Harriet (2019)

Harriet is a tribute to an American legend, and the reverence for Harriet Tubman is obvious in this film. As many reviews have mentioned, this is not a slavery story, it is a freedom story. The viewers only see Harriet as a slave for the first few minutes of the film. To me, it felt like watching the origin story of a superhero…which is both good and bad. The characters in the film, Tubman included, were not as fully developed as I was hoping. Similar to superhero stories, there are little to no flaws of character presented. The supporting characters were a bit flat as well. I was not emotionally invested in Harriet’s relationships, even the heartbreaking plot-line with her husband. Since I knew Tubman’s story, I was already aware she survived the numerous dangerous situations that she powered through, much like the comfort of knowing your favorite superhero will usually survive any battles they face.

However, Harriet Tubman is a superhero. She doesn’t take no for an answer, she accomplishes selfless acts, and literally saves lives. It is important and necessary to see strong, real, Black female leads in film. Beyond that, Harriet has a Black female director and Black writers, one male and one female. As explained in a previous post, representation matters in film, and the people telling these stories need to have the opportunity to represent themselves. We saw in Harriet that histories are important. The information and photographs of Harriet Tubman tells us the truth of that time period, and personal narratives are significant and cannot be ignored. We see William Still listening and writing all of the freed slaves’ stories, which is the first time that this population were given the chance to tell their story.

The character of Bigger Long was a surprise in the story. He is a Black man who is a runaway slave bounty hunter in Harriet. In my brief internet research, Bigger Long did not actually exist in history. In a Slate article, Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition is quoted explaining that it is possible that Black bounty hunters existed, but it would be rare. Why was he included in this story?