#sinners discourse

[lemonypops]

Okay, but like unpopular opinion: WARNING, YOU MAY NOT LIKE THIS AND IF YOU TRY ME YOU WILL BE BLOCKED!! PERIOD⚠️

As a black Sinners fan sometimes I feel really torn about the whole Remmick discourse on here. Sometimes I agree with some points people make while other times I literally roll my eyes because are we being so serious? Like…some of yall are truly chronically online, wannabe social justice warriors and musty wannabe morally superior losers. Like I’m sorry I had to say it. Like the way some of yall be on here fucking with people because they like something that you don’t really BLOWS my mind.

How are yall mad because people walked out the theater and simp for Remmick more and fixate on him more than other characters??? Like, okay, yeah I get it. Sinners is a deep black story about oppression, colonization, culture vultures and stuff but like….yall act like people can’t understand that and like what they like. Not to mention it’s hella black people on here who like Remmick, not just white people and yall still be mad talking about some, “omg why is there so many Remmick fanfics under the sinners tag” well because people like him. He’s a likable character just like many of the other characters.

Then don’t even get me started on people harassing others for certain ships. Like okay yeah I don’t ship it either but is harassing them really the answer??? No!!! LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE!!! Bring back fandom etiquette!!! Yall be grown asf messing with people. Don’t yall have jobs? Girlfriends? Boyfriends? SHIT, FRIENDS?? Get off the internet and take a hike cause it’s never that serious. Yes, many of us despise the ship but that doesn’t give us the right to straight up harass them. Let them enjoy their little ships. There’s a reason why blocking exist. Not to mention you can deadass mute tags, god some of yall are lame asf!!

Anyways, if you take offense to this then honestly you’re probably young and dumb, or either just an insufferable grown ass adult who needs to grow up. And don’t hit me with that, “oh you like Sammie x Remmick” because no I don’t. But I do like Remmick a LOT and yall ain’t gonna shame my black ass for it tf!

okay, bye now thanks for joining me in my small little ted talk, peace out ✌🏾

[saudad3]

The ultimate woobification of Remmick and other white characters of Sinners needs to be studied and put in a psychology textbook somewhere,,,, some of yall would write fics about literal klan members if they were hot enough.

[mollygrass]

Welp, I just got done tearing up an anti on my page who thought it was sweet. Lemme say this and yall listen clearly. Stop pressing people cause they wanna write Remmick x reader fanfics. Some of yall are so insufferable it makes my tummy ache. Like someone literally was in MY COMMENTS hounding me cause I decided to crack a joke about a Remmick fanfic I wrote. Like I’m so sick of people being mad cause we like something that they don’t.

“You guys are missing the point of the movie.”

“Why are there so many Remmick fanfics?”

Like…..one everyone knows the meaning of the movie. Two, people like Remmick!!! What’s wrong with that??? Why is it so bad that we like a fine ass white man??? I understand calling out people who wrote weird things like plantation daughter or kkk member, but people who simply like Remmick getting harassed is crazy!!! I’m talking this girl literally tagged me in a whole separate post on her page FIRST. Then got mad when I tagged her back clocking her!!

This is why I barely associate with fandom spaces now because people lack fandom etiquette. God forbid you like something else that they deem bad when it’s not even bad. I’m so sick and tired of this nonsense.

At this point I’m just gonna block people cause I’m drained. I’m sick of yall think pieces and I’m sick of the harassment. Touch grass and stop policing people online, you’re a grown ass adult btw…get a job and if you’re so free with extra time on your hands get another one because you need it!!

Now if anyone else wants that smoke I got it and it will be the block button—congratulations you will be on the block party with all the other obsessed weirdo haters if so!!💁🏾‍♀️

[faestunna]

Okay wait can I add to the grace and remmick discussion:

My take on the whole line was the timing of it. They had literally just threatened to go take her daughter and now this random white demon is on her doorstep with her dead husband sexually harassing her. I feel like that also adds to the stakes. That’s one of the main reasons I could NEVER hate grace. This man is using her husband’s memories to threaten her daughter and sexualize her. If this is remmick approach to her you can only imagine what grace was thinking they would do to her daughter.

Grace girl they could never make me hate you

exactly!! by threatening her daughter, grace had every reason to believe that remmick would go to the town and kill everyone. what she did was maybe a dick move, but people who say she could’ve just gone outside clearly did not understand that EVERYONE else in juke joint was stopping her from doing so. nobody else had their child threatened like she did, so i don’t wanna see anybodyyyy talking like they’ve been in her shoes.

and i’ve seen a lot of people say grace didn’t understand community bc she turned her back on the people inside the juke. baby she was trying to save her daughter and the whole town, if that’s not caring about community idk what is!!

[stvlti]

4 weirdest takes I've seen from Sinners audiences so far:

Remmick is a White Coloniser (he's an Irishman who would've been killed by the klan at the time if they knew his ancestry; nevertheless yes he was still perpetuating the colonial, imperialistic violence that he'd suffered from against native and black communities he didn't belong to. racial violence begets more racial violence because of the way the system is set up to incentivise oppression.)

Remmick was building a liberal, egalitarian community (he was forcing marginalised black and Chinese folks to assimilate into his "post racial" world order where whiteness - as a cultural hegemony - subsumed all cultures)

Remmick wasn't speaking Chinese (Toisanese was one of the many Chinese dialects used especially in the Delta region)

Mary is a white woman who can't be trusted (she was what was historically called a mulatto; the whole point of including her character is to comment on the anti-miscegenation laws that were still in place at the time of which she's a victim)

I need more viewers especially WASP viewers to get educated before they open their mouths

[so-what-then]

The Grace Chow discourse is just an excuse for people to fixate on the bizarre narrative about unique “tensions” between Asian (or so called “East Asians”) and Black communities that emerged post-LA riots, a narrative started by white people more than anyone.

The film itself doesn’t do that at all lol.

[malewifealucard]

the discourse about Remmick and Sammie is INSANITY y’all are scaring me (the hoes)

[1-jar-of-stars]

everyday some of yall really reach a new low like. it would be impressive if it wasn’t so fucking irritating

[mosaic-briar]

I haven't heard someone title this archetype but I remember learning about this sort of "tragic romantic" Black male protagonist throughout Black lit classes. This commentary about Stack made me think about the unfair dynamic presented in Jean Toomer's "Blood-Burning Moon" from the novel Cane. If you aren't familiar with Toomer, it's important to know that he was an extremely talented Black writer of his time but after his success he firmly asserts himself as not being Black but as being "just American". Colorism is a huge issue in the Harlem Renaissance, but only the women are writing about it, and Jean Toomer would not be a known name if he had not capitalized off his identity as a Black person and a legitimate member of that community. You cannot fully pass for white in the past unless no one in the entire community knows you ; white passing is both a deliberate thing people did and a passive misunderstand that happened to them in restaurants and clubs. He wouldn't be able to suggest something so stupid as replacing race with nationality if he weren't able to pass for white but he never recognizes this. Despite this, Toomer's work is beautiful and he crafts images of Black beauty that are genuinely very moving and raw but his actions are reflected in Alice Walker's "Every Day Use", a short story detailing the difference in how two sisters want to use or appreciate a family keepsake.

Cane's "Blood-Burning Moon" details the attractions and pursuits of two men who are both in love with the same Black women. One of the men is Black, Tom "Big Boy" Burwell, and the other is white, Bob Stone. It's too much to break down the full short story, but the description of Big Boy, who is scary and aggressive to the woman, and Bob who day dreams about owning her as a slave and wishes that he still had the power to do so, are a lot. The story directly tells you that a "warm glow which came into her mind at the thought of him" is how the Black woman feels when thinking about Bob, the white owner of the sharecrops. Yet despite the framing here, it is systemically never possible for Big Boy to ever win. It is a double negative on top of itself that isn't acknowledged in its full unfairness. The moment he dreams he is doomed because the story also tells us that if Bob had not succeeded in getting him lynched in the end he would have found a way to make it happen if his lover had not chosen him.

Characters like Big Boy, used by Toomer here so irresponsibly they are practically tragedy fodder and Black-exploitation, also have many places in media and literature where they are fully dynamic. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Walter is "sore," "heavy" and ready to "explode" just as the poem the play is named after warns us he might. Hansberry's entire play examines what happens to people who are denied access to their fundamental rights so deeply and consistently that it stifles their spirit, like the plant that can't get enough light. Once again, there is a legacy of Black men whose entire lives are spent reaching for something and its achievable by their own individual means. We see it with Walter and his father, dead before the play begins, and with characters like Cory, Troy, and Tory's father from August Wilson's Fences. It's repeated over and over again. When you think about the rhetoric of " cast down your bucket where you are" Booker T. Washington, the punitive school and prison systems, and the survival mindsets utilized in a lot of families it suggest to me that there will never come a day that we don't need things like "Black Boy Joy."

Mary as a white passing person here, who I think in the modern day more accurately exists within the experience of a mixed person but I wouldn't quote me or anything, also helps connect some of the ideas about impossible dreams. To me, Mary's incapability to recognize how much danger she was putting Stack in by yelling about their sex in the middle of the street telegraphed for us everything we'd need to know about how far she had processed her own identity. Her response to Sammie in the dance echoes this too as if the question "what are you" isn't reasonable under the circumstance. (I want to be clear this isn't a criticism of the film, I think she's correctly written). Mary is unable to accept that while her position is tragic she is not the direct victim of the system and what is allowed to happen to Black people must be fixed before its morally balanced to prioritized individual happiness.

White women have some of the most historically violent relationships to Black men that goes from before Emmitt Till to the data surrounding discipline in schools (white women being scared of Black people and Black men is the real reason why so many Black kids get over disciplined) . Mary refuses to accept the real danger she can cause, simply by a misinterpretation, which is why she is an example of the need to gatekeep. Nothing about Mary's interpersonal needs and emotions is bad and I think everyone does empathize with her as a romantic interest but Mary is unwilling to even recognize the most basic rules of Black functioning such as the ability to utilize a lens. You have to be able to understand how you are perceived by white people and your own community at the same time and make decisions in context which becomes harder the more barriers you add between lived experiences. Hansberry's famous line "Above all, there were two things which were never to be betrayed: the family and the race" cannot be clearly applied to Mary and while Blackness is a race, culture, and ethnicity (and whiteness is just a phonotype) because the legal system is a raced based one it literally prevents Mary from access her Black culture. That is how the experiences of racism is filtered down to her and the only way to obtain is to destroy the racist systems that caused it. This is despite the fact that Mary was raised up in her culture and this is often just the case in real life. Most people who are lite brites, white passing, mixed, could fit in a gambino euphemism, are raised by their Black sides. White people are just beginning to address mixedness as a reality in their cultural experience and are still actively fighting truth erosion of their own history.

Mary's particular struggle feels like a parallel to the constraints of their relationship as an intersectional couple. If you can't hold your partner's hand openly, what is the difference between the fantasy and reality of monstrousness. Because of the way Black horror is speaking about the past and present its characters are often just as much symbols as the objects and places in the film. Sinners' already took the conventions of horror and flipped them on its head. Often horror movies work as a narrative and as a reflection of a social fear: Dracula was originally meant to persuade women from having sex, Frankenstein reflects peoples fear of questioning god, we see the first "born evil" characters after developments in psychology, zombies reflect fear of social stigma or illness and it becomes popular for them to run in response to fears around stds and aids, and so on and so on. Horror as a genre has many forms but once Peele opened up the stage for subversive Black narratives it shifted it in a completely new way. Almost like when Alain Locke talks about the "new Negro" in the Harlem Renaissance. As Locke explained there was nothing "new" about Black culture it was just that white people were responding to it and taking notice and thus forming their first real relationships with Black culture. Peele made horror movies that made it impossible to ever hear old talking points about the roles Black people could ever take in movies again. Coogler takes that to another level with Sinners because nothing, literally not in mass loss of life or scale of violence and horror, changes for the Black people in this movie if you remove the fantasy of vampires. The violence of the KKK is worlds darker than the gore of this film, that is for sure. The violence here is a sanitation of the real violence Black people experienced while still functioning as a force of historical-fiction. Historical-horror-fiction, sure, but for Black American's there is more learned about the lives of real Black people in the past from "The Color Purple" than in any history book. This is why the discourse around how these characters might interact in fandom requires a depth on context and Black culture not every movie viewer even knows is required. In short, if you see Stack as being "alive" and having something of a happy ending, you'll be surprised to understand that other perspectives clearly consider this to be the worst ending possible for him. By Annie's own words, this is a fate worst than death and the fantasy of vampirism is interchangeable with other forms of oppression Black people experienced. Nothing that cost Stack his brother is meant to be honored as a victory, he's just traded on half of his soul for the other.

SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

[my-name-is-h-u-m-a-n]

I’ve been seeing the Mary discourse and I need black folks to lmk bc I am confused and want to ask the community directly.

[pixelated-peonies]

Erica Leshai had an insightful discussion about the lessons that Black people can learn from the movie "Sinners," particularly the importance of always being too willing to invite everyone to the "cookout." She does share some spoilers from the film, so if you haven't seen it yet, you may want to skip this video for now. However, if you have seen the movie or if spoilers don’t bother you, I highly recommend watching and listening to this video. It's quite interesting, and she raises some excellent points.

[nataliabraginskaya]

This is not Sammie. Sammie is a Black man. With a deep skin tone. Even in the light his skin is not this bright and that is important. This whole movie is about the black experience and colorism. The art is technically good, but depicting him like this is disrespectful to the actor, the story and the message.

This is what Sammie looks like. There is no lighting in the universe that makes that man look like the above art. This isn’t just at OP but all the fan art I keep seeing thats depicting Sammie as SEVERAL shades lighter than he is. If you don’t know how to colour deeper skin tones then don’t do the art until you can.

watched this movie 3 times now since it came out -v-

[malewifealucard]

What I’ve been thinking is that Sinners is a movie made by and for black people, tightly and deliberately rooted in our shared history and culture. Nonblack viewers are metaphorically just guests at the juke joint from out of town. It’s like, “welcome, enjoy yourselves, but be respectful”. Therefore nb people being in the space of fandom in this case can make what is a safe space for us into one that is not..here due to it being flooded by indulgent oppressed x oppressor slop as they said.

After watching the film twice, the romantic vibes (presumably nonblack) people are insisting on between Remmick and Sammie certainly never once read to me. Doesn’t even compute to me.

For that genre of nonblack viewer they decontextualize and view the film with the perspectives they are used to — which may be totally, inherently out of line with the black experiences. Sometimes removing something from its context is not only offensive, it is fundamentally inappropriate.

I don’t have a “right” answer about this or particular opinion about what needs to done, these are observations and reflecting on my own feelings of discomfort witnessing this trend.

No white Sinners watchers, Remmick didn't want Sammie because he was in love with him

YOU (YOU!!!) just fetishize Black men and Oppressor x Oppressed relationships

You did not get the historical context of the movie

yall would ship a slave and his master as long as one of them were white

stop cosigning Black Media especially when you don't understand Black hardships and struggles through out REAL life history

[heydrangeas]

possibly the most annoying thing that people do following a movie with sex scenes is insist that a man and a woman who act together (aka do. their. job???) must have a sexual connection irl. specifically I’m looking at Hailee Steinfeld and Michael B. Jordan in Sinners; and the conversation is exclusively framed in two ways: “wow Hailee’s ex must be so mad” and “wow Hailee’s current partner must be so mad.” it’s so sexist to consistently frame it in that way, and don’t get me started on the complete lack of attention for Wunmi Mosaku despite her and MBJ also having equivalently intimate scenes. smh

[spikedfearn]

me dodging all the indirects, comments, and anon hate I get bombarded with because I write for Remmick and Jimmy

me continuing to write for Remmick and Jimmy anyways because I live to simp and spite

[abigailspinach]