Curiel, Samantha
Williams HG
11/11/14
12 Years a Slave Extra Credit Throughout this entire movie, connections to the workshops could be seen. For example, when the African-Americans are traveling on the ship at the start of the movie, there were exact parallels to the snippet of the film Amistad we saw in Macon's workshop. In both films, the Blacks being transported were badly mistreated and the women were seen as sex objects by the white sailors. However, in 12 Years a Slave, the woman who is pulled aside by the white man (to be raped, as in Amistad as well) is fought for by one of the African Americans on the ship who is unfortunately stabbed. Another connection to Macon's workshop is how the wives of the slave owners would become jealous and would lash out on the slaves. In the film, Edwin Epps's wife is jealous of the affection that Edwin shows to Patsey and demands that she is rid of, but because she picks 500 pounds of cotton every day, her husband refuses. This reminded me specifically of how Maria Sweet, Hiram's wife in The Drinking Gourd, would peer through the cracks of doors while Hiram and Rissa were talking because she was jealous of their interactions. Both of these wives disliked the influence that slavery had on their husbands. Lastly, in the film, the slaves are seen dancing and performing for their owners in their home, which demonstrates one of Del Pino's lessons where she explained that slaves tended to be nothing more than entertainment for white