Oscar nominations are officially availableWhich means that for the next few months social media will be saturated with debates about who and what is worthy of a statue. Headlining that discussion is another Ryan Coogler masterpiece, this time “Sinners,” which is up for a record 16 awards, including best picture.
Set in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow era, the film is often characterized as a horror film, which is understandable given that the villain is a vampire. However, what elevates “Sinners” beyond the gore – what makes it a delightful piece of historical fiction – are the details woven into the story's fabric. From the presence of the Choctaw indigenous people to the segregated sides of the same street, Coogler paints a picture of the United States of the 1930s with a documentary brush. In traditional horror films, fear is the focus and dialogue is the backdrop. “Sinners” prioritizes the moment in which the scare occurs, both visually and sonically, making it as much a period piece as a movie with vampires.
How many Oscars “Sinners” will win is a good topic for all that debate on social media. However, what is not debatable – in fact, what is painfully clear – is that Coogler made the best film for our times. That's because, at its core, “Sinners” is a story about belonging: both who has it and who doesn't. There are no grand speeches about diversity backed by uplifting music. Instead, Coogler methodically reminds audiences that this country has always been a multiracial kaleidoscope by meticulously portraying life in America just a century ago.
The vampire Remmick is more than just a fanged antagonist.
He is the immigrant son of an Irishman whose homeland was stolen and his faith stripped during the centuries of English rule. We don't know how old the vampire is. But we do know that by 1690 approximately 80% of Ireland's best agricultural land had been confiscated and converted into large estates for wealthy settlers, displacing millions of people in the process. We know that in 1845, potato fields, the main source of food for the poor, were infested with a devastating fungus that destroyed 40% of the crop. The following year, almost all the potato fields were infected, leading to years of famine.
Between 1846 and 1851, more than a million Irish died of hunger or disease. And we know that the vast majority of them did not have to die.
For as the Irish people starved, the healthy crops grown on their lands were sent to England to feed their oppressors. Mass evictions, marked by women and children being dragged from their homes by British soldiers in the dead of winter, compounded the devastation they suffered. Countless people fled to the United States and other places in hopes of a better life.
By today's standards, some immigrated to this country legally.
Most did not.
Nearly all were met with racist hostility, sometimes by Irish Americans who thought that distancing themselves from their desperate countrymen would earn them favor with the very people who despised them. Some pseudoscience of the late 19th century portrayed Irish Americans as members of a different race than other northern European immigrants; They were not seen socially as completely white until World War I. That much was made clear by the “Irish people need not apply” signs displayed in the windows. It was evident by the anti-immigrant platform that the Know Nothing Party adopted.
Who are they? you ask.
Well, remember the way then-candidate Donald Trump claimed he knew nothing about Project 2025 or the way MAGA Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson answer awkward questions with “I don't know” or “I don't remember” statements? It's a strategy taken from the pages of some of the ugliest moments in American history, some of them led by the Know Nothing Party. Ours is a story in which the robber barons of New York used the promise of belonging to divide the poor into factions and manipulate them into fighting among themselves during the Gilded Age.
Perhaps this is why Jake O'Kane, a comedian and columnist based in Northern Ireland, recently said this about Irish American immigration agents: “You have betrayed your great-grandfathers and mothers who traveled in boats as immigrants to the country where you now hunt immigrants. There is nothing Irish about you. You are house slaves… Field slaves, you don't want to take care of the masses. You don't want to take care of the house. You want to burn the house down. And that's where you come from. That's the people you came from and now you're nothing more than… house slaves.”
The history of the Irish in America is also the reason why the vampire “Sinners” Remmick, in an attempt to convince black people living under Jim Crow to join him, said: “I am your way out. This world already left you for dead. It won't let you build. It won't let you fellowship. We'll do just that. Together. Forever.”
His argument was based on a truth that is evident today, which is why “Sinners” struck a chord with those of us who know what it is like to be othered in society. For those of us who watch some of the worst moments in this country's history repeat themselves at the behest of today's robber barons making billions, while children are pulled out of schools and the poor fight among themselves.
It will be weeks before we know if “Sinners” is named the best movie of 2025. But we already know that it offers the clearest picture of the evil we see around us.
YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow
