Cynthia Erivo plays Tubman in the new film.
We’re so used to our historical figures, our Great Men, requiring a bit of grading on a curve. “Oh, we must forgive So-and-So for that aspect of his life; times were different then.” And yet we continue to celebrate them and mythologize their words and deeds.
Meanwhile, one of the great true heroes of American history — someone who needs no justifying or qualifying — has been all but ignored by pop culture, and hence left out of the collective imagination. Perhaps because what she fought for is a grand cause — the physical and existential battle for autonomy, agency, and basic humanity of African Americans — that is not yet fully won. Perhaps Harriet Tubman is, for our cultural gatekeepers, too harsh a reminder that the ugly past is not yet past. All the more reason to honor her and remember her. The inspiration she offers continues to be very necessary.
Or perhaps it’s because she was a woman. And black. For if we were to acknowledge her as a Great Woman, where would it stop? Why the White Man might lose his “rightful” central role in the American saga!
Anyway, you’d have thought that Hollywood, at least, might not have taken so damn long to see that Tubman’s undeniable, irrefutable heroics are, if nothing else, excellent fodder for big-screen entertainment. Tubman was badass by any measure, but certainly by the action-adventure one: She rescued herself from slavery in 1850s Maryland with a treacherous journey north! She risked her liberty and her very life sneaking back into the South to bring others to freedom! She worked as a goldarned spy for the Union Army during the Civil War! This is the stuff of bold, visual storytelling.
And it’s all here because now, finally, director and co-writer (with Gregory Allen Howard) Kasi Lemmons has blessed us with the Tubman origin story. It is just the right sort of cinematic introduction Tubman needs to slide her into the epic American narrative. Harriet is solid, conventional filmmaking with a broad sweep that finds a deeply satisfying balance among the contradictory currents of Tubman’s life. The film does not deny the horrific facts of slavery, but this is primarily an entertaining movie experience, one that succeeds in acknowledging Tubman as a vulnerable, flawed human while also embracing her legend and the profound power of what she symbolizes.
As Tubman, Cynthia Erivo is a towering presence, deeply engaging and incredibly empathetic; the Broadway musical star even gets to do a bit of singing. Lemmons and Erivo handle Tubman’s “superpower” — she thought God spoke to her in a very practical way, guiding her in her dangerous work to avoid capture — with a smart plausible deniability that allows for whatever interpretation feels best to you. If you want to accept the supernatural, that works, but if, like me, it feels more right to see her seeming precognition as simply sharp instinct and insight, well, that works too.
Harriet is a movie with undeniable mainstream appeal — this is no stodgy costume drama or dry history lesson. I recently met an American who had never heard of Harriet Tubman. We can hope that Harriet is just the beginning of the stories we tell about Tubman, to begin to rectify our pop-cultural ignorance. My one complaint about the film: not enough spy stuff. There could be a whole movie about her career as a spy in the Civil War. We — movie lovers and proud Americans alike — absolutely need that sequel.
