Just watched Sinners
Can anyone enlighten me on why they picked on Irish immigrants? Did blues get coopted by Irish historically?
I don’t get it
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Remmick is a metaphor for assimilation, like the protagonists he is part of a diaspora from an culture obliterated by colonial rule. Unlike the protagonists the Irish and other white settlers were afforded the opportunity to assimilate into white America at the cost of their individual ethnic cultures. This emptiness is what leads to the fetishization and desire to appropriate other cultures which remain distinct due to not being afforded the same opportunity to assimilate. The movie explicitly mentions the Filí, a type of Irish bard that played an equivalent role to Sammie in using music to connect people to their shared cultural history. The reason Remmick is so focused on getting Sammie to join his literal hive mind is that he is so desperate to feel that shared culture and ancestral connection that he doesnt care that it isnt his culture or his ancestors.
Ironically, as an Irish person, the scene that I resonated with the most was Sammie’s song. I thought it was the perfect visualisation of how folk music can allow a culture to survive and connect with their ancestral pasts even when they have been long forgotten. Irish trad music and contemporary music that evolves from it is one of the very few unbroken threads to our shared past remaining.
They picked the villain to be Irish because theyve also had a history of colonization and the vampirism is an analogy for assimilation.
Irish being colonized, not coloni-zing.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to make him British?
The Irish were (are) colonized. They were originally an out-group, but were subsumed into “whiteness” at a later point in history.
Vampirism represents this assimilation.
But now he’s a colonizer (in the film)
The Irish today are some of the most respectable people against colonization. Just see their solidarity with Palestinians.
To paint them as colonizers seems wrong and offensive
Joe biden’s Irish and there are a lot more like him in the US than you might realize.
The Irish today are some of the most respectable people against colonization.
the irish are, irish-americans were not. american history has MANY examples of americans with irish descent (as well as irish immigrants themselves) perpetuating “anglo” style colonization; the book “the great arizona orphan abduction” details a lot of it (and it’s especially fascinating since it happened at the same time as nina).
I think it’s more that the original Irish person is himself a victim having been assimilated into a greater vampiric colonial entity, becoming its mouthpiece and mistaking integration for liberation
tbh that aspect of the movie is clunky as it makes it too easy to substitute “collectivist ideology” for the vampiric hivemind, especially in contrast to its glorification of bootstrapping individual heroism
Remmick had been “trapped” in the US for centuries. It’s about how oppressed become oppressor through assimilation, which many irish americans did
This tracks with having him being hunted by Native Americans in his introduction.
Irish person living in America. Think more Irish-American, less Irish.
Great bit
I wouldn’t say they were picking on the Irish? They gave him a sick song and dance number to Rocky Road to Dublin.
He was literally the personification of the Devil. How is that casting not picking on them?
They literally made him more evil than the KKK
Yeah but they also made him really cool and charismatic and he absolutely killed it on the Irish folk songs, while the KKK were just some fat white doofuses. Like, clearly the Irish vampire gets more respect here.
I don’t follow that logic at all. They made him evil.
I mean, IDK how else to explain it…the logic is that he’s cool as hell?
Ryan Coogler also made black panther, with killmonger, a sympathetic villain who was cool while being evil. Same principal imo
He wasn’t cool. He was evil.
Cool and evil are mutually exclusive.
Did you read what I wrote? Kilmonger was cool and had a sympathetic backstory. Nevertheless, he also killed people. Definitely not mutually exclusive
Fictional evil characters are extremely popular in media.
Jack O’Connell is a talented, conventionally attractive man and his character was powerful, charismatic, and compelling.
He was supernaturally evil and that evil wasn’t tied to him being Irish. He was depicted as more sympathetic than the KKK who sought to kill out of hate instead of a supernatural compulsion.
Good bit
He was consumed by the devil. He was hollowed out and dehumanized by being forcefully assimilated. He’s making a futile attempt to save himself by bringing in Sammie when in fact he’s already lost his soul.
He can perform the music and art of his culture, but it’s not for the sake of his heritage or to bring people together in community. It’s to fill an emptiness within himself brought about by the vampire that turned him.
He was made into a monster, forced into living a half life, convinced that he can undo the harm done to him by harming others.
I don’t see him as the personification of the devil so much as a casualty of the devil.
You see in the movie that the other people who become vampires act in ways they wouldn’t otherwise.
His Irish heritage wasn’t vilified and at no point did a character conflate his heritage with his villainous acts.
The rest of the cast were wary of him more because he was white in a space for people of color.
I think part of it was because bluegrass is the other music genre associated with the improvised south and that has roots in Irish and Scottish folk music.
the Scotch-Irish of Appalachia
in my opinion it’s actually a genius parallel.
Here’s a good read on it: https://www.thewrap.com/sinners-irish-vampire-meaning-history-explained/
