The film is based on real events. In the 1930s, there was an African-American named Marvin Tolson who had deep attainments in language and rhetoric, and was especially good at writing poetry and debate. In fact, he was later regarded as one of the greatest poets of his era. At the time, he was a professor at a black college in Texas. The debate team he created was not made up of white men, as was widely believed at the time, but three black youths and one white woman. "Who is the referee? God is the referee; who is the opponent? The opponent doesn't exist at all; why doesn't the opponent exist? Because the truth speaks for itself." answer. Perhaps its purpose was to increase the self-confidence of black youth and white women who were affected by the environment of black discrimination at the time in the competitive movement of debate, so that they could have the confidence to believe that the truth was on his side; at the same time, like Marvin Tow According to Elson, in order to make it physically and mentally strong, not only in debate, but also in life, it is necessary to overwhelm those racists who look down on black people. But in my opinion, the highest art of debate is to make the opponent unconvinced, and this is based on the fact that the debater has the same cognitive level as his opponent. Cooperation is not just a tit-for-tat confrontation between the two. As far as the above point of view is concerned, the debate is not as people usually think "there is no absolute right and wrong, it is only for the collision of ideas and the expression of innovative thinking", so the debate is no longer the debate itself, but Reborn becomes an expression of truth, which is mentioned before - "truth speaks for itself".
From the perspective of human spiritual construction, the "truthification" of this debate is actually the self-consciousness of the truth. At the same time, what the director wants to insinuate is actually the rights protection road of black people and women in the United States. Its dirge. At the beginning of the founding of the United States, the United States proposed "innate human rights". All the legitimate rights of human beings are given by God. If someone else violates this legitimate right, then this person has the right to regain his own legitimate power. The reason why the "power seizure" movement could not be carried out at the expected speed at that time was not because the population ratio of blacks and women was small and their strength was weak at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but it was in the context of long-term discrimination after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The environment believes that the lack of their own rights is a normal state, that is, "the unconsciousness of rights".
What is needed to change this unconsciousness is the enlightenment of truth. I have seen two identical black-themed films, "Twelve Years a Slave" and "The Handmaiden", perhaps the latter can better represent the environment in the film - this is not the stage of the torture and killing of black slaves in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but the language And the "cold violence" of ideas, so what is needed at this moment is not "a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye" style violent feedback, but the "non-violent non-cooperation movement" advocated by Martin Luther King and Gandhi. It is not that Martin Luther King cannot see the cruel past of black people's torture, but he has the self-consciousness of truth, "promise a better future".
Focus on equality, focus on change, focus on the future. This is a perfect explanation for why, in the final climax of the film's debate with Harvard, 14-year-old James Jr. puts the question of violence and non-violence to God, to the truth, rather than to other black people who have not been enlightened by the truth. Friendship and anger and violence.
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