it empowerment if it kills you?
To borrow Toni Morrison’s words from Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation, “I am not interested in indulging myself in some private, closed exercise of my imagination that fulfills only the obligation of my personal dreams—which is to say yes, the work must be political... If a work of art has any political influence in it, somehow it's tainted. My feeling is just the opposite: if it has none it is tainted," (64).
That line captures what makes Sinners so spiritually and politically charged. The film isn’t just telling a story—it’s making a statement about the dangers of spiritual erasure, cultural theft, and the violent demand for Black performance. It reminds us that Black art—like Black lives—cannot exist safely without anchoring itself to truth. Annie is the moral compass. The music is the battleground. And the fight is deeply political.
Yep.
--Rie'Onna Holmon
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Annie as the spiritual compass of the juke. Mm. Mm hmm. That she’s the one who had the appropriate intelligences for the problem and had to die as the ultimate spiritual act of sacrifice for Smoke and the community felt like the magical negro trope repackaged. Yikes. Good observation. Wait, let me translate myself…clock it!
What a stirring closing: “The film isn’t just telling a story—it’s making a statement about the dangers of spiritual erasure, cultural theft, and the violent demand for Black performance. It reminds us that Black art—like Black lives—cannot exist safely without anchoring itself to truth. Annie is the moral compass. The music is the battleground. And the fight is deeply political.”
Whew. I hope the ground is okay from the mic you dropped. I’ll be thinking more on “the violent demand for Black performance.”
Cindy Reed
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Rie, quick note just to add on to Reed's reflection on your thoughts. Your comments combined with our discussion yesterday in the Af-Am Lit office had me thinking far more deeply about ideas of possession and access. The distress Remmick and co express at being denied access, Mary's ability to transgress boundaries of access (thanks, Don!), and the ways that white desire for access to the juke is about possession wearing a frightening mask of fellowship. –Elizabeth Cali
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