A Time to Kill: The White Savior Complex

Kiahna Kuykendall

Abstract (300 words maximum)

A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller novel that addresses the racism running rampant in Clanton, Mississippi when a black father, Carl Lee Hailey, avenges his daughter’s racially motivated rape by killing the men responsible. Carl seeks the help of white lawyer, Jake Brigance, to defend him in court. In 1996, the book is adapted into a film that sounds as though it will provide a two-hour experience of sweet justice being served. Although justice is served, the theme viscerally illustrated in the first ten minutes of the film gets lost in a way not seen in the novel. In the film, the focus shifts to Jake’s journey to become the best lawyer.

There is an inherent problem here: the film leans into the white savior complex, choosing to use its black characters as mere tools while its white characters, namely Jake, are given intricate storylines that grant the title hero. Carl often appears as the voice of reminder, begging to be heard in his own story; a stark contrast from the novel where he is declared the hero: “He was their hero, the most famous man most of them would ever see, and they knew him personally” (Grisham 360).

It often feels like the film is trying to remind itself of what it was meant to be doing, but it does so by implementing problematic usage of character, thus losing the theme. Instead, we are given the journey of the white hero, one who is given a Hollywood makeover. Through dissecting the film and comparing it to the 1989 novel, I will explore the differences that contribute to its problematic character usage to illustrate how the film meant to address a corrupt and racist system falls short of fully serving sweet justice to its own theme.

 

A Time to Kill: The White Savior Complex

A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller novel that addresses the racism running rampant in Clanton, Mississippi when a black father, Carl Lee Hailey, avenges his daughter’s racially motivated rape by killing the men responsible. Carl seeks the help of white lawyer, Jake Brigance, to defend him in court. In 1996, the book is adapted into a film that sounds as though it will provide a two-hour experience of sweet justice being served. Although justice is served, the theme viscerally illustrated in the first ten minutes of the film gets lost in a way not seen in the novel. In the film, the focus shifts to Jake’s journey to become the best lawyer.

There is an inherent problem here: the film leans into the white savior complex, choosing to use its black characters as mere tools while its white characters, namely Jake, are given intricate storylines that grant the title hero. Carl often appears as the voice of reminder, begging to be heard in his own story; a stark contrast from the novel where he is declared the hero: “He was their hero, the most famous man most of them would ever see, and they knew him personally” (Grisham 360).

It often feels like the film is trying to remind itself of what it was meant to be doing, but it does so by implementing problematic usage of character, thus losing the theme. Instead, we are given the journey of the white hero, one who is given a Hollywood makeover. Through dissecting the film and comparing it to the 1989 novel, I will explore the differences that contribute to its problematic character usage to illustrate how the film meant to address a corrupt and racist system falls short of fully serving sweet justice to its own theme.

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