Chinonye Chukwu didn’t want to make a movie about Black trauma.
The director of the newly released film “Till,” which centers on Mamie Till-Mobley as she fights for justice after the killing of her son, said she wasn’t interested in depicting the moment that Emmett Till was brutally beaten to death in 1955 Mississippi.
“The story is about Mamie and her journey, and so it wasn’t narratively necessary to show the physical violence inflicted upon Emmett,” Chukwu told CNN. “As a Black person, I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to recreate it.”
In bringing the story of Till-Mobley to the big screen, Chukwu was intentional about what she chose to show and what she chose to omit. The film doesn’t dramatize the vicious and violent manner in which Emmett was killed, but it does depict his horrifically mangled body – an image that Till-Mobley famously shared with the world and that catalyzed the civil rights movement.
Still, “Till” couldn’t avoid getting swept up into a debate about “Black trauma porn.” Soon after the release of the trailer, some corners of Black Twitter questioned why a movie about Emmett Till was even needed, swiftly characterizing it as the latest Hollywood project to capitalize on Black pain and tragedy. More than a few declared that they wouldn’t be watching. Read more at www.cnn.com
