Civil Rights, Black Power, White Supremacy and Hollywood Fictionalization
Civil Rights, Black Power, White Supremacy and Hollywood Fictionalization
Title: In the Heat of the Night
Director: Norman Jewison
Cast:
Sidney Poitier as Detective Virgil Tibbs
Rod Steiger as Police Chief Bill Gillespie
Warren Oates as Sergeant Sam Wood
Lee Grant as Mrs. Leslie Colbert
Larry Gates as Eric Endicott
James Patterson as Lloyd Purdy
William Schallert as Mayor Webb Schubert
Beah Richards as Mama Caleba
Peter Whitney as CPL. George Courtney
Kermit Murdock as H.E. Henderson
Larry D. Mann as Watkins
Quentin Dean as Delores Purdy
Anthony James as Ralph Henshaw
Arthur Malet as Ted Ulam
Scott Wilson as Harvey Oberst
Matt Clark as Packy Harrison
Eldon Quick as Charlie Hawthorne
Jester Hairston as Henry
Click to view1. The peaceful civil rights groups and leaders of the early sixties - as Foner described - suffered from being a mostly unheard voice when it came to changing racist laws. This led to more violent and militant civil rights groups and leaders. Such a transition related to In the Heat of the Night because Virgil Tibbs was (Sidney Poitier) was also very peaceful in the face of great prejudice at the beginning of the movie. However, as the movie went on the audience saw the protagonist became more radical when faced with harsher and even physical racism.
As Foner describes, the Civil Rights Movement in the early sixties was led by peaceful organizations like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). One of their most peaceful leaders was Martin Luther King Jr. - who also believed in peaceful demonstrations in the vein of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. As a group they voiced the injustice of racism in American and specifically in the south - Jim Crow Laws, segregation, voting taxes - with sit-ins, marches and boycotts. However, the peaceful demonstrations did little to change laws in southern states; especially because most southern politicians and law makers were racist themselves. This meant that peaceful rallies were met with violent police attacks. For example in 1962 police did nothing and Governor Barnett of Mississippi encouraged attacks on African American students when the court ordered that black students be let into an all-white school. In 1963, when MLK Jr. sent school children to march in the street of Birmingham the group was met with police violence. It seemed that local state law in the south held a deaf ear for the pains of Civil Rights activist. It was only Congressional law that listened noticed the injustice that ran deep in the south. As a result, Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination. However, the law seemed to have a reversed affect. After it was passed it was ignored by many in the south and others felt that African Americans didn’t need any more rights because they already had the Civil Rights Act. This put a cap on the Civil Rights Movement and it didn’t seem like any of the peaceful demonstrations of the past would do anything to change this immobility of change. By the end of 1964 many Civil Rights groups felt it was time to take drastic action against the racist system. In a similar vein the main character of In the Heat of The Night Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) can be viewed as a peaceful protester against the unjust racism of the time. In the beginning of the movie Tibbs is silent voice of rebellion. His mere presence as an educated, black detective from the north who makes more than one hundred dollars a day makes him a symbolic protest against everything the other, Southern white characters view African Americans as - violent, uneducated and less than them. They react cruelly to him - calling him names, not treating him with the respect a detective would usually deserve and telling him just how un-black he seems. He reacts with a quiet dignity, trying to help them solve a murder whilst ignoring snide comments.
However, there is an escalation of violence against him. When faced with a rich cotton plantation owner - who seems to treat all the black workers and even Virgil as if they were still slaves Virgil’s restrain is finally broken. After he slaps the plantation owner, something that would have gotten him killed if he was ion the wrong company, he tells the Police Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) that they could bring “that fat cat down” for the murder that they have on their hands. The police chief responds “you’re just like us” - meaning that finally Virgil is reacting like a human and showing his fault. The cruelty and racism had finally reached its peak for Virgil and he was ready to fight back. We see this in the next scene when Virgil is attacked by Ku Klux Klan members and instead of just standing aside as he had done before he takes upn a chain and readies himself to fight back against the violent racism. A similar trainsition away from peaceful demonstrations started in 1964. A movement away from this started in the Democratic National Convention the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was denied seats at the convention - giving no voice to the black party since the Demarcates didn’t allow African American politicians in Mississippi. This meant that even after The Civil Rights Act there wasn’t an equal voice in political matters. A new voice for a more forceful, militant demonstration of black power was Malcolm X. Uprisings in big cities saw violent protests in Newark and Detroit. White businesses were destroyed and finally black protesters fought back against violent police forces.
2. Many of the main characters in In the Heat of the Night were riddled with faults characteristic of the 1960’s. These characters; based in Sparta, Mississippi all had deep prejudices about many things. From Police Chief Bill Gillespie - the other protagonist - to Eric Endicott (Larry Gates) - one of the main antagonist - their faults lied in there quick assumptions and passing judgments of others. Endicott and many other characters held prejudice against African Americans. In one line Endicott tells Virgil how African Americans or niggers need care like flowers. He then slaps Virgil when he finds out he is a suspect in a murder and is shocked when Virgil slaps him back. He tells “Virgil that there was a time that I could have had you shot” for his actions. On the other had Bill Gillespie prejudices are not for a specific race - even though he uses racial slurs. His prejudice is based on his quick and sometimes faulty judgment of people and situation. When new evidence points to the murder being Sergeant Sam Wood (Warren Oates) Gillespie waste no time in judging him as guilty and arresting him. On the other had there is Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs was the one who told Gillespie that the murderer wasn’t Harvey Oberst (Scott Wilson) or Sam Wood. Tibbs is very precise when examine any situation or individual - he doesn’t judge quickly and seems to hold no prejudices. However, there is movement of his character away from this peaceful, non- prejudice that seems to escalate within two scenes. After Endicott slaps him and Virgil slaps him back - Virgil makes a comment outside to Bill that Endicott is guilty and all they need is more evidence to “bring the fat cat down.” It’s at this moment that Bill realizes that Virgil is not perfect and without prejudices. Virgil quickly judged Endicott as guilty based off of a dirt sample but mostly because Virgil didn’t like Endicott who was extremely racist. Later it is found out that Endicott is actually innocent. However, it’s after Virgil’s speech that Bill realizes how human Virgil is and that his faults/judgment makes him “just like the rest of” them.
3. In the Heat of the Night gives a very hopeful vision for the future of race relations in the United States that at times seems unrealistic given that the year it was made was1967. During this time - the late sixties - there was an uprising of militant black civil rights groups that were tired of the immobility of their movement and the assassinations of many of their leaders. It was a time of unrest that led to very radical ideas - like permanent segregation. Leaders like Malcolm X believed that self-determinism or self-governing was the only way that African Americans would truly be free from the oppression of white government. They believed that this freedom should be garnered at any cost - including armed violence against the police. A large percentage of white society in America feared this uprising of Black Power. They feared that these groups were self-ruling - opening up their own clinics, schools and food programs. They were also afraid of the radical violence that Black Nationalism called for in defense of their freedom. They fought back by killing off most of the leaders of these Black Power Movements and after some time most of these groups disbanded because of overwhelming white pressure. It’s not very believable that characters like Virgil and Bill would actually exist in the south - especially Mississippi. Virgil and Bill are symbolic of the black and white races working together for a better, bigger common good. However, as Foner describes - race relations at this point in time were strained, distrustful and based on mutual animosity. This relationship seems most fictional at two points within the movie. The first is right after Virgil is taken into custody after Sam Wood arrests him at the train for the murder of Phillip Colbert. Bill finds money in Virgil’s wallet that he believes is too much for an African American and therefore must belong to Colbert. He kindly asks Virgil to confess. Virgil doesn’t confess takes off his coat and pulls out his badge that shows that he is a detective. After this Bill becomes extremely angry at Sam Wood and tells him he is a terrible Sergeant for not knowing that Virgil was a detective. This scene doesn’t seem realistic because in the late sixties if a police office in Mississippi believed that a black man had killed a white man he would have been handcuffed and beaten. He would not have been allowed to walk around the police chief’s office long enough to go into his pockets and take anything out. Afterwards, they would have not asked Virgil to help them solve the murder - not matter how desperate they were to solve the case. When Bill tells Virgil that he needs his help because “he’s not an export” like Virgil - there was a symbolic display of a white man bowing that to a black man whilst proclaiming that he was of a lower intellect. This would have not happened in the late sixties in Mississippi because of the ingrained hatred and mistrust whites had for African Americans and African Americans had for whites. The next scene that is strikingly unrealistic was when Virgil slapped Endicott and neither Endicott nor Bill did anything about it. At this point in the movie it is believable that Bill and Virgil’s relationship has progressed far enough that Bill wouldn’t shoot or arrest Virgil for hitting a white man. However, it is hard to believe that Endicott - a white plantation owner did not strike back in any way. In that time period and in Mississippi is would have been perfectly in Endicott’s right to shoot Virgil or have one of his workers shoot Virgil as him and Bill left. However, as the audience watches Bill and Virgil have a long conversation outside of the Endicott planation they are meant to forget that Virgil is still in danger since he just slapped a rich, white man. At most this scene and Endicott’s lack of any retaliation is a plot contrivance that doesn’t fit the reality of the time or place that the action occurred.
4. The sixties like the fifties, Foner wrote was a time of great, female oppression. During a time when many minorities - African American, Native American and Mexican American - were fighting for civil rights there was still an expectation for women to be wives and mothers. It was most ironic because even within these civil rights groups women were still oppressed - thought less than the men in the group and sent to do menial jobs like making coffee or typing. Women could not find their personal civil rights within this group - so they had to create a new group or rebuild an old group. Feminist fought for the same things that women in the early 1900’s had fought for - the right to control their own body, the right to be independent and the right to have jobs wherever they wanted. This came into fell realization with book like The Feminine Mystique and rallied where women would throw oppression female clothing in a garbage can in protest. There is parallel irony in having a movie like In the Heat of the Nigh t- that is about a rise above racism - have a character like Delores Purdy (Quentin Dean), who is the stereotypical weak female character that the male gaze has perceived in films for decade. Dolores, Lloyd Purdy’s little sister is played throughout the movie as both a naïve, little temptress and the catalyst for the murder that takes place in the film. First she is not her own character but shown as a little sister who is both stupid enough and sexually deviant enough to get herself pregnant at sixteen. She is also seen as a temptress to many of the males in the film, including Scott Wilson, Ralph Henshaw (Anthony James) and Sam Wood. Ralph is the one who gets her pregnant and it is somewhat the reason why he accidently kills Phillip Colbert. He is desperate for a job and more precisely money because he just found out Delores was pregnant. So he decides to knock out Colbert and then take his money. In the process he accidently kills him. All of this is brought about because of Dolores’ perspicuous yet child-like ways.
Review: The movie was excellent. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are amazing. They bring to life the characters of Virgil and Bill to the point where the audience is able to connect equally with both characters. The plot is a bit contrived and some of the secondary characters are one dimensional but over all this is a great movie about civil rights and racism.