Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Blindspotting’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

Our perception of the world is quite important to all of us. Simply because it helps to form our opinion on a great many things, and it can also set our mood. For if we see the world as a just and wonderful place, it motivates us to take part in everything it has to offer, and we do so with a smile on our faces because we feel as though we are part of something quite beautiful. Yet, the opposite does indeed apply here. For if the world looks like a sour place to us, one filled with trouble and sorrow, it is a lot harder to get out of bed and go about our day simply because we don’t want to take part in the dark stuff, or risk our safety when the going is really tough out there.

But what’s truly fascinating about perception and how we see things, is how rarely the world presents itself to us in such a simplistic manner. For modern society is a complex ecosystem, one that offers up a bevy of good and bad at any given moment and sometimes the bad is so powerful and overwhelming that we force ourselves to find the good and try to bury our minds within it, in order to cope with some of the awful things we see. Which sadly, forces us to outright miss issues we should be speaking up about and bringing attention to, and it just so happens that in 2018, a motion picture was released to the world that explored all of these concepts in an intimate and powerful fashion in Blindspotting.

Now in this particular film we are introduced to a man named Collin Haskins who has been through quite the year. Because an unfortunate incident while he was the bouncer at a bar in his hometown of Oakland, got him in trouble with the law. But after two months in jail and nearly a year on probation, Collin is doing his best to play it straight and reinvent himself because he understands the world is going to see him differently now as a convicted felon. But as he closes in on his final day of probation, Collin’s view of the world is beginning to change. Thanks in large part to the fact that he watches a police officer gun down an African American man in cold blood. For this opens his eyes to the fact that his life and his environment are not quite what they seem and the haunting image of that death leaves him wondering if it is time to make some serious changes to his life, so he is no longer surrounded by a world he doesn’t quite understand.

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So, at first glance, that particular plot summary barely speaks to notions of perception of the world or how we try to make the world look like a prettier place in our minds, but that’s the true beauty of this particular motion picture. Because what appears to be a movie about reinvention of one’s self and repairing the damage from one’s mistakes, quickly evolves into a story on perception and our push to see the world as we want to, simply because Collin has made great efforts to surround himself in a world where problems don’t quite exist. After all, it’s been good times with his best friend Miles for as long as he can remember, and his push to keep his nose clean and be seen as a good man once again comes directly from his desire to have a status quo in his life. But that push for normalcy has indeed blinded him to the realities of the world and how it is changing around him, and the injustices that surround him every single day. 
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Especially in regard to the outright murder he bears witness to. Because it hammers home the fact that as an African American male, he can be gunned down at any time by a cop who feels the need to pull the trigger and this is where the film becomes quite powerful. Because not only does it find a way to inject the fear that Black people feel on a regular basis in regard to the police, into the heart of the audience, it also says something quite powerful about how we perceive police brutality and the systemic racism that a lot of cops aim at black people, in that, modern America is doing what Collin does in this tale. Because we push all of this out of sight and out of mind, and we pretend it isn’t a problem and that these types of ‘incidents’ are indeed related to a ‘few bad apples’ and doing that engenders more injustice and cruelty, feeding the aforementioned systemic racism.

Which makes the ending of this motion picture quite powerful for certain, since it speaks to the fact that in order to stop this, we all have to confront it. We have to stand up to this madness and demand that it ends and make others see African Americans as the human beings that they are. And well, that’s a hell of way to end this film, and it makes this movie supremely relevant since that is what hundreds of thousands of people are doing in the streets right now. Which means, this is a motion picture that you need to see as soon as possible if you haven’t yet. Because it is ahead of its time, and it teaches the viewer a great deal about a part of our world few of us understand and most importantly, it serves to remind us that at some point, we can no longer pretend to see the world as we want to, we need to see things for how they really are and we need to act upon injustices as they arise.

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