“Fruitvale Station” (2013) is an American film about the last day of Oscar Grant’s life. On January 1st 2009, Grant, an unarmed Black man, was shot in the back by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California. Octavia Spencer plays his mother. Ryan Coogler writes and directs, his first film. It won an NAACP Image Award, an award at Cannes, but no Oscar.
Since I already did a post on Oscar Grant, this post is only about the film.
It is an excellent film, but also heartbreaking and upsetting. Reading about the shooting in the news, even seeing the mobile phone videos on YouTube, leaves something out. It leaves out Oscar Grant.
Except for one flashback, the film mostly just shows him going through his day on a New Year’s Eve, which was also his mother’s birthday. But by 2.15am, when he is lying face down on the platform of Fruitvale Station with a bullet in his back, you fully understand what he means to his family.
Much of the film’s power comes from knowing how it is going to end. So even when he is doing things like picking up his four-year-old daughter from day care or putting her to bed (pictured above), it takes on a different meaning. So does seeing the BART trains going by. On top of that, the film makes you view him through the eyes of his female relatives. That makes the shooting and death seem even more terrible. You are there with them in the hospital waiting room till the sun comes up and the doctor comes through those doors. You are there when his daughters asks, “Where’s Daddy?” – and the screen goes black.
The shooting itself takes place suddenly. It is unclear how or why it took place. All you know is that the police were afraid and did not feel in control and were overreacting. Which seems strange when they are the ones with the guns and the training.
Race: Many might suppose that the death of Oscar Grant is no great loss, that it might even make the streets a bit safer – because of how he dressed, because of the music he listened to, because he had sold drugs, because he was in a gang, because he was in prison, because his daughter was born out of wedlock and therefore supposedly “fatherless”, because he was not married to his daughter’s mother, because he was out of work, because he had no money, because he “had no future”, because he was a statistic, because he was Black. The film cuts right through all of that demonization.
In the Spielberg version, Oscar Grant would be all flashback. The heroes would be the White lawyers who got the killer cop thrown in prison for 11 months.
In “The Wire” version, Grant would be a drug dealer, his death an accident caused by the institutional dysfunction of the BART police. The heroes would be the homicide detectives.
See also:
- Oscar Grant
- American Violet – another film that does it right.
- The Wire
- Spielberg: Amistad, Lincoln
- The Black illegitimacy argument
- Why Blacks are demonized
Let me first say….ABOUT TIME! I really liked this movie because even though it showed his wrongs, it also showed him striving to do better. I did not like his mannerism, but I loved that he was trying to do better.
LikeLike
I liked that this film showed that a man who went to jail & had a daughter out of wedlock as you pointed out Abagond, still maintained a relationship with her. The racists & sellouts act as if a man not being poor or unmarried means he has no relationship with his child, as if the two have anything to do with one another. Marriage is a financial decision ultimately, if you have no finances, how and why are you going to get married?
The biggest hole in logic when presented to people who make this argument that leaves their jaw on the floor is this; If a man not being married to the mother of his child=deadbeat & fatherless child, then what does that says about whites since they have a 50% divorce rate? Works & silences them every time.
LikeLike
@A
I agree. I hate when people use that argument. I see plenty of fathers in their children’s life and are not married. That is also something I enjoyed about the film. It combated that ignorant idea.
LikeLike
Yeah, i watched this film last year. It was interesting to see how he was fleshed out and not a cardboard cutout of a typical black thug with no feelings or personality.
Like when he went above and beyond to help the white female customer at the store, where he didn’t even work any longer, by calling his grandmother to ask about a recipe, that he wanted to share with this stranger he never met.
Never mind the fact that he was fired from that store and was trying to get his job back, pleading with the store manager.
He seemed to be a genuinely, nice and considerate young black man, which is rarely shown or represented in major main stream movies.
This movie was a independent project ,being no major main stream movie studio was interested in showing white cops as the villains by killing a innocent and likeable young black man, that helped a white woman he never met.
I also liked the way director wanted to show people, what a lot of young black males without a education, go through in terms of how they go about providing for their families and the means in which they provide for them.
I got the feeling that the movie was showing the internal struggle of black men, that don’t want to sell drugs, because it puts themselves in a position of possibly getting arrested and being taken away from their children or worse, shot and killed by police or rival drug dealers.
That being said, having no education, no family to fall back on for financial and sometimes moral support, facing employment discrimination or being fired for trivial reasons, leaves black men helpless and having no choices, other than to resort to selling drugs. I got all this for this movie.
I also felt that the director was trying to get the viewer to sympathize with Oscar grant by giving people the opportunity to look past his deeds of selling drugs by showing his motives. Not for some flashy lifestyle like in a hip hip music video but to provide for his child and her mother.
When they showed how he was trying to quit selling drugs and turn his life around and get his old job back, one would look at him in a different perspective.
The director even went as far as to view Oscar grant, reflecting on his life at a local park, while watching the sunset by himself, then having an epiphany.
I liked the film but it was very difficult for me to watch. It was very gut wrenching , knowing what was going to happen to this imperfect human being with all his frailties that we all have, about to come to an end.
This film was the 1st true story about a young black male, i have seen in a long time, that put a human face to a young, black person.
I really felt like i knew him, therefore i cared about what happened to him.
LikeLike
forgot to check, “notify me of follow-ups” silly me… -_-
LikeLike
This film escaped my radar, I have to Netflix this.
LikeLike
Maybe because in the film was written and directed by a young black man Ryan Coogler that the story was giving an honest depiction of a young black man trying to turn his life around and it had many dimensions. Perhaps in the hands of a white director and writer the story would not give an honest depiction. I googled Ryan Coogler and was impressed this was his first time directing and he got his film made and told Oscar Grant’s story the right way. More black film makers and writers need to tell our stories.
LikeLike
Through the white gaze it would be the same story telling with the stereotypes to go with it.
LikeLike
indeed Mary Burrel……indeed. -_-
LikeLike
I just cannot bring myself to watch this film precisely because I know how it ends.
LikeLike
Jackrabbit:
“I just cannot bring myself to watch this film precisely because I know how it ends.”
Silly rabbit….you should be brave and fight through this film. I ask that you tap into your inner soul and be courageous. ^_^
LikeLike
Sharina
What I can’t understand is this, in this day and age people start dating, get married then subsequently divorced all in sometimes less than 5 years. How someone who went through that type of whirlwind feels like they’re standing on a moral high ground in comparison to those who don’t have the same lifestyle as them but could quite possibly be holding their family together under more difficult circumstances I’ll never understand.
Most people who get married have their children within wedlock which means if you get divorced in less than a decade, your oldest child could only be as old as 9. That’s half their adolescent life they have to go without seeing mom and dad together and even longer for the younger ones. Watching your parents together one day, then apart the next is much more heartbreaking and devastating than mommy and daddy being together but not wearing rings.
The dire effects divorce have on children is well documented, and since modern marriages end rather quickly it seems hypocritical to talk about unmarried parents, cohabitating couples, single parents etc, when single parenthood ends up coming so soon for most married couples anyway.
Maybe I’m wrong and anyone feel free to correct me if I am but I thought the goal was to stay married, not just get married.
LikeLike
Agabond, wonderfully commented on.
LikeLike
[…] “Fruitvale Station” (2013) is an American film about the last day of Oscar Grant’s life. On January 1st 2009, Grant, an unarmed Black man, was shot in the back by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California. Octavia Spencer plays his mother. Ryan Coogler writes and directs, his first film. It won an NAACP Image Award, an award at Cannes, but no Oscar.Click through for more. […]
LikeLike
I cried like a baby when they shot him even knowing it was going to happen. I look at the young black boy in my family and I am sooooo afraid for them.
LikeLike
“Maybe I’m wrong and anyone feel free to correct me if I am but I thought the goal was to stay married, not just get married.”
***********
You’re wrong. Didn’t you get the memo?? Marriages only last as long as they “feel” good. People seem to have forgotten that “feelings” are supposed to shift, change, grow. morph. No one is supposed to be in this fairy-tale state of “FEELING in-love” over the course of a lifetime. LOL
The impossible goal NOW is for men and women to remain in this impossible state of “feelings” … being IN LOVE. Hardly anyone is committed anymore to the idea of remaining married – for life. Somehow, the grass is always greener over there where someone somewhere always looks, talks, does and acts better than their current spouse. So ten years on average is all a lot of marriages get. Then divorce!
Western society is not constructed to use the family (marriage) toward the goal of a viable and strong nationhood. Obviously. We do not value our children, we do not put them first. We do what we want to do – selfishly – for ourselves, not what is best for our children. Our values are upside down, and there are forces in this country that love it this way. Those in control are only concerned about how large their pockets are, and their anti-family agendas… not what is best for the future of the nation. We’ve collectively become fat, lazy and not too bright sheep being led to …
Western living is hazardous to the mental and physical health of African descended people. It goes against who we NATURALLY are.
LikeLike
@ Matari
As a single, childless, criminal record-less brother with a single 09 rent sister (to a son, no less), I absolutely concur. Being an uncle to a Black male is something else entirely. I have to be the father figure until someone else fulfills the role. And with the sexual confusion, mass incarceration, RWS, and everything else, I feel that I’m being even more careful about who I decide to bless with sex. I can’t imagine parenthood. I’m not ready.
LikeLike
• 12 Years a Slave (about a time that is passed) had wide release.
• Fruitvale Station (contemporary, current) had selective release.
LikeLike
@Matari
Wow. . .. just. . .. wow!
Good point at Legion. I was discussing this with a friend not too long ago. The current state of affairs are not touched on: the war on drugs, unemployment, White flight resources, and neighbourhood containing, and stereotype smear campaigns. There’s far less comfort in addressing the current state of affairs than recycling what is considered to be something that “those powers that were long before we were here, did.” There’s the gift of not having to associate one’s self with it.
LikeLike
Sadly, the entire Western world is being affected by the collapse in family values, it’s just exasperated among the disadvantaged. It’s terribly problematic.
LikeLike
Sadly, the entire Western world is being affected by the collapse in family values…
@ Ebony
I don’t want to put you on the spot. If you choose to say anything then no need to write a tome. But could you say how you are observing this breakdown of family values play out in England?
LikeLike
@Legion
Aww man.
The last report I heard on divorce rates was very similar to the US. Unfortunately, it’s also, once again, an exasperated problem in inner cities, which, since UK hierarchy is founded on both race and class, there has been a crisis point among Black and White teenagers as far as out of wedlock birth rates, and lack of marriage. Single parent families are the default here. Politicians have been sheepishly addressing this here and there over the last few years, which says a lot and is somewhat radical in itself considering the fact that the UK is extremely liberal on those issues. Let’s put it this way, when it goes from being an epidemic to “the new normal,” it’s a problem.
LikeLike
@ Ebonymonroe
Single parent families are the default here.
Interesting and saddening. Those babies without Fathers now may just be a time bomb of sorts, though I am hoping it does not play out so. The time bomb does not have to happen; something has to absorb the Fatherlessness. It could be excellent schooling with excellent teachers. It could be good employment options, with a mix of blue collar or white collar (non-draconian blue collar of course). And, of course the constant alongside the other variables I mentioned would be, loving mothers.
Thank you Ebony.
———————————————-
BTW, are teachers a frustrated part of the labour market?
LikeLike
Oscar Grant reminds me of my male cousins and high school friends. Same issues even though most of them grew up in rural areas.
LikeLike
This story makes me want to write about my family.
LikeLike
@Legion
On teachers, yes. This time bomb you speak of happened with the riots. There was no political or social motive behind it, a bunch of kids just decided to go off and rob everything. Gang culture has been a severe problem in places like London and Scotland over the last 15 yrs. Also, the UK’s minimum wage was brought down to an extreme; lack of job opportunities have been at a crisis point. It’s been a boiling pot of all the bad angles you could think of. Things can only get better here, I suppose.
LikeLike
I haven’t seen this film, but I plan to. I like the fact that according to all you say, this film humanizes a young black male who isn’t perfect and that’s an important message. A black person doesn’t have to be “perfect” to matter. Everybody matters. Even if you were a monster at some point in your life you had an impact on someone. You made them smile, you had a kind word, you caused them to rethink an action. Of course, this alone doesn’t excuse your actions. But I have always felt it’s a mistake to demonize and other-ize any human being because that’s how tragedies like the Oscar Grant shooting can continue to happen.
LikeLike
Matari, you said:
Yes.
I used to hear (and see) that it takes a village to raise a child.
Some while ago, when talking with friends about why some children do well and should, but don’t — someone said the ones that have the best chances in life have social capital. Basically: the existing ties and bridges that give a child in a community a sense of identity and common purpose.
It’s not strictly an economic term, but it is a tangible asset; it’s more like a glue that can’t be seen or “measured” but you know it if you do, or don’t, have it.
I also believe it’s a wealth than breed more wealth.
(sociological definition: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/EXTTSOCIALCAPITAL/0,,contentMDK:20185164~menuPK:418217~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:401015,00.html)
Right now, Thomas Piketty, the French economist, is touring Europe on the strength of his long-researched book about wealth*.
In it he says that inequality is unsustainable and that societies ultimately fail if they are locked for too-long ocked into a the rich-only-get-richer framework, where inherited and wealth and privilege over-rides all.
What he seems to be saying that the system is essential about this:
“the past devours the future”.
As it stands, it will get worse for the poor, no matter how hard they work, and It is an illusion that they will ever catch up if nothing is done.
(At least that’s what I think he’s saying! I haven’t read his book or been to one of his full-length talks.)
He shows
“.. that in the decade before the civil war, the total value of black people held in bondage was about 100% of national income. Indeed, with the application of considerations related to compound interest it is possible to derive figures into the quadrillions as the appropriate recompense {for the crime committed}. And that’s just slavery…. the economic damage of white supremacy continued unabated well into the second half of the twentieth century…”
It’s no surprise then that community, a form of wealth and the value of personal commitment inherent to it, would gradually erode with it, even after what had been salvaged of the black family from the depradations of slavery, and post slavery. I don’t believe that is the whole story, or the end of the story, but the economic connection is an essential feature to the overall picture.
http://squarelyrooted.com/2014/05/12/1466/
(* “Capital in the 21st Century”)
LikeLike
Correction: *locked for too-long into the rich-only-get-richer framework,
LikeLike
Correction: *locked for too-long into the rich-only-get-richer framework, where inherited wealth and privilege over-rides all.
Ugh! Sorry about those typos.
LikeLike
@ poetess
Right, the whole perfect victim thing, the idea that Black life only has worth if it meets White standards respectability.
LikeLike
@poetess, I believe you perfectly described what human beings are.
Obviously Not Allowed as far as white and white-washed standards go…
LikeLike
@Bulanik
Wonderful!
Resources, resources, resources. It’s the bottom line that seem to be so untangible to many an observer trying to identify what creates the advantage for the advantaged, and the disadvantage for the disadvantaged.
The issue of hypercapitalism and the economic crisis has been bringing this conversation into the forefront of late. It’s unsustainable when there’s a minority hoarding wealth because they’re just that, a minority, while the working class make up the majority. We can see this example playing out when it comes to privatization expanding across a nations marketplace to the extreme vs. a healthy, thriving blue collar framework with unions. It’s not sustainable. And when this majority are always feeling the pinch, it only serves to cripple commerce since, as the majority of a demographic, it’s the majority of the consumer. It’s a system that accumulates wealth for a few quickly, but is suicidal for a society in the long run.
LikeLike
@Poetess and Abagond
This White respectability determining the value of one’s life is exactly what played out with Trayvon Martin. That what horrified me the most during that case, the idea of the value of Black life being measured on White respectability politics not what happened.
LikeLike
@ poetess
What an insightful comment!
@ Bulanik
Right now, Thomas Piketty, the French economist, is touring Europe on the strength of his long-researched book about wealth*.
In it he says that inequality is unsustainable and that societies ultimately fail if they are locked for too-long ocked into a the rich-only-get-richer framework, where inherited and wealth and privilege over-rides all.
What he seems to be saying that the system is essential about this:
“the past devours the future”.
As it stands, it will get worse for the poor, no matter how hard they work, and It is an illusion that they will ever catch up if nothing is done.
This too is insightful and a useful observation to make in the present moment. Western society is in a crisis. The better informed racist or otherwise white people in Europe and the rest of the Western world know this all too well.
This Western cultural system/society and model is broken. It was always broken. It never worked! As long as it worked for some people (regardless of ethnicity or social status) they supported it. However, this is not really possible to do long term any more.This is what white people who have benefited from the system for years are waking up to.
Its like being on the Titanic. We know it is going to hit that iceberg it just hasn’t happened yet. The question is do we wait for the captain and the ships crew to tell us it is happening? Possibly believing it may never get to this stage. Or do we start organizing and conducting ourselves in ways that better prepare ourselves for this inevitable encroaching disaster?
I believe we are all “perfect” and we all “matter”. Its only the beliefs we ingest about ourselves, consciously or otherwise, which hold us back. When we accept ourselves in this way then we all get to make that choice about how we wish to envision our lives, and our families lives, in that post Titanic future. Alternatively when we don’t we open ourselves up to and give permission for someone else to envision this for us.
So it will always effectively be our own decision or choice…
LikeLike
@ Ebony, precisely. How could these factors not have directly affected the PRIVATE part of our lives?
@ Kwamla, that crisis goes unacknowledged. But of course it would be, if we are numbed to silently and uncritically ingest that system’s public relations…
LikeLike
Abagond said in response to poetess:
Right, the whole perfect victim thing, the idea that Black life only has worth if it meets White standards respectability.
I think you really misused that concept on the Oriana Farrell thread; that woman was just wrong in her gigantic, huge, massive wrongness. But here, I just take it for granted that Grant would be imperfect. And it’s such a non sequitur from the press (being euphemistic with the media here) to point out that Grant had been in jail at some point. I agree with the spirit of what Poetess has said.
LikeLike
I said: But here, I just take it for granted that Grant would be imperfect.
Hmm, some crafty dickens could, I suppose, put a rather nasty interpretation onto what I said there (it would be odd to do so since I agreed with poetess, but you never know). So, to the end of eliminating any ambiguities, I’ll say the following. I take it for granted that Grant was flawed in the same way that all humans are flawed. There! I get “super explicit award” of the day. 😉
LikeLike
@A
I don’t think you said anything wrong. I think you touched on the issues of this hypocritical society.
LikeLike
Matari
I just love how you put that and I was talking with a group of ladies a month ago about this very same thing. Our society (American society) does not value family. The family unite is slowly but surely being destroyed. We live in a society of instant gratification. I see so many people divorce without even trying to work it out and the primary response is “I thought it was suppose to be like (fill in the blank).”
Truly an awesome comment
LikeLike
Value in family is being pointed to, but the erosion of values is not only the ones relating to family. I think that is only a symptom.
The term “throw-away” society comes to mind.
Commitment to spouse and family is only one way it was internalized and only one way it has manifested. It’s like everything is disposable, has a sell-by date. is replaceable. I have a television and a guest of mine said “why don’t get one of those curved-screen ones?”
That old tv isn’t useless or broken.
But why should I “upgrade” just because there’s something newer and flashier on the market? Isn’t that creating disatisfaction-anxiety in my head and creating waste where none need not exist?
What about quality and longevity?
What about old-school and slow-food?
Does the technologically sleek (which lasts about year) have to be “better” than antique and vintage, every single time?
Everytime I pass by a river, I see plastic bags and cups choking up the environment. Yet, this is a miniscule event in a sea — an ocean — of what gets washed up everyday: http://athrowawaysociety.wordpress.com/
This perspective infects personal life.
“Growing tired” of a person and the special bond with them means that it also has “in-built obsolescence” to it, too.
We end up becoming CONSUMERS to that.
Ebonymonroe was onto something when she said:
LikeLike
@Bulanik
I agree. “Throw-away” society is the perfect term for it.
LikeLike
I just watched this on last Sunday evening and it was very sad. The racist cop who shot Oscar Grant only spent two years in prison. I was so angry after viewing i felt so bad for his mother and his little daughter and his daughter’s mother. He was well loved. He was not perfect but he seemed like a decent young man. May he rest in peace.
LikeLike
In the film they show Oscar Grant was shot while still hand cuffed by the BART officer. I was very upset watching that.
LikeLike
There are still two years to go, but so far this is The Film of the Decade for me. It is not only an excellent film but it also hits one of the main themes of the decade and adds the missing piece that is often left out.
LikeLike