Have you followed the comments and opinions on the upcoming Netflix movie “The Harder They Fall”? I cannot count the times I have watched the trailer. The music started off with Fela Kuti’s “Let’s Start,” so if anything, you know the movie will be Black Blackity Black.
When Regina King’s character said, “We ain’t no nincompoops,” you knew the Black cowboys in the movie were not going to be your usual suspects. The Harder They Fall cowboys were not going to be dusty-ass, smelly, and dirty looking with yellow teeth and tobacco spit dripping out the side of their mouths, staining their beards. I was not in the west, but I am sure the Black cowboys represented the coolness how we know we do.
We know there were Black cowboys and women in the west. Some folks commented that this movie is not about the real west; there were no Black cowboys or women, and blah and blah and blah. This is why Critical Race Theory is so important, but then again, ignorance (arrogance) will not stop us from jumping in joy about this movie.
How many folks are making movie night plans with family and friends? Yep, I am too excited, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Valentine Cupid person all decided to drop me off all those presents I never received on the same night. In my head, I am on stage with the Pointer Sisters singing, “I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it, I’m about to lose control, and I think I like it.” Yeah, a sista is excited about this movie.
This excitement either shows the lack of my social life, or I really like westerns. Okay, it is a little of both, but I have watched western movies since TV was only black and white. Back in the day of Regis Cordic’s Sunday Afternoon Movie, it was cowboys for me. (A cousin of mine who was a dark-skinned person told me that I was not even Black (? umm look at me) that I probably cheered for the Indigenous peoples in the cowboy movies.
Well, dah! Even as a young child, I knew that cowboy mess was not right, and I did root for the Indigenous peoples every time. Also, the Sunday Afternoon Movie was the first time I saw Africans beat the English colonist in Zulu Dawn. I sat there memorized, grinning when they ran over them stiff, privileged English soldiers. I was so excited. As excited and proud when the Pittsburgh Pirates had the first all-Black starting lineup and they were winners.
Back to The Harder They Fall. Since the COVID (yep, going to blame it on COVID), everyone has been on social media, like it’s their job. Many comments are coming in from folks who have already torn the movie to threads, and punched holes in this fiction movie. Of course, we are all historians and know everything about Black history and, right through here, the history of the west. I want to scream, “it is only a f— movie.”
Some have mentioned more than once it is unrealistic; cowboys were not that clean looking, those gun plays, no one can shoot like that, blah and blah and blah. First of all, I have watched cowboy movies with the crazy gun play, cowboys surviving hanging (to be honest, how many Black men survived lynching?), being shot 18 hundred thousand times, and after a sip of water getting up to shoot 100 people. Let’s not forget the horse riding through a barrage of arrows and not one hit; wow, that’s sounds about real to me. No, it is a damn movie. Or how the cowboys spoke the language of the Indigenous peoples better than them? Wow, that is so real!
There have been movies that glorified drug dealers, corrupt police officers, firefighters, boxers, all those action figure movies. Yet, someone mentioned The Harder They Fall is a false glorification of Black cowboys.
What about the movies with Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and his brothers (Tombstone, one of my favorite westerns, “Tell him I’m coming and I’m bringing hell with me.” I always wanted to say that to someone). Also, Jesse James, Cole Younger, and his brothers in Long Riders (another one of my favorites). We can’t leave out all the stories of Wild Bill Hickok, Custer, Calamity Jane, and don’t forget big bad John Wayne movies and blah and blah and more blah.
In The Harder They Fall, Nat Love (Deadwood Dick), Rufus Buck Gang, Stagecoach Mary, Bass Reeves, James Beckwourth, Cherokee Bill, Bill Pickett, Wiley Escoe, are all “real” historic Black western folk. The movie may have them more pleasing than their real-life counterparts, but as with Wild Bill Hickok and them, it is only a western movie where everything is more significant than life. Enjoy it.
Some comments are from Black folks. Wait, didn’t Black folks enjoy “Lovecraft Country” and are angry because it was only one season? I mean, tell me how did the Black woman turn white then, where did those monsters come from, well, you know. How did she walk through the fire, out the fire, through time? (I have a different belief system than most and believe some of the happenings in that show, but that is a separate article.) Yeah, because it is a movie. Then you have the folks who say they never liked westerns, okay nothing wrong with that, but you may have grown up with Clint Eastwood’s cowboy characters who barely moved but could outgun 100,000 men. So, you have never seen a Blackity Black western, no, not going to reference Blazing Saddles, Django, or Posse. Before Black Panther, you did not see a Blackity Black Marvel film.
Posts and articles continue to dissect the movie; why can’t it be another western movie, why when Black folks are involved? Another reason Critical Race Theory needs to be taught, then again, the exact reason some say “no” is the same reason they do not want to believe Black folks were cowboys living, loving, and killing in the old west.
Is it too unreal for a Black prisoner to have his gang break him free, shoot up some soldiers and ride off? Wow, so we are not allowed to escape? Yes, I know this is all so unreal, even for a fiction movie. Yet there are white cowboys movies where they survive Mother Nature’s wrath, be the savior to the poor misguided Indigenous peoples, kill a black bear with one good hand and a stick, or the great buffalo killer. Right! And all those rappers singing about “that life” are living that life?
In the last comment -they look too clean to be real cowboys. Ummm, Black folks have been clean since the beginning of time, we know this. This was not the Planet of the Apes (2001) when one of the apes said to a human captive, “Get your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human!” People have stereotypical ideas about cowboys being dirty; not all cowboys are dirty, this we bout to see.
The Harder They Fall is a damn movie. It is entertainment, with a good-looking cast. I am excited about all this action movie, the music, and its mighty good looking cast (did I repeat myself?).
Netflix has tapped into a demographics that Hulu, SHO, HBO have limited. Black folks have been yelling for movies, and Netflix about that profit said, here you go (with Nollywood movies to top it off). Some films have been good, others not so good, but this one gonna be a winner.
People want to be entertained; those who know the truth about history know that movies take liberties to add more excitement and fun. Remember, it is a movie that should inspire to research the characters’ action-packed life in the American wild west, which is also “our” wild west.
