(Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for the film Sinners. Stop reading here if you don’t want to learn about them.)
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has taken America by storm — so much so Warner Bros. announced that the film will be re-released in certain theatres May 15 through May 20.
The historical thriller offers an unflinching glimpse into Black life in the 1930s, from sharecropping to chain gangs to the Ku Klux Klan. But it also shines a light on Black joy, love and resilience.
For many, the film isn’t truly horror, said Arionne Nettles, Garth C. Reeves eminent scholar chair at Florida A&M University.
“The scary stuff is the realness. When you put up vampires next to the Klan, I would rather have the vampires,” Nettles said. “You’re thinking about the real-life issues: the people still working the land and still picking cotton and not being paid in real currency.”
It’s that realness, Nettles said, that keeps audiences enthralled with Coogler’s film.
“It doesn’t feel like an unbelievable horror film where there is a big, bad boogeyman that is out to get you,” she said. “It felt very much like the systems in place are the boogeyman, not some villain.”
Here are three aspects of Black life Coogler weaves into Sinners.
Music
Coogler’s use of music does more than set the tone or build toward a plot point; music is a weapon and the epitome of freedom.
Much of the film revolves around Blues music, a genre born from the descendants of slaves and the experiences of free African Americans during Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
Blues, Coogler told IGN, is “for the full body. The soul and the flesh. It acknowledges the flesh and the pain that comes with a situation, the sexual desire, the anger. The whims of the flesh and the soul are acknowledged there.”
Miles Caton’s character Sammie, a young blues singer and guitarist who in the film is set to appear at a new juke joint opened by his cousins, uses music as his way to communicate his frustrations with his father, his desire to build his own life, even his attraction to a married woman.
While Nettles admits she has had Sammie’s “I Lied to You” on repeat, it is the scene where Delta Slim, Sammie and Smoke drive past a chain gang where the music is at its most powerful.
Delta Slim, an elder blues man played by Delroy Lindo, tells the story of his friend who was castrated and lynched, he begins to sing. Smoke — one of two identical twin cousins both played by Michael B. Jordan — calls for Sammie to use his guitar. The music in the scene was completely improvised, Lindo later shared.
“It’s just a reminder that when we say music is in us, it is literally in us,” said Nettles. “You have a car full of men who may be acting, but even within this acting, there is a connection to the music that supported us through tough times and helped us in our expression.”
Coogler also explores how music creates cultural connections that span across time.
In one scene at Club Juke, visions of future artists and music like rock and roll and trap take shape as Sammie sings of loving the blues. In many ways, the image showcases blues music and Black artists’ role in creating other genres.
Serena Göransson, who served as an executive producer for the film’s soundtrack, told Variety that she hoped viewers would “recognize that blues is the biggest cultural contribution to America, and to the world.”
“It’s touched every genre of American popular music. I want people to care about the music, and not just listen to rap and hip-hop, but to care about the people who made it, and the people who lived through this moment in history, and who are still creating this music,” she said. “I want people to care not just about the cultural contribution, but about the influence that they had.”
Religion
From the title alone, it’s clear Sinners delves into religion and what is and is not a sin. Coogler’s film posits whether one’s love for music can be a sin. It explores the sins of adultery, gambling and drinking — and essentially freedom.
But Sinners also delves into the loss of spirituality among many Black Americans.
At one point, Slim tells Sammie, the son of a preacher, the blues was never forced upon Black Americans in the same way Christianity was.
When Africans were first enslaved and brought to the colonies, many brought their own belief systems with them. But those religions were soon replaced with Christianity, sometimes willingly, but sometimes not.
Some slaves were severely punished for practicing their beliefs, while slaveowners would often refer to passages from the Bible in their justification of slavery.
In the film, Christianity stands opposite of Hoodoo, a religion that is often seen in Hollywood as demonic or evil.
While Sammie struggles to find acceptance before his father and his father’s religion, African spiritualism provides safety and knowledge.
It is implied that Smoke survived World War I in part because of a mojo bag given to him by the character Annike that kept him safe in battle. It is Annie, played by Wunmi Mosaku, who in the film first considered Remmick and his coven to be haints before identifying the villains as vampires. And it is Annie, along with her spiritual knowledge, who was able to tell the others how to fight Remmick and survive.
In all, Nettles said, Coogler offered a legitimacy to hoodoosim that is not always portrayed in other films.
“We do our ancestors a disservice when we say disparaging things about the parts of our spirituality that historically have been passed down from those African religions,” said Nettles. “You don’t have to believe it, but you can respect it.”
Outsiders
Many social media users pointed to Remmick’s plans to “save” those at Club Juke as an attempt at trying to play the white savior.
He tells the brothers, Annie and Sammie that he believes in equality and if they join him, they can break free of the oppression of racism.
Some viewers pointed out that Remmick is leaning into white saviorism, which centers around the idea that without the help of white people “saving” them, Black people will never be truly free. Through this process, which appears to be good, the white savior reaffirms white superiority over Black people.
But Nettles argues Coogler is actually highlighting the difference between outsiders and those who claim the culture.
Though Remmick does tell Sammie that he wants his stories, he also says he wants to share his own with the pastor’s son.
“Remmick comes from a time before racism,” Nettles said. “In regards to the United States, slavery created race and racism as we know it today. But if you were born in the 1300s, long before that, you would not have that same type of racial pressure.”
Remmick sees the power of Sammie’s ancestry and his ability to connect with his past, something Remmick desires but does not have access to.
Similarly, Hailee Steinfeld’s mixed race Mary struggles to find acceptance from the community she is part of but does not look like.
As a white-passing woman whose mother cared for many of those in Club Juke, including the twins, Mary finds herself initially denied entry to the club until Annie claims her as family.
“It wasn’t that she was an outsider that came in and tried to claim this culture — this was her culture,” said Nettles. “When you talk about Blackness in its essence, it’s more than just our skin color. Blackness is expansive, but also can be confusing, and it’s also one of the reasons why you have to be careful about trying to say who it encompasses and who it doesn’t.”