whenmemorydies

[whenmemorydies]

remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

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i know i shouldnt be suprised but sinners being out for less than a week and already tumblr is fandomifying and 'poor wet pathetic cat'-ifying the main white man villain of the movie is so... disapointing??? like did the fucking point of the movie really go over your heads that badly or are you just willingly ignorant and stupid?

AND BEFORE ANYONE STARTS; im not saying you cant like remmick, he's a very interesting character, a great villain, and jack o'connell gave a great performance playing him, nor do i care if you think hes sexy, I think hes sexy

but i think to come out of a movie where vampires serve as a metaphor for how black american communities have the life sucked out of them by white people via cultural appropriation (remmick wanting to use sammie's gift to summon his own ancestors) and forced assimilation (all the turned vampires singing and dancing along with remmick's irish folk song and dance juxtaposed with the blend of cultures during sammie's song in the juke joint) and for your main take away to be 'aww the main villain is just a misunderstood sadboy' or 'idc abt the atrocities he looked sexy doing them (when the atrocities in question were racism)' then youre just being so disengenuous and antithetical to the whole point of the film?

and dont come at me with the 'let people enjoy things' bullshit, sinners is a movie FUNDAMENTALLY about racism and racial dynamics in the united states, and i do think focusing on your little y/n x [whiteboy of the month] fics and 'hes so babygirl' posts do actually stunt your own critical engagement with the message this movie was trying to convey to its audience

i think its also a disservice to remmick's character; the moral nuance that comes to light when you consider his position as an irish immigrant to the US, a victim of the colonialist british empire just like the black main cast (although in a very different way) and how, whilst his desire to reclaim his ancestry and heritage is understandable and even relatable, his pursuit of sammie and willingness to kill literally everyone else at the juke joint is allegorical for how, regardless of their own marginalisation, white people will prey upon and steal from black culture(s) and destroy/disenfranchise black communities to serve their own interests, and the movie is NOT subtle about this either, delta slim literally lays it out for us "white folks like the blues just fine, they just don't like the people who make them"

idk im yelling into the void here, the ppl im complaining about are never going to give a shit about racism or even just critically engaging with art when theres a new cute whiteboy to write fluff and angst about, but its just soooo annoying to see, yet again, how fandom spaces, which SHOULD be about uplifing and celebrating art in all its diversity and complexity, once again is nothing more than people ignoring anything that actually makes them have to confront reality and filing off the serial numbers to slot characters into pre-determined fanon molds so they can pump out incorrect quotes and coffee shop AUs en masse until the media iliterate heat death of the universe

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Sinners fic writers - has anyone written anything about how Annie and Smoke met/the beginning of their relationship? I'm going through withdrawals and neeeeeed more of their lore

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Put some respect on Annie's name

Yall go read the Hollywood Report interview with Wunmi Mosaku.

This explains some more of the depth we can see in their relationship. She wasn't just a past lover she was his WIFE. He was ALWAYS going to come back to her. And wherever she and their baby were he was going to be too.

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Thoughts on Sinners (2025):

I would like to thank god and Wunmi Mosaku's titties

Me when I saw Bo Chow:

This is probably Ryan Coogler's horniest film to date, and I love that

Holy shit, the sound mixing 🙌🏻

After hating on the White Americans, the French and the Spaniards in the Black Panther films, Ryan Coogler really turned to the Irish and said, "don't worry, I didn't forget about yall too!!"

3 words - Choctaw. Vampire. Hunters. Ryan Coogler, I demand a prequel

No but the Choctaw Vampire Hunters were hilarious. They can't be bothered to put in the labour to help the kkk couple. They really went, "you invited it, you deal with it. Godspeed." And peaced the fuck out ✌🏻 good for them

And the scene of the kkk couple inviting the Remmick the Irish vampire into their home while holding guns to the Choctaw pple even tho the Choctaw pple were trying to warn them? Perfect symbolism for how White pple would rather shoot themselves in the foot than listen to people of colour

Jayme Lawson's married ass getting her pussy eaten out by the male ingenue character, I support women's rights and women's wrongs 🫡

Me when the White music kinda slapped:

When Cornbread started going on about love and unity when he returned from peeing in the trees, I nearly yelled, "oh my god he's in the sunken place!!"

When the Irish vampire started river dancing during a tense moment:

The contrast between Sammie's music bringing pple/spirits of different times and cultures together while Remmick's is front and center in his ghoulish dance scene

Also the vampires only singing Remmick's songs but not songs from their respective communities even tho he preached about love and unity. Remmick speaking Cantonese only to threaten the Chinese shop owner.

The vampire hivemind being a metaphor for how White supremacy erases the uniqueness of different cultures to create the singular culture of whiteness

Remmick the victim of forced anglicisation of Ireland, Remmick the settler on Indigenous American land, Remmick who violently attempts to exploit a Black man's music to hear his (white) Irish kin again. Ryan Coogler, your mind

Sammie's music 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 Annie's hoodoo religion being a bridge to the ancestors and the homeland. But while Sammie's music invites danger becos it can be exploited, Annie's spiritual beliefs helps them in contrast to how hoodoo has been demonised and dismissed

When the credits started rolling:

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Ryan Coogler on Democracy Now

This interview is so thoughtful, rich and wide-ranging. It sounds like the Cooglers and the rest of the team that created Sinners were working with deep-rooted, respectful and collaborative magic when they made this art.

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Wunmi Mosaku and Michael B. Jordan at the New York City premiere of Sinners

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you know i really thought that with sinners being EXPLICITLY about racism, EXPLICITLY, looking directly at the audience and saying "this is about racism," people MIGHT. MIGHT not be thirsting over the white antagonist to the point of ignoring the black characters. i expected thirsting over remmick and fans for him and probably a massive fandom for mary but thought maybe people would at least TRY to be subtle about it considering the movie looked thtem in the eye and told them to cut that shit out

i should not have been so hopeful

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Freedom of speech and all that but I’m blocking folks posting Remmick x reader and Remmick x Sammie shit in the Sinners tags because you’re either knowingly fetishising a white supremacist or too ignorant to know that’s what you’re doing and I don’t need either on my feed.

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annie + smoke

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Remmick, Ryan Coogler's vampire in Sinners, is written so well. You have a white, Irish vampire from the time of the colonization of Ireland by the english who is trying to deal with his own loss and 'hunger'. He wants to use Sammie. He wants to take away Sammie's music, his tradition and to use it for his own gain.

We have one more white oppressor who presents himself as a saviour. He inflitrates a black community, coming with the promise of... equality, community and freedom from death. But those promises come to fruition in a very specific manner. Remmick is the leader, for all the equality he promises. HE is the one who sets the tune the rest are singing. HE is the one whose pain is felt by every member of this 'community'. Every person that is turned connects to him in a hive-mind of collective memory and experience that HE controls and is able to use to his own convenience. Moreover, this is a collective that does not exclude the KKK-alligned family that was part of the plan to slaughter an entire black community.

Remmick represents a seemingly politically correct, predominantly white globalization. He presents himself as well-intended. He may even BELIEVE that he is. But what he offers is the death of individuality, of culture and tradition.

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One thing about me, I don’t play about Annie and Smoke’s relationship. NOTHING, screamed mammy about Wunmi’s sexy ass and I don’t like how some people have been stating that. What Smoke and Annie have is metaphysical. Their love transcends time and space so spare me with that bullshit. What y’all saw on the screen was grown, true,and pure. Don’t get it twisted.

[whenmemorydies]

Can we talk about how, yes, Remmick represented the colonised turned coloniser but also how masterfully Ryan Coogler depicted this throughline of history on screen in about just 2 hours?

How many of the first white settlers to the US (and other settler-states of the British Empire like Canada and Australia) included the Puritans, the Irish, the Scottish etc - communities that had been brutalised at home by the English for generations - and then how those very same people blew their intergenerational trauma through the bodies of the peoples that they enslaved and colonised.*

How while those settlers are described with words such as "pioneering," ""adventurous," "industrious," and "brave" in their colonisation of the "wilds" of the New World, in reality many were actually fleeing political unrest, religious persecution and the barbarism of their places of origin.

How the oppression of the Old World followed them to the New World but how they were offered a seat at the table in exchange for their cultural and religious difference: an invitation into the decontextualised, ahistorical, transient void that is whiteness.

How in Sinners, that white void is represented by Remmick's vampire colony, with everyone doing the same jig and singing the same song as Remmick, their own individual cultures and histories be damned (contrast this to that beautiful sequence in the juke joint where a slew of multicultural ancestors and descendants commune at Sammie's call).

How the concept of whiteness has shifted over time in order to assimilate different people and communities and keep others subjugated.

How in Sinners, this shift is represented by Remmick changing his pitch to recruit others into his fellowship, depending on whose home he was trying to invade.

How legal definitions of whiteness in settler states gave the folks that they applied to more economic and social power than they ever had in the Old World. That power has flowed down for generations but it has come at the cost of connection to culture: the joy of ancestral connection, the grounding self-knowledge and communion of cultural practice (including through language, music, dance and pre-Christian religion).

How in Sinners, that cost is represented by Remmick's vampirism trapping him for eternity amongst the living, away from his people and also by the klan: folks who have embraced the void of whiteness so thoroughly that their cultural tenets are nothing more than hate, violence and destruction. Their whiteness brings them none of the joy, communion and love that we see in Smoke's memories of his community, just before his incendiary final scene.

And this is why Remmick wants Sammie, his songs and his stories. Its why his appetite for the blood and memories of others is insatiable. Remmick - as is the case with all colonisers and cultural appropriators - wants to fill the void.

*See: My Grandmother's Hands by therapist and trauma speicalist Dr Resmaa Menakem

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Some after "Sinners" reading material if you're interested in Black American and Indigenous History (and the immigrants who came over, too). I put in the Jones-Rogers book too so y'all won't think the 58% had no serious role in shaping the horrors of America.

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Fuck, I can’t wait to see Sinners.

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During that painful ass conversation about Claire and Carmy at the start of 3x02 Next, Carmy discloses what he said to Claire while trapped in the walk-in,

"I said that I thought it was all a waste of time. Because I am who I am."

And as he's saying the above, the camera cuts to Sydney's reaction:

At first I thought this was the face of the same deeply empathetic person who told Carmy in 2x08 Bolognese to figure out if Claire was his girlfriend or his friend-who's-a-girl (I agree with the folks that say Syd was jealous in 2x08...but she was still guarded in terms of not being vulnerable about her own feelings with Carmy). But on this rewatch of 3x02, with the hindsight of the metaphorical under-the-table sex and wedding in 2x09 Omelette, with Carmy screaming Syd's name in the walk-in during 2x10 The Bear, with the "I left you alone-So don't let it happen again-Its never gonna happen again" from 3x01 Tomorrow, Syd's reaction in 3x02 started to seem more like that of a person who had thought about romance with Carmy and who is hearing from him that he has no time for that kind of a relationship because he's not built for it. It starts to look like someone thinking "what the fuck have I been doing here? This is never going to happen."

Or maybe I'm delulu. What do others think?

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Love this. What you say about Carmy still needing validation from his abuser is interesting. It definitely ties into what he says in 3x02 about showing "them" what The Bear crew are capable of. It seems clear to me at least that "them" is Chef David and Donna (and maybe even Mikey given that the latter didn't think the restaurant was a good idea). I don't know if Carmy is in the same place by 3x10 but bc the last season was so oblique about its messaging, I'm thinking we wont know until S4 comes around.

Bless this man because I would have broken with this amount of second guessing of my abilities and ignoring of my person:

Of course he imprinted on Sydney the first time he meets her: the one person who has never questioned his culinary skill, who saw him right away.

And of course he overreacts when she rightly challenges him on the choices he's making for the restaurant.

And of course, Syd is confounded.

S4 Carmy better sit Syd down and tell her why she means so much to him because he loves her, but also to help her (and us) understand his behaviour in S3.