Amazing Grace Film Criticized for 'Writing Blacks Out of History'
LONDON – Amazing Grace, a film about one Englishman's political fight to end the British slave trade, has been criticized for "writing blacks out of history," though its director said he deliberately wanted to focus on the political side of the slave trade.
Black leaders have accused the film of making British politician William Wilberforce the abolition movement's sole champion and ignoring the role slaves played in their own emancipation while "prettifying" the slave trade.
"It is important ... to recognize how easy it is to come to the view that some lives are more important than others and for us to be complicit in perpetuating new varieties of discrimination," wrote Lola Young, a black member of the U.K. Parliament.
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Amazing Grace director Michael Apted, however, said "[t]he whole genesis of this film was the political aspect of the film and the anti-abolitionist aspect of the film."
"There are a lot of films to be made about slave trade, and this is one of them," the director told London-based Christian Today.
Amazing Grace opened last month in the United States and will play in the United Kingdom beginning Friday. The film stars Ioan Gruffudd as William Wilberforce, who fought to have the slave trade banned by British parliament and finally saw success when the legislation was passed in 1807.
"This was one battle, this was a parliamentary battle," Apted said at the British premiere of the film on Monday.
"But it was a major step forward because it started the whole thing in process and my film was always going to be about the political angle," he told Reuters.
"It's not about the plantations, it's not about the high seas. There are other works, other films about that. It is a fresh and unique look at what was going on in the political world ... and that's what I focused on."
Apted also wanted to show that politicians, for all the bad press they get, can make a difference for the better.
"I've always been looking to try and do something positive and to show that politicians can be occasionally heroic and do good things, and this is a good illustration of that."
The debate surrounding the film reflects a broader discussion about people's perceptions of slavery and why its lessons are still relevant today.
The release of Amazing Grace is one of a series of events, which include exhibitions and memorial services, in Britain this year marking the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.
