On July 31, at the Black social club The Gathering Spot in LA, Black Girl Watching had our second Club Juke! A ‘Sinners’ Watch Party & Discussion live event on my 40th birthday. We shut the place down, had valet coming inside to bring us our keys cause they were closedddt! I’m so grateful for every Watcher who came out and enjoyed themselves at the Juke! I’m grateful for every paid subscriber, you help me put on these live community events! You made my year! Watch the recap video here:
This was the 12th time I’d seen the film and the 8th time I’d introduced it to people I love. My godparents, who don’t really watch movies like that and had never been to a screening and discussion before, drove down from northern California to celebrate with me. Old friends, new friends and Sorors, joined us at The Gathering Spot, which had free popcorn for guests and a full dinner menu and bar; Warner Bros. provided movie posters and church fans of the characters; Clean Air Club LA provided air filters for the space and face masks; and I photoshopped myself onto the movie poster for the cake. It was my (and Wunmi Mosaku’s!) birthday, after all! And we watched the film that has been transfixing me since April and had another incredible discussion about the themes, the characters, the music, the subtext.
People ask me why I love this film so much that I would name it the best film of all time on my Top Ten Black Films list for the Black Movie Hall of Fame:
And I’ve written about the themes, the metaphors, the ending:
I’ve written about the urgency of Black history films like Sinners:
I’ve written about the film’s significance in the industry:
With ‘Sinners,’ White Hollywood Is Moving the Goalposts Again (Industry Critique)
And I’ve curated an entire syllabus to help people go deeper on the film’s themes:
GET 20% OFF AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO BLACK GIRL WATCHING
But I haven’t yet written about why Sinners feels so personal to me. Why I keep watching it like Coogler put roots on me or something. It took me three watches to understand its pull, myself. It was that final shot of Sammie that got me. He’s smiling wide, riding in a shiny car in the country with his big cousins, the whole world laid out before him, on the path to freedom. Then it all came rushing back.
TRIGGER WARNING: ALCOHOLISM.
I had a big cousin named Eddie. He was tall and beautiful. A man of few words and a protector like Smoke. And also the life of the party and everyone’s favorite, like Stack. The two pics I can find that’s just me and him were from my graduations. He was at all of them, gassing me up. He encouraged my gifts. He was kind. Five years older and five inches taller than me, he wouldn’t let nobody mess with me. He knew everything about hip-hop and I would sit enraptured as he argued our cousin Coty down about why Jay-Z was still a better rapper than Nas, even after Ether. He was brilliant. He had a masters in science and worked at NASA for awhile, before things got bad.
Riding in his black Ford F-150 pick up truck on country roads growing up—that was freedom! So high off the ground I swore we were flying in that thing.
On the 4th of July, after the family reunion, when I had turned 16 and got my license, Eddie let me drive his truck. I was terrified and thrilled. The truck was the biggest thing I’d driven and there weren’t street lights on those country roads. But I wasn’t about to pass up that honor. I drove him down pitch-black roads, over gravel and through woods to the high school where we met up with his friends and watched the fireworks all night. I didn’t realize I was the designated driver, and he never made me feel that way—only like I belonged wherever he was. I was his lil cuz and his friends had to watch their mouths when they spoke to me. I had never felt so grown and safe and happy.
The last time I saw him was also on the 4th of July at another Obie family reunion, 9 years later. But there were no fireworks warning me that a shift was taking place. His leaving was quiet, or maybe I just didn’t want to hear it. I’d gone out with my uncle on a hayride tour of our family farm and by the time we got back, Eddie had left the reunion early. I didn’t get to hug him. I didn’t get to say goodbye. He died two weeks later. I didn’t even know he was sick. I mean, I knew he had alcoholism. But I’d seen so many Delta Slims in my life, old-heads who’d numb the pain with drink for decades on end. Why would I think it could take out my 30-year-old cousin?
He was a football player. He was a boxer. He was young. Eddie had time. In 2006, the summer I turned 21 and lived with him and his big sister, I now had to drive him everywhere in my little green VW Jetta because his license had been suspended. Driving him around felt more like a gift than a chore because he was still my favorite and I was on a mission to save him. But I was so mad at him too for being sick. At 21, I didn’t understand the disease and at 26, neither did he. He would pat his six-pack abs and say drinking didn’t bother him like other people, and what did I know anyway? It was the first time we’d fought for real and I longed for the childhood arguments over whose turn it was to race on the Nintendo Power Pad or why he chose his sister to win the cousins singing contest when she was clearly rapping. Seeing him that disconnected was the first time I was scared for him. Alcoholism is scary to witness; I can only imagine how scared he must have been to be trapped in it. I didn’t know enough not to push, not to seek control. But he never stopped being kind anyway. Taught me how to fish that summer. Taught me how to run on my tippy-toes instead of flat-footed. Every time I run or hike and adjust my posture, I see him running next to me on that black tar road that summer, teaching me, like a movie playing over in my head. As the years pass, the resolution gets fuzzier around the edges and the image skips, but in my mind, he’s still laughing and smiling and alive.
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In 2015, while Ryan Coogler was away from home working on Creed, the biggest film of his career at that time, his great uncle passed away. He didn’t get to be with him. He didn’t get to say goodbye. His uncle loved the blues and whiskey, so Coogler would play his uncle’s favorite artist, Buddy Guy, and drink whiskey to remember him. To conjure him. Ten years later, Coogler gave us Sinners, a film about the power of art to wake the dead, and pierce the veil, and fold time in on itself so we can all be together again. Past and present and future all at once. No loved ones lost to time but all around us, filling the empty spaces, catching the same groove. In the end credits scene, when Vampire Stack hugs Buddy Guy as elder Sammie, it was Coogler bringing his uncle back to life for one last hug and bittersweet goodbye. Art, he insists, is the proof: we were never separate; there never was a veil.
Throughout the film, Smoke and Jedidiah tell Sammie to put the guitar down, do something sensible, do something responsible and stable. Singing the blues only leads to misery, financial instability, drunkenness, sin. But Sammie knew the holiness, the sacredness, the conjuring power of his art. Once he felt that, he couldn’t let it go for the world.
I am living the risks of the artist’s life. I’ve seen the other ways to be, had access to the quiet choice. And sometimes I wonder why I can’t help but choose the storm. I keep writing and dreaming and creating and watching, despite the chaos—or because of it—because I know that power too. I’ve seen what art can do. I’ve felt it. I chase it.
People ask me why I keep watching Sinners: Because for 2 hours and 19 minutes, Eddie is alive again, and so am I. We’re in his truck riding towards freedom, floating above gravel and black tar roads, a whole world of adventure before us. And I can say hello again. And I can say goodbye. So, why wouldn’t I?
Stay watchin’,
Brooke
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