Glory (1989)
Glory (1989), an American war drama movie directed by Edward Zwick , the movie is all about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment which the Union Army's first black regiment in the American Civil War. The movie played by Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the regiment's commanding officer, and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as fictional members of the 54th. The film depicts the soldiers of the 54th from the formation of their regiment to their heroic actions at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.[1]
Plot
The story of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, told mostly through the eyes of their commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick). Formed during the American Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts was the first African-American unit in the US Army. We see the formation of the regiment, its first volunteers, their training, disputes with administrators, their first operations in South Carolina and, finally, their moment of glory - the attack on Fort Wagner.[2]
Controversy
The movie popularity emerged from its willingness to tackle unsettling issues such as the discrimination and racism that black soldiers faced from within the military and from their own government.[3] As when shaw confronts the base's racist quartermaster on their behalf to supports his men in a pay dispute for the decrees that black soldiers will only be paid $10, not the $13 per month all white soldiers receive.[1]
For such heroic movies, there are many slurs thrown into the black soldier :
Rawlins: Look, goddamn it! The whole world gotta stomp on your face?
Trip: Nigger, you better get your hands off me!
Rawlins: Ain't no niggers around here! Understand?
Trip: Oh, I see, so the white man give you a couple a stripes, and suddenly you start hollerin' and orderin' everybody around, like you the massa himself! Nigger, you ain't nothin' but the white man's dog!
[He starts to walk away, Rawlins stops him and slaps him]
Rawlins: And what are you? So full of hate you want to go out and fight everybody! Because you've been whipped and chased by hounds. Well that might not be living, but it sure as hell ain't dying. And dying's been what these white boys have been doing for going on three years now! Dying by the thousands! Dying for *you*, fool! I know, 'cause I dug the graves. And all this time I keep askin' myself, when, O Lord, when it's gonna be our time? Gonna come a time when we all gonna hafta ante up. Ante up and kick in like men. LIKE MEN! You watch who you call a nigger! If there's any niggers around here, it's YOU. Just a smart-mouthed, stupid-ass, swamp-runnin' nigger! And if you not careful, that's all you ever gonna be!
Trip: Hey, yo, nigger, that's my spot, see.
Cpl. Thomas Searles: If you don't mind, there's more sufficient reading light here.
Trip: Oooh, I like it when niggers talk good as white folks!
Cpl. Thomas Searles: I'd be happy to teach you. It would be my pleasure
Trip: Now, listen here, snowflake. I ain't got nothin' to learn from no house nigger, you hear?
Cpl. Thomas Searles: I am a free man! As was my father before me.
Trip: Oh, really? You free? Then why don't you move your free black ass out my spot, see!