HBO’s Native Son, starring Ashton Sanders, KiKi Layne and Sanaa Lathan, is devoid of one scene from the original 1939 book by Richard Wright. The change was made with Black women in mind.

As Essence reports, Director Rashid Johnson and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks decided that one of the scenes from the book, in which main character Bigger Thomas rapes and murders his girlfriend Bessie, was too much for audiences to bear, especially an audience of Black women.

“I was born and raised by a Black woman who was a feminist and a theorist,” said Johnson to Essence. “It’s intolerable for me to think about that level of violence toward women in any way [while] allowing me to empathize with that protagonist.” In the film, Sanders portrays Bigger and Layne is Bessie.

“We initially did include the rape and murder of Bessie,” he continued. “And after reading that version of the script…so much of his existential journey around his exposure, and the class shift and opportunity, and the aspects of race that are pervasive in this story, they become insignificant when we create a character who we find we are incapable of tolerating.”

He also added that he wants his film to tell the story of a “challenging character…who is exposed to circumstances and conditions that challenge him, and challenge his decision-making.”

“But I was not invested in telling the story of a monster,” he continued. “And the inclusion of the rape and murder of Bessie produces an irredeemable monster for me, somebody that I am incapable of tolerating and incapable of bringing to the screen with the intention that I have for this character.”

The removal of this scene is for the better in two ways. First of all, it does allow the film’s focus to remain squarely on attacking societal structures that hold Black people back. As S&A’s Trey Mangum wrote his Sundance review of the film, “Once a witty indictment on class, race and politics in 2019, [the film] becomes a thrilling horror that could come crashing down at any given moment…The race/class dialogue that brims through the film seems to conflict with the central, tragic narrative of the story, but by the time we arrive at the end of the film, it is a full circle moment when we realize that regardless of the situation at hand, Bigger would have always been punished for being a Black man in America.”

Secondly, the film provides a relief for Black women, who are often still scapegoated in the media as either strong or long-suffering stereotypes who are only objects for male pain. In his review, Mangum called the move “absolutely needed and necessary.”

Also starring Nick Robinson, Margaret Qualley, Lamar Johnson and Jerod Haynes, Native Son will premiere on HBO April 6 at 10 p.m. ET.

 

READ MORE:

‘Native Son’ Full Trailer: Ashton Sanders And KiKi Layne Are Set To Shine In A24 Film Coming To HBO

‘Native Son’: A Stylish, Witty Adaptation That Tries To Reckon With Its Dark, Tragic Source Material [Sundance Review]

 

Photo: Shaniqwa Jarvis/HBO