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The Intersection of Art, Commerce, and John Wayne in Rosewood

By Lynn Farley

[1] Hollywood walks a cinematic tightrope when it attempts to make meaning of historical events. There’s a thin line between love and hate and fact and fiction. Negotiating the boundaries between these in the representation of past lives and creating a picture that resonates with the public usually falls on the shoulders of a film’s director. Whether or not the filmmaker is successful in completing this task is determined not only by critical accolades but perhaps the more important box office success. When director John Singleton chose to incorporate some fiction with Rosewood’s facts by introducing an imaginary title character á la John Wayne, the critics chewed him up for it: “For some reason, perhaps because Singleton and his colleagues do not believe that the real-life drama of Rosewood is sensational enough to sustain a Hollywood blockbuster, fictionalization and hyperbole dominate the film, especially during the final hour. Far too much of the plot dwells on invented characters such as Mr. Mann (Ving Rhames), a World War I veteran and black superhero. In a cartoon-like fantasy, Mann makes a miraculous escape from a lynch mob, mounts a superhorse that somehow outraces a speeding train, and almost single-handedly saves the women and children of Rosewood, including a young schoolteacher who falls in love with him. This clumsy and ill-conceived tribute to avenging black manhood all but destroys the credibility of the film, robbing the real-life heroes of Rosewood of much of their dignity and historical agency.” (Arsenault 38)

2] Why was Raymond Arsenault so upset? Was the introduction of a John Wayne-esque black cowboy so wrong? Was a dark Duke needed because white audiences would find familiarity with the hero and provide much needed box office? Or was it because black audiences needed someone to take a stand against the suffering inflicted on their race? Did Singleton diminish the message of Rosewood, or did he help excavate a tragedy in Florida and our nation’s history seventy years after the fact? Is the obliteration of an entire town and the deaths and dislocation of its resident at the hands of racists any less important because of a few Hollywood bells and whistles and creative use of fact? This essay aims to find the answer and saddle up with Singleton as he negotiates the traffic of art, commerce, and criticism at the intersection of Rosewood and Sumner.

[3] In order to study the progression of this essay’s intent, it’s important to learn some history about its above-the-line real players -- producer Jon Peters, director John Singleton, and screenwriter Greg Poirer. A behind-the-scenes creative triumvirate that molded, shaped, and curated the story of what happened on “film” to Rosewood, Florida, during that fateful January in 1923. Each man brought his own history and perspective to the project. John Singleton was 28-years-old when he was asked to direct Rosewood. Fresh off his successes for the urban south central LA dramas Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice and Higher Learning, Hollywood touted him as the next wunderkind by bestowing on him the first ever Academy Award nomination to an African American for Best Director. Hollywood mega-producer Jon Peters who also happens to be white and credited with The Color Purple, Flashdance, Batman, and Rain Man took notice, and tapped him for Rosewood. This was the first time Singleton joined a picture as a hired gun. Of note is that this producer-director partnership loosely reflects a racial and economic dynamic found in the reel Rosewood--the white shopkeeper had money, the black stranger had history. “It’s Batman joins Rosewood” {another ironic correlation not lost on this author}, Peters said. “We make movies that make millions of dollars, so when we focus on Rosewood it’s suddenly a story that has enormous power”(Levin).

[4] Big box office expectations were positioned to face historical accuracy head-on at the crossroads of commerce and art. Singleton observed that the depiction of blacks in films remained troubling and that some of the fault rested with black filmmakers. "It's commerce, everything is commerce," he said. "I mean there are black filmmakers trying to get paid just like white filmmakers. And not everybody comes to the table in a certain way in which they feel they have a responsibility to do anything except make a profit" (Weinraub). First-time screenplay writer Greg Poirer, also white, had the script finished before Singleton joined the project and appeared vested in an accurate re-tellling of the story. “The most powerful thing this movie has going for it is that it’s true,” Poirer says. “So it was really important to stick as closely as possible to the real thing, so people don’t have that out of saying, ‘Oh, they made a lot of it up, it wasn’t that bad’” (Levin).

[5] Director Singleton was positioned to fuse commerce, art, and history. In keeping with the history of his art, movie-making, he sampled from a familiar genre, the western, and from a familiar character, the lone cowboy, in order to make the translation more comprehensible and engaging for audiences. Based on the Documented History of the Massacre which occurred at Rosewood report, it seems screenwriter Poirer referenced an article by Eugene Brown in The Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, for a trace detail from which the Mann character could be partially drawn: “Brown based his exaggerated report on what he was told from an on-the-scene informant. Supposedly, Ted Cole, an ex-soldier from Chicago had just come to Rosewood, and it was he who rallied the blacks to resist the attack on the Carrier house. According to Brown, the veteran used combat skills acquired in World War I to good effect, managing the stand-off exchange between blacks and whites. The reporter also claimed that nineteen people were killed. The Defender's account seems to have been largely fictional” (Display for Schools). Despite the account being deemed untrustworthy, the result on film was the archetypal drifter/loner/ gunslinger, Mr. Mann, riding in on his trusty steed Booker T and a slightly new version of Rosewood’s history was created. “Mann appears to be as much a figure of silent cinema as that of the 1950s Hollywood Western. In the sense of the Western, the opening scenes depicting Mann’s arrival seem to be right out of George Stevens’ Shane. Like Shane, Mann is weary of the world and seeks to settle down” (Ed Tabor, Lehigh University).

[6] What is it about John Wayne and characters like Shane that appeal to American movie-goers? The Hollywood legend, American icon, national hero, top money-making movie star, and Presidential Medal of Honor recipient began his career in John Ford’s classic western Stagecoach. Not bad for a man whose real name was Marion and rode a horse named Twinkle Toes. Wayne made 142 films over four decades by portraying “can do” characters fighting Indians, waging war, commanding troops and hunting down bad guys. The Duke epitomized masculinity, ruggedness, and reliability. His western characters followed suit--Rooster Cogburn, Ethan Edwards, and J B Books rode great horses and handled their guns and the bad guys with ease. Whenever John Wayne was on-screen, the audience knew everything would be ok in the end. Granted, as real history has taught us, the bad guys were not always bad. The western’s depiction of Native Americans is deplorable and indicative of a real history problem in America’s tendency to push aside the harm whites inflicted on indigenous, unprovoked peoples. Singleton applied that historical premise to the story of Rosewood and expropriated white American culture in order to drive home a point.

[7] When Singleton attended USC film school, he admired the work of Huston, Ford, Kurosawa, and Spielberg, and assuredly took notice of their work. His introduction of the stranger into Rosewood is the catalyst that moves the story forward--a technique no doubt borrowed from his directorial heroes. The audience begins to learn more about the town, its inhabitants, and the stories they tell. The director said Mann was an amalgamation of the black World War I veterans who returned to America empowered to stand up to Jim Crow and demand respect and that he was someone white and black audiences weren’t used to seeing on the big screen. Singleton said he represented “a spectrum of black men in American history of whom black people know but who never really get anything to do in American cinema. Strong black men who have honor and dignity and fight for what’s right”(Levin). However, white and black audiences were very familiar with seeing a strong white man in that type of role. Much like what John Wayne’s character stood for in the 1976 film The Shootist when he said, “I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them,” Mann projects the hero that both white and black audiences somehow know because when he’s in the trenches “there’s no room for color.”

[8] So in addition to sharing a theater while watching Rosewood, viewers shared a collective memory of the good guy. In my first reaction blog, I wrote, “If Mr. Mann had died there would be no hope for me (a white woman) in this movie. Someone good had to be kept alive.” One small endorsement that demonstrates Singleton was successful in creating the essence of what the broadest spectrum of movie-goers could relate to in the midst of abject horror. Everyone in class picked up on the undertones of western film genre. Singleton’s fictional cowboy was African American, but the color line was murky because his presence is a recurring theme in cinematic history. The cowboys of High Plains Drifter, The Searchers or Shane could easily be swapped out with Mann, which makes it easier for both races to relate to what he stood for--decency, hope, respect, and racial equality--adding dimension to the fight against ignorant, racist whites. And that makes Rosewoodabout more than the obvious tragedy.

[9] A similar comparison can be made with Stagecoach, which was filled with derogatory racial stereotypes and negative depictions of Native Americans. The film contained underlying themes of revenge, redemption, and social prejudice in addition to the familiar threat of an Indian attack. The latter was not Wayne’s primary concern -- he was dealing with a much larger picture represented by the variety of characters on the stagecoach with him. When the stagecoach picked Wayne’s Ringo character up, he was drifting or perhaps running, and then he entered the world of the passengers. In a key scene from Rosewood, Sylvester asks Mr. Mann what he is selling, as he explains that, "Well, I figure a colored fellow with nowhere particular to be, that man be sellin' something . . . or he runnin.” Mr. Mann promises that he is not selling anything and chooses to enter the world of Rosewood.

[10] This scene foreshadows the fact that later in the film Ving Rhames’ Mr. Mann, like John Wayne’s Ringo, just can’t run away from some things. Singleton’s reference to a recurrent character arc of Hollywood heroes reassures the audience that someone will stand up to the racists. If there is a place to find fault with Singleton’s dramatic license, it could be to the extent that he over-enhances ancillary plot lines such as the relationship with Scrappie, the almost unbelievable lynching escape, the two-handed pistol shootout in the woods, the Moses-like exodus through the swamp, and Sylvester’s miraculous rise from the dead appearing on Booker T next to a speeding train. In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin was quick to criticize him “for succumbing to the lure of Hollywood.” She writes, "Together, they [director Singleton and producer Peters] give a slick Hollywood gloss to an intrinsically wrenching story, filling it with so many stock characters and stereotypes that the audience's interest is pre-empted at every turn." Maslin neglects to mention the screenwriter. It is unexpected that such an important event in Black history was conveyed by a white screenwriter. Given all due respect for Poirer’s efforts in uncovering the truth, in matters of racial tension and unrest, many would be hard-pressed to understand, no matter how empathetic, exactly what it is like to be in the other person’s shoes. The actual story at the crossroads of Rosewood and Sumner did not have a happy ending, but the traffic cops at intersection of Hollywood and art generally require that there be one.

[11] It is at this point that one has to be reminded of another history--specifically the director’s. Rosewood had a $28 million budget, a proven producer, and big studio backing from Warner Brothers. Singleton went from complete creative control on his previous small-budget films to being a hired hand with a degree of responsibility to his backers, and he was only 28-years-old. Under the circumstances, going Hollywood isn’t a completely unexpected result. “Critics of the movies sometimes become so finicky about details and ‘accuracy’ that they miss the filmmakers’ larger contribution. These critics fail to recognize that some degree of manipulation is inherent in filmmaking, and sometimes that exercise of artistic license can serve a useful and defensible purpose” (Toplin 132). Singleton’s intent to properly represent the survivors of Rosewood and bring their story to the forefront of American history is admirable. By focusing on the fine lines, the critics seemed to have missed that the fictional Mr. Mann served as counterbalance against complete victimization of the blacks: “What I’m bringing to this film is a youthful perspective. If I was fifteen or twenty years older, Rosewood would probably look more like a documentary. I’m doing this for people in my age range and the audience I’ve had. The older people maybe they’ll come, maybe they won’t. I’m twenty-eight. I want people my age to come. I want this to be a date movie. I’ve got romance, I’ve got action, I’m counting off the times that one of my lead characters get his and kills a couple of crackers. ‘Cause I know the brothers on the street ain’t gonna sit through a whole movie where there’s a whole bunch of black people getting killed and no black folks are fighting back, you know what I mean?” (Dauphin)

[12] Critic Ray Arsenault certainly disagreed with this approach: “Ironically, in forsaking realism he has turned an extraordinary event into an ordinary film, demonstrating once again that romantic mythmaking, however well intentioned, is detrimental to the cause of racial justice and interracial understanding. After decades of disrespectful silence, the people of Rosewood deserve better” (39). Perhaps, mindful that literati and press chatter would find fault in this approach, Singleton prepared a valid defense: "I am concerned about absolute historical accuracy to an extent, but I am really more worried about being truthful to the essence of what happened at Rosewood. . . . I am making a movie that people will respond to" (Berardinelli).

[13] A documentary wouldn’t have made enough money to satisfy the studio or the paying public. People go to the movies to escape their real lives, to see heroes on screen make the lives of the characters in the movie better--slaying dragons, foiling arch villains, and serving up justice to larger than life evil. Singleton absolutely made a movie to make money. He had to. Multiplexes are for the masses. He had a reputation and a race to uphold. He was the youngest individual and the first African American ever to be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. Singleton had to keep his “hero” status in order to bestow hero status on the residents of a long-forgotten town. Creating a box office flop following his previous genius and accolades would have diminished his capacity to tell future histories and, most importantly, done an injustice to the story. Singleton was Rosewood’s modern-day gunslinger. He aimed and took a good shot at bringing the history of Rosewood to the forefront, if even for a brief instant in America’s history, and remembered what the survivors, perpetrators, and nation tried to forget.