Sinners: the History Behind the Hit Movie

Jenn: 00:00:00

I kind of appreciate the thought people put into what will scare you and the background of that. And that's why I kind of like ghost tours and stuff like that, because I like the history aspect of them.

Tuning a guitar is part of the entire legend of the devil and learning how to master the guitar and why this is the devil's music. We're going to talk about Chinese Americans and their ability to what they call code switch in the Jim Crow South.

And so I love this whole play on the vampires being invited because it's almost like today, are you invited to the picnic? Are you invited to the barbecue?

Scott: 00:00:36

Yeah. Are you invited to the party?

Jenn: 00:00:38

Robert Johnson is considered the first rock and roll performer. And the way you enter into a pact with the devil is you start to play your guitar in the middle of the crossroads and the devil will approach you.

What really happened to Robert Johnson? Right. I'm a historian. I love a good ghost story, but that's not the facts, right?

Is it better to be of the undead and or to be a black person in the Jim Crow South? If you need to. If you want to listen to Robert Johnson, listen to him. This music is amazing.

Scott: 00:01:09

nt the uncomfortable truth in: 1932

I am your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.

Jenn: 00:01:32

Hello.

Scott: 00:01:33

Today's podcast is part of a series we call Watch with History.

The Watch with History series will focus on your favorite historical films, where Jen and I will review the Hollywood historic classics you all know and love, while also discussing the history behind these films along with some interesting facts. We hope you enjoy Watch with History. Three, two, one. Here we go. Sinners is a supernatural horror film directed by Ryan coogler.

Set in: 1932

They return to their Mississippi hometown with stolen money, intending to leave their criminal past behind and open a juke joint in an old sawmill.

As they recruit locals, including their talented musician cousin Sammy, Smoke's estranged wife Annie, a hoodoo practitioner, and other community members, they face the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South. However, their plans take a dark turn when a mysterious Irish immigrant vampire named Remick appears.

Drawn to the new juke joint by Sammy's otherworldly musical talent, the film explores numerous themes, the historical trauma of the south and the fight against oppression, all while using the vampires as an allegory for so much more.

Sinners blends period drama with some horror, showcasing the power of music and the resilience of a community confronting the sinister force that seeks to consume them. Now we are talking about the movie Sinners. This is not our typical watch with history because it's a brand spanking new movie.

Although we've done it before for the Elvis movie movie. But we had just done some travels and we've just released a video on Robert Johnson and the Devil's Crossroads.

And if you're not familiar with that, we can. Obviously that video will be linked in the show notes below and potentially above.

es and all of that era in the: 1930

But we wanted to talk about the history behind this hit movie centers.

Jenn: 00:04:08

Yeah. So this movie is not our typical movie. We're not really horror fans. But we'll have some spoilers in here.

So if you haven't seen it or you're not sure if you're going to see it, just know there'll be some spoilers in here. But. But what? We went to go see it and it's not as gory as you would think.

Scott: 00:04:30

It's not as like jump scare. It's not like the Exorcist or anything like that. There's a couple moments and I am just. Jen will tell you I am not a scary movie person. Right.

She's got a great story of me when we were dating and I can't remember where we were going. Was it some haunted house thing?

Jenn: 00:04:50

Yeah, we went to a haunted house when we were dating in San Diego and you just pushed me through the house so fast. I didn't see anything because I kind of appreciate the thought people put into what will scare you and the background of that.

And that's why I kind of like ghost tours and stuff like that because I like the history aspect of them. And you pushed me through so fast. I didn't see anything.

Like you hid behind me and pushed me and I was like, okay, so this is so again, it's not very gory. You don't see a lot of things. It's one of those horror movies where you don't see it as much.

And so it creates more fear not seeing it and they're creating more fear and just the, you know, the build Up.

Scott: 00:05:30

Yeah, the tension.

Jenn: 00:05:31

And it reminded me more of like a Lost boys of the 90s that you know, if you're looking, that's the level of gore. But we went to see it for the historical aspect.

So I kept telling people we're seeing a horror movie for the history because we had just made this whole video on Robert Johnson and the Delta and the Devil's Crossroads and how this spirituality is pulling into this type of music. And why is this music considered the devil's music? And so he's setting a horror movie in a specific time.

1932, Clarksdale, which is very much tied to Robert Johnson and the legend. And so we're going to talk about all of that. But one thing that caught us right away and Scott picked it out right away.

The movie starts with a guitar tuning.

Scott: 00:06:17

Yeah. And so it's one of those things that it's, you know, that opens up maybe a little bit of credits or not. But it's, it's dark, right.

The, the first setting scene is dark and you see some images here and there but you hear this sound and you kind of don't quite know what the sound is. But I, I picked up on it right away and I leaned over to Jen, I said, Jen, that's a guitar tuning.

Jenn: 00:06:37

Yeah. Cuz he's a guitarist.

Scott: 00:06:39

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:06:39

So he knows what that sounds like. That is deeply tied to the legend of the Devil's Crossroads.

Tuning a guitar is part of the entire legend of the Devil and learning how to master the guitar and why this is the devil's music. So it was very interesting that the movie opens with that.

So if you don't even catch that, Ryan Coogler is doing a very good job of historically set setting it for people with actual legends of the past of this area of blues musicians. I thought that was so awesome. But this is also a horror movie. So you're gonna have these dualities.

Which is almost why it's interesting that there's twins. Because do duality of good versus evil. You have twins. Smoke and Stack, who almost are these dualities, right.

The, the big brother is kind of like the good side, right. He. He wants to take care of his little brother. Smoke is like the good side. He has a, A love. He has kind of a committed love.

His cousin Sammy, who wants to be a part of this adult lifestyle playing in juke joints. He doesn't want him to do that. He wants him to go back to his father. Right. His father is a preacher. And then you got the other side, the evil side.

Which is the Stack brother who's the little brother, the more brother who's a little crazy and fun and he wants Sammy to play the music and get into the music. He wants to teach him how to be with women. And so you and they're brothers so they love each other very much.

But there's this duality here and you're going to see that throughout the movie because it's like a good versus evil story.

Scott: 00:08:36

Yeah. And there's even just duality in like the character that like you said, like the, the background themselves. Like they went and fought in World War I.

That's. And, and they talk about it kind of sporadically throughout the movie. That's their experience.

But then they came back from World War I, left the Mississippi Delta to go be gangsters. Right. So here they were these war heroes, then they come back, they go to be gangsters and then they're coming back.

Jenn: 00:08:59

To their, their hometown and they almost have like stolen some of the goods. They've kind of put mafia versus Mafia in Chicago and stolen the goods to bring the goods back to their people.

And I'm sure they feel justified in that because you know, they were taken advantage of so they're going to take advantage right back.

Scott: 00:09:17

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:09:19

The women in the movie are kind of like different sinners and you have a hoodoo priestess who is with Smoke and they seem much more like they have a lot of trauma from losing a child but committed to each other and love each other.

And then you have a woman who is passing Mary who passing in the south was where you were white enough, even though you have black ancestry, you could pass for white.

Scott: 00:09:49

Yeah. Because cuz her grandfather or her father was.

Jenn: 00:09:53

I think her fa. Her mother or her father was black.

Scott: 00:09:56

Something like that.

Jenn: 00:09:57

Yeah, I think her mother was black.

Scott: 00:09:58

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:09:58

Because they raised smoke and Stack. And so who knows that? The community knows that. Right. Because when you're raised in the community, people know how each other's families are raised.

So she's married off to a man in Arkansas because she can pass by the color of her skin and a place that doesn't know her. So the racial identity is very important here.

And then you have an adulterer who's a woman who's with Sammy and then you have a Chinese mother who's the other woman. And spoiler alert, she's going to cause a lot of issues in the movie that's going to be like the biggest issue.

But we're going to talk about Chinese Americans and their ability to what they call Code switch in the Jim Crow south, which is mean they could service both black and white communities, and they would be okay to interact in both communities because they were accepted in both communities as a worker or as someone who could service them. And so she is owner with her husband of the grocery store, and they do just a lot of different jobs for both communities, and they kind of show that.

Scott: 00:11:09

So, yeah, and they do a great job of setting it all up. Um, but, like. Like we said. So they. The movie specifically says this takes place in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Jenn: 00:11:20

Yes.

Scott: 00:11:20

Which is literally where Robert Johnson came and first started playing his. His Skillful Blues. Right. Was in that Clarksdale, Mississippi area. So if you want to watch our video and. And.

And see that and see us kind of talk, really dive deep into that, We'll. We'll link it down below. But it was really fun for us to watch this movie when we had just kind of dove deep into all this history.

We're like, oh, that's Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Jenn: 00:11:46

Oh, yeah. It's so perfect. I mean, so let me talk about two other character groups, and then we'll go into Robert Johnson, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw Indians.

So the. The Choctaw Indians are the most indigenous group in that area.

You have two sets of Indians that really were the first peoples of that area, the Chickasaw and the Choctaw. And you have. It's just a real quick moment with the Choctaws, and I really hope that they get a background story.

But they're hunting the vampires, and they're trying to hunt the vampires before sunset because they know the vampires have more power after sunset. And they try, but when they can't do it, they just back off. But you can tell that these Indian hunters have a lot of knowledge about these vampires.

And they're. They look like this is something that's kind of like an old fight.

And you can kind of know, because these are the first peoples of the area, and he's a vampire, which we know live for centuries. You can tell this is kind of like an old fight going on. So we don't even get that story.

But they lay it out kind of easily with the Choctaw Indians hunting the vampires, which, again, these are the first peoples of the Mississippi Delta. And then, of course, the vampires. Right, Irish?

Scott: 00:12:59

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:13:00

You get the same old vampire rules, right? They. They drink blood.

Scott: 00:13:05

Can't go in the sun.

Jenn: 00:13:06

Can't go in the sun. Need the stake through the heart to die. They need to be invited in. That's very interesting. Because that has a lot to do with race too.

So I kind of like this invite in kind of thing, which is still a true vampire legend. Silver does hurt them, doesn't kill them, but hurts them. There's a little bit of differences though. Vampires know what the victim knows.

So now that's, that's a little different in the movie.

Scott: 00:13:35

So yeah, once they've taken them over, they essentially have all of their knowledge.

Jenn: 00:13:38

Have all of their knowledge. So that creates some conflict and then they feel the pain of the maker, which also creates some conflict.

h in the movie. But why is it: 1932

Scott: 00:13:57

Yeah. And it was so neat. And we actually, we said this in the, in the movie theater too.

Or maybe we said it after was like Clarksville, Mississippi actually looked much more picturesque in the movie than it did when, when we went there. Mostly just because today it's. Everything's modern and there's been kind of ups and downs with kind of economic shift shifts there.

But it was neat to see it in a Hollywood movie setting for that time. That's what's kind of neat. It was that.

That's the part of, of when directors do these historically based or, or history with a background as the backdrop of this, of the story you're watching. It's fun to kind of like imagine that that's what life was truly like.

Jenn: 00:14:40

Yeah. So they filmed it in Louisiana, which the vegetation and the. It looks just like the delta. So I mean, Louisiana parts of Louisiana is the delta.

ould find buildings that fit.: 1932

Today is more reminiscent of the 60s, 70s, like Scott said, economic hard times, but very modern, modernized. But Jim Crow is in effect. They're showing that. They're showing a juke joint and what does that look like at the time and why.

And juke joints, because they're kind of built on the outskirts of town. They're kind of more of a secretive thing. And because of segregation, you're away from the white community and where a lot of commerce would be.

You're in more secret areas. So that's kind of where their juke joint is.

They go into town to do some buying and things along that nature and you see, you know, dirt roads and cars and you get kind of like this segregation of shopping. But. And when it's segregation, it's all. You're segregated from everything, every public space. It's not just shopping.

Scott: 00:15:53

And they're driving through cotton fields. Right. To go hire some of their friends to kind of help work at the juke joint. They're driving through the cotton field.

They basically get from town to where the sawmill is, where they try to set up the juke joint. So they're. They're giving you that whole, you know, Mississippi Delta setting.

Jenn: 00:16:10

Yeah.

And they're showing you convict leasing, which is a cheap, cheap labor, and how people were arrested basically for doing nothing just so they could get convicts to do. Convict.

Scott: 00:16:22

Yeah, they have a conversation about that.

Jenn: 00:16:23

One of the characters, very corrupt. It's like people would just be arrested for loitering or just being drunk in public. And that you would have 10 years of. And then you would work.

And so that's how prisons are making their money. But I let the Robert Johnson. I always love to talk about him.

Because when you go into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, the very first photograph you will see when you walk into the gallery or the main museum is Robert Johnson. He's on the wall. He's to the side. He's the very first photograph. There's no placard around him.

If you don't know who he is, you're not going to get it. Just like if you don't know that's a guitar tuning, you're not going to get the story.

If you don't know who Robert Johnson is, you're not going to get the story. Robert Johnson is considered the first rock and roll performer. The way he plays the blues guitar with the long note.

The long note is the first blues note, the first rock and roll note. And we'll talk about how he does that.

But this mastery of the guitar and playing it in this fashion, he's considered by many great artists today and the rock and roll community that he was the first one to do this to. To play it like this.

Scott: 00:17:46

Yeah. So I have an interesting note for you about the movie. So I looked it up and so the.

n an original guitar from the: 1930

Composer: 00:18:09

So this is a: 1932

And these were actually used because back in the time, they didn't have amplifiers. So they put a resonator here to get the guitar to sing out a little bit more and also it's almost like a little natural distortion.

I was able to find three of them in the world.

Scott: 00:18:42

There's only three left in the world. So that picture, that guitar. And I'll try to put a picture of it up on the screen with that kind of metal. Looks like a.

Almost like a dinner plate on the front. And what it's called, it's called a dobro guitar.

So the dobro guitar gained popularity among early blues musicians primarily due to its unparalleled volume and distinctive tone in an era before electric amplification. So that makes a ton of sense. Oh, yeah, but I thought it was really neat. He and the composer said he's like.

ube video of him playing this: 1930

I think you said in the video people would just use a broken bottle. Bottleneck, whiskey bottle.

Jenn: 00:19:33

You break a whiskey bottle and then you just kind of grind off the glass edge, stick it on your finger and you can slide with it. That. Those are the early slides of blues music.

Scott: 00:19:42

Yeah. So I just thought that was really neat. And that's why you see that metal. That's. That's why you hear that distinctive tone. And it was.

Because if you think about this for. For the music and for those guitarists, right? And this is Sammy's character.

And he's playing it in the car when he's driving through the cotton fields. He's playing it in the. In the juke joint. But it's.

Think about the noise in those juke joints and a piano playing, potentially like a bassist playing or a harmonica. And you have to be able to stand out. You can't do that with a regular guitar. You know, think about a regular acoustic guitar.

It's just going to blend in. But if you have these super twangy, you know, extra loud.

Because of that metal reverberation, the acoustics, it essentially gave it this like extra oomph of volume that would stand out. And that's why that style of guitar was so popular.

Jenn: 00:20:31

That makes so much sense. So. So who's Robert Johnson? I believe Sammy's almost supposed to be Robert Johnson. So who is Robert Johnson? What is this Devil's Crossroads?

is this legend? What is. Why: 1932

an man born in Mississippi in: 1911

He wants to lead a, I would say normal life. He wants to be a sharecropper.

He wants to farm for his family, he wants to, he likes music, but he knows that's not going to be good for raising a family and it's not going to give you like the foundation that you need. And so he, he tries to make a living. And she dies in childbirth. And so much so she goes to her family to have the baby, dies in childbirth.

and upset. Right. So this is: 1930

is Dockery V farms. Starts in: 1895

You will see this in Sinners and I'll talk why? You will see this in Sinners.

And the sharecropping scenario is it's an all inclusive community where you have 400 African American families, over 2,000 African Americans who live and work on this farm, old plantation. And it has schools and it has medical buildings and it has a commissary and it has of course your housing. So money and its own money.

So you're paid by their money that you spend in their store, the wooden nickels that the man is paying for his drink.

And remember when smoke gets upset that they made so much plantation money instead of real money because that's what these people had to spend, that's what they're paid in. And so he gets upset because you're, you're not really making money to sustain the business because the business needs real money.

They can't go to the plantation store and buy more alcohol with wooden nickels. They don't even sell alcohol in the plantation store.

So the problem with this is if you remember that song like 16 tons, it's like you never make enough money to get out of your situation. You have to buy your tools, your seeds, all of your, your family supplies from the store. You can imagine the markup at the store, right?

And so when your crop comes in and you sell your crop, you make just enough to get by, but you still owe more at the store. So you're always kind of in arrears and o debt and so you never get off this situation.

Now Doherty, Doherty is one of the more famous ones in the delta because Mr. Dougherty was actually a pretty fair guy but wanted to keep his people happy.

And then one of those things, he had musicians come in and play on the porch of the commissary.

Scott: 00:24:08

Yeah, we have. We actually have that. We. We show that in our video. We went to the historic dockery gin. We show the gin, the cotton gin, which was really neat.

But then we show kind of essentially like an outdoor stage with a historic marker that says home of the blues question mark.

Jenn: 00:24:23

Birth of the blues.

Scott: 00:24:24

Birth of the blues. Yeah, so it was really neat.

Jenn: 00:24:26

So that is considered the first place that these blues musicians got together and played to. Charlie Patton is one of them who Sammy's guitar is from. Charlie Patton is one of those early musicians on the porch.

But why isn't he considered the father of the blues? Why isn't he considered a Robert Johnson? Charlie Patton was kind of a. A various musician. He played the blues, he played white songs.

He would play kind of bluegrass and his a way of playing. Wasn't you new and unique? He just had a different way.

He would play by his knees or behind his head and things like that where Robert Johnson is creating kind of new notes. And that's why he's considered more or less the. The more of the innovator of the blues.

Scott: 00:25:14

Yeah. So. So if you were telling me earlier, Charlie Patton, he's a real life. Real world. Was an actual musician in.

In the movie they kind of say, hey, we got his guitar.

Jenn: 00:25:25

Yes.

Scott: 00:25:25

And that's what Sammy has. And he didn't realize that until his cousins, the twins actually told him that.

Jenn: 00:25:30

o Charlie Patton also dies in: 1936

t. So that's kind of why it's: 1930

The legend is Robert Johnson goes to this porch in Doherty plantation and he's playing and he can't play. And he's laughed off the stage by a Charlie Patton and other musicians there. Like, come back when you know what you're doing.

Come back when you know how to play the guit. And he's very upset and disgruntled.

He walks off and if you follow our video, he walks towards a train station which takes you on a dirt road past a cemetery, past A church to a crossroads. And the story, the legend is he gets to that area at midnight. He goes to the middle of the crossroads.

And the way you enter into a pact with the devil is you start to play your guitar in the middle of the crossroads and the devil will approach you. A dark figure will approach you and reach for the guitar. If you hand him your guitar, you're more or less understanding the pact.

He'll take the guitar, tune the guitar, play the guitar and hand it back to you. And by you taking it back, you now can play the guitar like the devil. You can play it better than anybody and you have mastered it.

tory. Because what happens in: 1932

eally happens in real life in: 1932

Scott: 00:27:16

And actually we show that in our, in our other video, right where we, we go through Clarksdale and we're, we're going through the different spots of that Mississippi Delta, because where the crossroads is about a 45 minutes south of Clark Clarksdale. But we go to the Ground Zero club.

e Robert Johnson came into in: 1932

There's no way he learned he figured this out on his own. He must have made a deal with the devil.

Jenn: 00:27:54

Yeah, so that's where that comes from. He must have made a deal with the devil.

He is sliding the guitar, he's holding these long blues notes that it sounds like four hands are playing instead of two. Sounds like it's two guitars instead of one. Something guitarists do today. But he was the first one to do this. Blew everyone away.

And they couldn't explain it without the spirituality their cult, right? Something had must have happened for him to do this now. Juke joints in general, outskirts of town, the blues in general. And I explain this.

It's played at night, people drinking because they offer work and they're having a good time and they're partying and they're doing other, you know, acts that aren't very, you know, Christian. And so what's happening is they're not getting up for church the next morning. And because they're not getting up for church next morning.

Preachers will really call this the devil's music, because this music is what's kept them out all night and kept them away from church. And now they're hungover, and now they've spent all their money. They can't tithe that.

They've done this at these juke joints that are on the outskirts of town, that are kind of secretive, that are kind of like in the shadows.

play it. And that's why it's: 1932

It's summoning these vampires. And I almost think Robert Coogler is showing that people have done this through time.

He shows all these different music genres where people have also kind of summoned the occult because they have sold their soul to the devil to. To master their music. What really happened to Robert Johnson?

Scott: 00:29:44

Yes, I'm going.

Jenn: 00:29:46

And your crime won't make me right. I'm a historian. I love a good ghost story, but that's not the facts, right? And so people are like.

And so that's what I love when people like, these are the real devil's crossroads. I'm like, is this where the really the devil was? There's no way to know. But really are the devil's cross notes. There's four kind of popular ones. And.

And I talk about those four. But did Robert Johnson actually meet the devil? I say, only Robert Johnson knows.

But what really happened was after his wife dies, he goes back to his hometown in Mississippi, in southern Mississippi, and he makes an Ike Zimmerman. And Ike Zimmerman is a good guitar player. Ike Zimmerman takes him under his wing. Robert Johnson lives with him for a year.

And Ike Zimmerman, Robert Johnson, every night for a year, from like midnight to three in the morning, go to the Beauregard cemetery and sit on tombstones and. And play the guitar together. And Ike teaches him. And so there is a little bit of that spirituality because they're in a graveyard.

And Ike will say to him, play as bad as you want. No one's going to care here. And they have that alone time. And they have a place where they can actually be together.

does make it back up north in: 1932

That's where that master, that expertise has come from. It's a real life story. Why doesn't Ike Zimmerman tell everybody this? Right.

Because he moves to California, is born again, finds the Lord and doesn't really talk about his time in Mississippi or the blues or that musical influence. He. He does feel like being a born again Christian. He doesn't really draw attention to that. But that is the true story of Robert Johnson.

And I love telling his story. He has two recording sessions, so if you ever want to listen to some of his music, you can definitely see the influence.

Eric Clapton has an entire album dedicated to. Robert Johnson believes that he is the master of everything guitar.

Keith Richards, guitarist of Rolling Stones, says that he went back to the basics, learned everything from Robert Johnson. You're going to have the guitarist of Fleetwood Mac. You're going to have the guitarist of Led Zeppelin.

All of them say Robert Johnson is the biggest influence to them.

Scott: 00:32:07

Yeah. And even in a couple other songs. I think we were watching a documentary about Robert Johnson.

I think it was some Led Zeppelin songs that, you know, they, they kind of reference some of his lines. Like they have some similar, like taglines in some of their verses, you know, that were in Robert Johnson's song.

Jenn: 00:32:22

ast and hard. He'll end up in: 1938

,: 1938

,: 1938

He's like one of the first members. When you think of the 27 Club. It's Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse. Winehouse, Jim Morrison. Right.

It's these famous musicians who really, like, made this huge impact on music.

Scott: 00:33:18

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:33:18

But died young. So you never know what else they could have done. And Robert Johnson is like the first of that.

And so much so that no one knew where he was buried for a long time. There's three burial spots that claim to be his Burial spot. We take you to the one that has the most primary source, documentation.

Scott: 00:33:36

His. His sister, I think, kind of confirmed that he was buried in the area. Not necessarily that the exact spot, but in.

In next to that church, under the tree next to the church.

Jenn: 00:33:46

And so we take you there. And so that's where this legend is born, this Devil's Crossroads, Devil's music. Robert Johnson. And we show you ground zero in Clarksdale.

Even the mural of Robert, there's a couple murals there of him who look satanic, right? He has the wings. He has people reaching up from hell, grabbing him. It's all a part of this legend, which is the perfect setting for a horror movie.

And. And you're doing this duality of good versus evil. Robert Johnson's legend is the perfect background for this.

Crow, this happens after the: 1870

You have Reconstruction. And Reconstruction is actually going very well with the federal troops in the South.

They are making sure African Americans are getting educated, and they're doing it all together. You have your first African American mayors of Mississippi getting elected. They're getting into Congress.

And once Grant is no longer president and Hayes becomes president, Hayes thinks, I'll give it back to the states. The states can run their own jurisdiction, and I'm going to take the federal troops out.

And once the federal troops are taken out, Jim Crow laws go into effect.

Scott: 00:35:15

I didn't realize that.

Jenn: 00:35:16

And so the states start to govern themselves again, which means separate but equal. And it's never equal.

So it's separate public places, it's separate schools, it's separate transportation, it's separate entertainment, it's separate shopping.

And so you see that in this movie when they shop, we have African Americans who shop in one grocery store, and you have whites who shop in another grocery store.

And then you can see the code switching of the Chinese Americans who really do come into the Delta to work the plantations at first, but then they see that they can be of service. And there are pretty much Chinese grocery stores in every city in the Delta.

Scott: 00:35:57

Now, you were.

You were telling me before we went live, we started recording that in the movie, they kind of split up the shopping areas of, like, one side of the street to the other. But really, realistically, in real life, it would have been like another neighborhood or at least a couple streets over.

That's how much it would be more separated, not just one side of the street or the other.

Jenn: 00:36:17

Yeah. So you have to think segregation is almost like the white people didn't even want to see the black people.

So you're not going to have them on the same street. And if you watch the movie, there's some debauchery that happens and he's shooting. They would never shop and have that happen.

So you would be a separate neighborhood. Even when we talk about Beale street here in Memphis, Beale street was the black neighborhood. The whole street was theirs.

And so you would have a Chinese grocery store in one neighborhood and have a. For African Americans and have a. A white. A Chinese grocery store in a white neighborhood. Now it would have made more sense for me.

I told Scott, as if the building kind of straddled two streets and they walked through a wall like the alleyway and went to the other side, because people. It would be.

You were shopping and you could park on the same streets and you could see the difference with how well kept the street was or how modernized the street was. That would have been a good indication of the separate but not equal. But it's a movie. And they.

I think he wanted to put it in your face without putting it in your face. Right. Kind of tell you that this is segregation.

And there's a white grocery store and a black grocery store, and the Chinese Americans can code switch. He wanted to show it to you without actually showing it to you.

And I don't think people would get it as much as they were walking through an alley, maybe.

Scott: 00:37:33

Yeah. And I think, honestly, for a movie like this, I think they represented the time pretty well.

I think they represented the era pretty well with people who were, you know, these. You know, the twins, they were former. They were veterans. Right. They had gone off and fought in World War I. And so I actually think sometimes it's.

The director tries to do too much. Like we talk about Napoleon, and it was just kind of too far off.

Even though it was a decent movie and some other movies, they just don't do a great job. I think they actually did a pretty good job with Sinners.

Jenn: 00:38:06

Oh, I think they did too, because they. I love that he. He trusts his audience. Yeah, he trusts his audience to be smart enough to. To figure it out if they don't know.

So how many African Americans did fight in World War I? About360,000 fought in World War I, but they were mostly regulated to labor battalions. Trenches.

Smoke and Stack both talk about being in the trenches in World War I. That's what African Americans basically did. He makes it a real quick reference, side reference.

So look it up if you don't know, but he's not going to teach it to you, which I appreciate. And again, as a historian, I was like, I loved this that he was doing this.

ppens because of World War I,: 1914

It's when all these African Americans leave the south for better economic opportunity and for safety because of lynching to the North. And Chicago is one of the major places they go. So these brothers leave the Delta during World War I.

They get a taste of, you know, they're getting racism, but they also get to see, you know, using their own abilities to make it in the world. And so they're like, I'm gonna do that even better where I have more opportunity.

And they go to Chicago, and there they get into the Mafia, and you hear them there with the Italian mafia and the Irish Mafia. And that's why they have the two different types of drinks. They bring back the wine and the beer, right?

So they're kind of showing you that they had kind of worked with both mafias, and then they kind of set them against each other, taking the spoils and taking it down to the South. So they also want to bring it back to their community. They want to bring it back to their people.

And they both have ties there, they both have women there, and they both have love there. And so they kind of want to make it better for their community.

They have the cash, they buy the juke joint, and they want a place for their community to have fun and to be invited. And so I love this whole play on the vampires being invited, because it's almost like, today, are you invited to the picnic?

Are you invited to the barbecue?

Scott: 00:40:23

Yeah. Are you invited to the party? Right. I mean, that's what it is. And it's like, it's very much in your face, like, hey, you're not invited to this party.

Jenn: 00:40:30

Yeah.

Scott: 00:40:31

But it's also referencing the segregation of the time.

Jenn: 00:40:35

Yes.

Scott: 00:40:35

Right. And so the vampire, Remic, right, he's coming in and be like, oh, no, no, I'm fine. Like, I don't like. He's kind of.

He's basically playing it off as like, oh, no, I don't care about race. I don't care about this, that and the other. Like, I just want to play music. I'm a musician, too now. He's trying to get invited in.

And you know, the twins are kind of. Kind of have this sixth sense about Remick. They can kind of tell that something's off.

But it was neat how it was both so obvious you're not invited to this party, but also stating something about the time.

Jenn: 00:41:10

And it's funny how it almost is a play too, where whites want to go to the African American party. Whites want to be a part of the African American story. And I hear some sometimes African Americans where you weren't invited to the barbecue.

Or if you are invited to the barbecue, it's like you're get. You get special behind the scenes. Like you get to see what it's like to be in the African American community.

And of course you get Alice, who is passing and they say she's family. Right. Because she is part of the community. Which when you are.

When you straddle both the white and black community, it is hard to know what side you belong to. And people sometimes don't feel like they belong to either. They're kind of be shunned by both. But in this, she's kind of accepted.

Now, when they try to get in and Smoke and Stack are giving you two different reasons, right? Ones, they want money. They have money. Let them in. You know how much money we can get from them.

And then a smoke is like, but what if they step on her foot wrong.

Scott: 00:42:10

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:42:11

So he understands lynching comes from stepping out of place in the Jim Crow law. Right.

at happened in Clarksdale was: 1925

And this was a person who was acquitted for what they'd done, a sharecropper. And whites killed him anyway because he was acquitted. So it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong.

It's if you've done any disservice or if you've stepped off your out of bounds. To a white person, even stepping on their foot can create a huge problem. So Smokes doesn't even want them there. Right.

Because it could create a huge problem. And that's what he's referencing. It's like, we don't want them in here because you don't know what could go wrong. And we're gonna.

If it goes wrong, it could be misunderstood and could be something. We could lose our whole business. We could lose our lives.

Scott: 00:43:16

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:43:16

And so that's kind of what this Jim Crow.

They're talking about living in this kind of environment with this whole back and forth about letting them in, even though they're playing on the vampire legend of being invited in or you don't have any power inside.

Scott: 00:43:31

Yeah. And. And the. The vampire piece of it will kind of, you know, fast forward in the story because we've. We've got a ton of stuff.

This is such a meaty movie. But we even talked about right after as we were walking out of the movie how. And we said there's going to be spoilers, so spoiler alert.

People start getting turned. So the vampires start getting their hooks and people. Eventually the vampires will get invited in.

But one of the things that was interesting and you called this out right away as we were walking out of the movie, there's both white people and black people that start getting turned onto the vampire side, but they start making it. Remic. Start saying like, hey, we can have this big happy society. It doesn't matter what color you are if you're with us. And so you walked out.

You're like, man, they sure made it seem like it was better to be a vampire at the time than it was to be black in the Jim Crow South.

Jenn: 00:44:27

Yeah. Is it better to be of the undead and. Or to be a black person in the Jim Crow South?

Like, they're making the argument that you have more power as a vampire. You. We're colorblind as a vampire. Everyone's accepted the same. Everyone has the same rights and abilities as a vampire.

You don't have that in the black community in the South. Why would you want to stay with that? Don't you want to be with us? Don't you want to have power with us?

Scott: 00:44:54

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:44:55

They made that argument very good. I thought the director was. So they did.

Scott: 00:44:59

They did a phenomenal job. And it wasn't preachy, but it was just very much like Reimbick was like, why wouldn't you want to be with us? Look, and.

Because I think at the time, by that time in the story, he had a whole bunch of people and there was only a few people that hadn't been turned yet. And one of the twins had been turned. Right. And I think it was Stack. So then he got to be with essentially his love, which was. What's her name?

Jenn: 00:45:30

Alice.

Scott: 00:45:30

Alice. Who was the. Who was passing. Right. Who is kind of just the much lighter skin. She. She looked white even though she had a black father and.

Or black mother. And so they got to be together. And they fast forward in the movie, right? These are the two that kind of finally make it out of the whole conflict.

But they, they stayed together the whole time. So it was interesting how the director did that.

Didn't really put it right in your face, but it was kind of, it was, it was kind of, in my opinion, masterfully worked in referencing history, referencing kind of all the conflict at the time. But obviously, you know, they're vampires, so you can't, we can't just jump over with them.

Jenn: 00:46:09

And then you have this, the spirituality. Told my papa just a baby. Right? You have very Christian themes here. Right. Sammy's father is a pastor. It starts in a church, it ends in a church.

He's kind of the prodigal son. He's returning and you can tell it starts with the end of the day and you look like he's been run through the ringer.

Scott: 00:46:33

He's got blood all over him.

Jenn: 00:46:34

And you're like, what just happened to him? So you get to see what happened to him. But it looks like the prodigal son returning and he's walking into the church and.

And then you got a lot of hoodoo references here. Also with Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson sang a lot of hoodoo. Hoodoo is one of those religions of the African American community.

Brought it over from Africa. And he was wearing smoke. His. His wife, I forget her name. Annie. Annie has made him a mojo bag.

And a mojo bag is like a protector, a little amulet that you wear. It has like herbs and stuff and a. A flannel bag and it protects you. It's like a prayer in a bag.

And you see this protection when Stack tries to bite smoke and he can't.

Scott: 00:47:19

Get past it because it's hanging on him.

Jenn: 00:47:22

He's wearing the mojo bag. That's hoodoo. A lot of people say voodoo. Voodoo doesn't really use the mojo bag in that same scenario as she's using it.

So she's a hoodoo princess priestess. And so that is kind of giving this dual spirituality. She's also the first one to recognize that these people at the door are hates.

She calls them hates.

Scott: 00:47:43

So this was really interesting and I jump in because when you started telling me about this the other day, I thought it was very interesting because the term hates is very historically based and was used quite commonly starting and again, interestingly, starting off as something semi practical, making its way into legend and lore.

Jenn: 00:48:07

When you hear it, you're probably like H A T E S hates. Well, that's not how it's it's written, it's hates were considered bad evil spirits.

But what people really thought of as hates in the south is you'll see a lot of Southern porches painted a sky blue. Why are Southern porches ceilings painted a sky blue? It's to throw off the wasps so the wasps won't make wasp nests in the corners of your porches.

They'll think it's the sky and they won't try. And you keep. And that blue is called hate blue because it keeps the hates away. Wasps were like evil spirits. They're evildoers.

And so when she's using the word hates, it is this evil spirit idea that she's talking about. She doesn't realize they're vampires. She'll eventually come to that understanding.

But at first she just thinks they're evil spirits, which is the term hates in the South. And so when she says that again, Ryan Cooler Coogler is not explaining things to you. You need to figure it out for yourself.

This is how people talk, and this is how people live.

Scott: 00:49:10

Yeah, and I didn't. I didn't know that. Like, I just. I thought it was the term H A T E during the movie, and I was like, oh, yeah, that kind of makes sense.

But then when you kind of started looking it up and you told me about it, I just thought that was so interesting, like, such an interesting piece of Southern history.

Jenn: 00:49:28

And I think the reason why the director uses this idea that vampires know what the victim knows is because this Chinese American family, they have a daughter and she's left at home. And the mother, she has her motherly instinct, which you'll see a lot of motherly instinct in this. In this movie.

Feels like her husband knows she's home alone, and he's kind of using that against her like I'm gonna. Because he's turned to a vampire.

And since he knows what the husband knows, he knows their daughter's home alone, he knows she'll let him in and he can turn her. And so they have to be invited.

So the Chinese woman Of the five, six people left alone with 40 people outside, invites them all in because she wants to have the fight, because she wants to stop him from going after her daughter. Very motherly thing to do. Right. She's not thinking about anybody else. She's thinking about her child. She doesn't care what.

How anybody else is going to react or how they're going to survive this, which more than likely they're not. But her child will be protected if she can stop her Husband, her child will be protected. That's a very motherly thing to do. I loved how he did that.

I know a lot of people say that it's seems unorthodox that a woman would do that. I would say, you're not a mother if you don't think I would do that to protect my children.

Scott: 00:50:43

And, and of course, in a movie like this, a horror movie, like, they, you're kind of going through periods of tension and. Right. So they do a great job of building that tension up because you're, the whole time you're hoping like, oh, please, don't, don't, don't say it.

Don't invite them in. And then eventually she just screams it from across, you know, the juke joint. You know, she tells him, like, you know, come in and.

And when much more colorful language. And then all of a sudden all the vampires like turn and they're like, then they start running.

Jenn: 00:51:06

It's so great. So in closing, you know, I wanted to give a little more shout out to Ryan Coogler in what he. The deal he made with this movie.

So he got final cut authority, he got first gross on all of the proceeds, and he has 25 year ownership after 25 years, after Warner Brother, he owns the movie.

Scott: 00:51:29

So.

So I have a quick history movie comparison for you before we close out, because I do think this movie, I didn't want to see it when it first came out. I'm not a horror movie guy. We established that in the beginning of this podcast. It's just not my thing. Right. I've just never really enjoyed that.

But I kept hearing about how good it was, how good it was, how good it was. I was like, okay, we have to go see this. We did the Robert Johnson stuff, Jen, let's go see it. We saw it and it was phenomenal.

Like, I was very pleasantly surprised.

So I wanted to kind of compare this movie, even though it's only been out for a couple months now, it's 20, 25, to other vampire movies that we might know. Right. So I did, I did my own little, little research. So what's the first, you know, vampire movie that you think of that we know?

Jenn: 00:52:15

I knows for a two.

Scott: 00:52:17

actually came out in July of: 1980

87, had a pretty decent opening weekend, you know, and throughout the course of that weekend, if you adjust it for inflation, it made about $15 million sinners actually made somewhere close to like 60 or $70 million in opening week. And it had had a great opening weekend. But some of the other things that came out around Lost Boys because it was. This is the 80s, right.

This is: 1987

So things in just July alone was Inner Space, Adventures in Babysitting, Full Metal Jacket, Revenge of the Nerds 2, RoboCop, I think the fourth Jaws movie, and like Superman 4. So it's just kind of fun to kind of compare that to other vampire movies.

And then what's another movie that you love that's a vampire movie that takes place in the South?

Jenn: 00:53:08

Interview with a Vampire.

Scott: 00:53:09

Interview with a Vampire.

So I had to throw something in here about Interview with a Vampire because we're going to talk about a vampire movie, even though we're talking about the history of it. This is so much history. And Interview with the Vampire. Maybe we'll do a. Yeah, another watch with history on this movie sometime in the future.

But that came out in actually: 1970

movie in all of: 1994

Jenn: 00:53:48

So that's about as much as Sinners about it.

Scott: 00:53:50

Was it more. It's more. So it's at that level. And I wanted to call his movies out because those are the movies that Jen and I enjoy.

She loves Interview with Vampire. But the history behind this movie, Sinners, was just so interesting and they did such a good job that I was so pleasantly surprised.

And the director would just, you know, hats off to him for what he did with this movie.

Jenn: 00:54:16

His ball in the end. Spoiler. I think Sammy is Robert Johnson. I think Sammy has sold his soul to Devil. I think he did it even be you. You don't even see it in the movie.

I think he's already done it. That's why he plays the guitar so well at the juke joint. That's why he pulls all the vampires in. They hear the music of the devil.

I don't think it protects him, which is almost why he gets killed, but he doesn't at the end, I think he tries to say the Lord's Prayer. The vampire says the Lord's Prayer right back to him. Showing him that that doesn't protect you. You've already sold your soul.

And I think at the very end of the movie, you see Sammy as an old man and the two vampires come back to see him because his soul already belongs to the devil. And so they're, they're waiting. They're like, you know, your soul belongs to, to, to us.

Scott: 00:55:10

Yeah, it's like 30 or 40 years in the future.

Jenn: 00:55:12

Yeah. So I believe that's kind of what they're showing you is that he is living a long life, but in the end, he's not going to heaven.

Scott: 00:55:19

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:55:20

You know, he's made this deal to be this master of the guitar. That's what he wanted most. And I think there's a little cuts to it.

In the end, you see Sammy looking at something in the church that you don't see him, what it is. And I do believe that he knows, he knows he's already made the choice. And so it falls into this whole legend, this wonderful area of Mississippi.

If you need to. If you want to listen to Robert Johnson, listen to him. This music is amazing. And it's. You can hear the influence of artists today and the blues.

It's just so much a part of American history. We have that highway here. You can travel to all these locations and see all of these artists and their influence and into the genre.

gler set this specifically in: 1932

Scott: 00:56:16

rich musical heritage of the: 1930

Jenn: 00:56:27

Mississippi.

Scott: 00:56:28

accurate instruments like the: 1932

t the uncomfortable truth. In: 1932

Becoming a supernatural predator might actually represent a step up in status for a black person. It's brilliant if haunting use of horror to illuminate historical reality.

And until next time, remember that sometimes the most frightening stories are the ones rooted in our own history. Thank you.

Jenn: 00:57:21

Thank you.

Scott: 00:57:26

This has been Walk with History production. Talk with History is created and hosted by me, Scott Bennie. Episode researched by Jennifer Bennie.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode. Talk with History supported by our fans atthehistory roadtrip.com our eternal thanks go out to is providing funding to help keep us company.

Thank you to Doug McLiverty, Larry Myers, Patrick Bennie, Gail Cooper, Christy Kohtz, and Calvin Gilbert. Make sure you hit that follow button in that podcast and we'll talk to you next time.