Candyman: Race, Class, Sexuality, Gender, and Disability

Candyman hits on almost all of the sections we discussed over the last six weeks. Let's start from the most obvious and move from there.  

Race: A large part of Candyman confronts the anger and rage of the Black community after years and years and years and years of systemic racism. Candyman is an embodiment of all of the men who have suffered at the hands of whites (white police man, the white community, white systems that have set them up to fail such as the housing projects of Cabrini-Green). The monster of Candyman is a tornado of retribution, a hive of bees swirling angrily and containing the men who have been lynched or tortured by whites, starting with the original death of a Black male painter who dared to fall in love with a white woman whose portrait he painted. This monster, like the original, can be summoned by anyone who dares to say his name out loud in front of a mirror five times. Until the very end, the only people who do this are white--and every one of them is killed by the specter of the supernatural Black man with a hooked hand. In the end of the film, it is Anthony's girlfriend who calls back the monster while sitting in the back of the police car. She's just been told by the white police officer that she can either go along with the story they're going to tell--that they killed Anthony in self-defense, or she can tell the truth and go to prison for a long, long time. She then asks to see herself in the car mirror, and she brings Candyman back from death. After slaughtering all of the police men in the film and releasing Briana with the words, "Tell everyone." This, I suppose, harkens back to the earlier reference to the title of the exhibit by Anthony, "Say My Name" (the phrase itself a reference to the violence visited upon countless Black bodies by police shootings). The final moments of the film are devoted to showing the shadow box of images of Black uprising, and that leaves the film on a warning--if we as a community don't take action against these wrongful actions against Blacks, we are in danger of being part of a race war as the Black community will reach a crescendo where they can no longer contain their rage.

Class: Much of the film is about those on the inside (white art critics), those straddling both worlds and seeking entry (Anthony and Brianna) and those on the outside who are unlikely to gain access (the residents of Cabrini Green, then and now, including the laundromat owner, William Burke, who has his own traumatic history of meeting the Candyman as a child and then subsequently hearing him being beat to death by the cops).  Gentrification is part of the film, as the former projects have been converted into condos, but there is also a complication, as Anthony is living with Brianna, who is herself an upwardly mobile Black woman who has been accepted into the primarily white art world. Anthony's implicated in his desire to be part of the world by deciding to use the murders in Cabrini-Green as inspiration for his new series of portraits, paintings that he hope will gain him entrance into the privileged world. By exploiting the pain of others, he unwittingly unleashes the monster and reignites the urban legend of the Candyman. For doing this, Anthony loses his life and his identity, as he is subsumed by the soul and killing drive of the original dead man. 

Sexuality: Brianna's brother, Troy Cartwright, is an openly gay man in a relationship with a white man. He is also the person who first introduces the legend of the original Candyman, by lighting candles and telling his rapt audience of Brianna and Anthony about how the original Black man was chased, mutilated, and covered with honey for being with a white woman. Without this story, it's possible that Anthony might never have gone back to the projects to launch his own artistic journey, so Troy is implicitly the catalyst for the mayhem that follows. He is also a social anomaly, an openly gay Black man in a relationship with a white man, and he seems to have endured no bias or prejudice for this relationship. Briana and Anthony are fine with it, the art community is fine with it, and Troy is not judged or in danger for his access to whiteness and gayness. This could also be read as progress---their homosexuality is not punished in any way (as in other horror films where gay characters are much more expendable). In their review of the film, Out magazine states that "although Troy and Grady might not technically be main characters (they are in our hearts!), they do play a notable role in the action and provide audiences the opportunity to see a loving, authentic depiction of gay love."

Gender: Though the film does focus somewhat on the couple dynamics between Anthony and Brianna, it is mostly interested in Anthony's journey. Brianna has no discernible back story, other than that she has a brother, whereas we eventually learn that Anthony was the baby delivered in Cabrini-Green when the legend of Candyman was in full force. In fact, he was meant to be the sacrificial baby, but was saved at the last minute. However, Brianna is not without some agency. Her rage and anguish can be seen in her pleas for Anthony not to mess up her big chance with the art dealer, and again later when she violently and repeatedly stabs William, who has turned out to be hoping to revive the Candyman for revenge (I think I got this right--it was a little confusing toward the end).  She also survives the film and we see her racial plight clearly in the scene with the cop who tells her to stick with their version of events or go to jail. Yet, none of the other female characters in the film intersect in any significant way toward their own story. They are more or less side characters for Anthony's story, and don't have narrative arcs. The white women in the film fare worst of all, since nearly all of them are slaughtered after conjuring Candyman. 

Disability: This one is a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but the hook hand is a huge part of the story because it's the murder weapon from the urban legend, and the murder weapon of the present day story. As Anthony's right arm begins to morph and change after the bee sting, he is unable to use it, and it is finally sawed off by Willam and replace with a meaty thunk by a hook. The hook makes me think of other notable one armed villains, like Captain Hook, whose hook hand is threatening if not deadly.  So, our cultural associations with one-handed/one-armed people is not that they are differently abled, but that they are dangerous, murderous. 

The film does a good job of intersectionality throughout. Anthony is not just a Black man, he's a Black man struggling to raise his social status who eventually has to deal with a physical deformity. Similarly, Brianna is not just a Black woman but a Black woman who also must play by social rules to move ahead in the art world or to even stay at her current status quo. 

Overall, this felt like an excellent film to review through various lens that we have discussed over the last six weeks in class.