Our Academy Presents The Monthly staff shares their thoughts on The Oscars Best Picture Nominees Written by Monthly staff Designed by Meher Yeda
The Trial of the Chicago 7 “The Trial of the Chicago 7” follows a group of seven anti-Vietnam War protesters charged with crossing state lines and inciting violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Even though the movie was filmed in 2019, the subject matter seems to resonate with a 2020 audience. The film touches on the state’s censorship of abolitionist and anti-war sentiments, with scenes depicting violence that eerily resembles police escalation at protests across the country from last summer. But “Chicago 7” bothered me because of its distinct focus on Whiteness. For a movie about 1960’s radicalism,
12
its most prominent Black characters were sidelined and underemployed. While the story is based on the real-life tale of the Chicago Seven, all of whom were White men, I found myself drawn to the subplots following Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who plays political activist and Black Panther Party founder Seale, only had a bit over 15 minutes of screen time, and I think he stole the show. But hey — maybe that’s why I preferred “Judas and the Black Messiah” over this one. Much of the way “The Trial of the Chicago 7” was written
reminded me of “The West Wing” — and that isn’t a compliment. The American idealism of the film recycles tropes and word-for-word phrases from the director’s 20-year-old television show, which made me question whether choosing Aaron Sorkin and his notorious neoliberalism to write and direct “The Trial of the Chicago 7” was the best move. After a year of racial reckoning in this
country, I was hoping to see Sorkin’s take on the trial attempt to confront police violence and the prison-industrial complex, but that nuance was lost. Make no mistake: This is just another Aaron Sorkin production downplaying radical politics and centering that radicalism almost exclusively around White savior complexes. — Isabelle Sarraf
