Annie Steals The Spotlight And Holds Our Deepest Infatuation In ‘Sinners'
CLOSE Source: EPK.TV / EPK.TV
In Sinners , filmmaker Ryan Coogler and actress Wunmi Mosaku push back against the stereotypes Black women have endured within and outside of our community for centuries. Set in Mississippi in 1932, the southern horror gothic follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack Moore (both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan). The World War I veterans return home after a seven-year hiatus and a run with Chicago's most notorious gangster, Al Capone. Though the brothers blow into town intent on setting up a juke joint and carving out a legitimate business, the past, the universe, and fate command something different.
As much as the narrative centers on identity, redemption, and dualities, Sinners is also about love. Annie (beautifully portrayed by Mosaku), a Hoodoo conjurer, spiritual leader, and healer, is at the center of this tale. The audience hears Annie before we ever see her face. Opening the film, she speaks of the musicians who can conjure spirits of the past and future. She also offers a warning—these magical souls can inadvertently attract evil. From the moment she is introduced, it's clear she is a woman to be admired, trusted, and respected. For Elijah 'Smoke' Moore, she is also a sanctuary.
When Annie is finally revealed in all of her stunning glory, viewers find her standing in front of her modest house, surrounded by swaying trees, love, and anguish. The grave of the baby girl she and Smoke buried years before rests outside of her home, and inside, she's surrounded by medicines, amulets and herbs. Barefoot children float in and out, paying for her services in faux cash, which she happily accepts.
Annie is a balm for Smoke, who is more stoic and discerning than his impulsive brother. The electric chemistry between the estranged couple crackles as he enters her home. Sitting on a stool, he rests (perhaps for the first time in seven years). In Annie's presence, Smoke's sense of relief is palpable. Her covering (in the form of a mojo bag) remains tied safely around his neck. He's returned to her scarred but fully loved and completely whole.
Annie and Smoke's lengthy reunion (Mosaku recalls it was a 7-page scene) is bursting with desire, eroticism, longing, wistfulness, pain, and the tender whispers of devotion. Since the origins of cinema, Black women have been shoved into boxes. Deeply melanated women with plush, curvy bodies and regal features became sexless mammies. These tropes have anchored the lie of white supremacy and even fester in the Black community itself. We are all impacted by colorism, fatphobia, and misogynoir, which continually perpetuates in present-day culture wars where Black women and men are pitted against one another.
Through Coogler's script, which is grandly depicted in glittering 65mm and IMAX film, we see a beautiful, moisturized, intelligent, enticing woman who desires and is desired. Smoke and Annie are lustful but boast a deep reverence for one another. Without crass nudity, the audience sees her being chosen, worshiped and heard. [SPOILERS AHEAD] Source: Gianna Snapped / for HelloBeautiful
Later in Sinners , Annie's bravery and deep wealth of spiritual knowledge keep those who survive the night alive. Though gutted by his brother Stack's transformation into a vampire, Smoke does not question her guidance. When the vampiric Stack snuffs out Annie's life as she screams, 'Not you!' Smoke honors his promise to her. Though it destroys him, he releases her soul and eventually, only after enacting his revenge, lays down his burdens to reconnect with her and their infant daughter in the afterlife.
In Annie's final scene, she's depicted in a balmy dream-like sequence, clothed in white and nursing a baby at her breast. This is the image Smoke sees as he crosses into the afterlife, leaving his twin in the ruthless world, choosing otherworldly freedom with the woman who has always known his soul. Black women's bodies, sexualities and experiences are continually subjected to scrutiny and propaganda. Yet, with Annie standing at the center of Sinners, we are all reminded that Black women, especially dark skin, full-figured Black women, are and have always been every single thing. Let Mosaku's Annie, be only the beginning of these kinds of depictions.
SEE ALSO
Annie Steals The Spotlight And Holds Our Deepest Infatuation In 'Sinners' was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
3 hours ago
- Atlantic
Seven Reads for a Summer Weekend
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. On your Sunday, explore stories about the one book everyone should read, what McKinsey did to the middle class, and more. Teens Are Forgoing a Classic Rite of Passage Fewer young people are getting into relationships. By Faith Hill The One Book Everyone Should Read The Atlantic 's staffers on the books they share—again and again By The Atlantic Culture Desk Why South Park Did an About-Face on Mocking Trump The show's creators once said they had nothing more to say about the president. What changed their minds? By Paula Mejía A Defense Against Gaslighting Sociopaths If you can recognize their signature move, then forewarned is forearmed. By Arthur C. Brooks 10 'Scary' Movies for People Who Don't Like Horror You can handle these, we promise. (From 2022) By David Sims How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class Technocratic management, no matter how brilliant, cannot unwind structural inequalities. (From 2020) By Daniel Markovits Homes Still Aren't Designed for a Body Like Mine Why is it so hard for disabled people to find safe, accessible places to live? By Jessica Slice The Week Ahead Greetings From Your Hometown, a new album by the Jonas Brothers (out Friday) People Like Us, by the National Book Award winner Jason Mott, a novel about two Black writers trying to live a world filled with gun violence (out Tuesday) Ted Bundy: Dialogue With the Devil, a new Ted Bundy docuseries that features newly uncovered interviews and recordings (out Thursday on Hulu) Essay Memoir of a Mailman By Tyler Austin Harper 'Delivering the mail is a 'Halloween job,' ' Stephen Starring Grant observes in Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home. 'An occupation with a uniform, immediately recognizable, even by children.' What to call Grant's book is harder to say. It is an unusual amalgam: a pandemic memoir, a love letter to the Blue Ridge Mountains, a participant observer's ethnography of a rural post office, an indictment of government austerity, and a witness statement attesting to the remarkable and at times ruthless efficiency of one of our oldest federal bureaucracies. Not least, Mailman is a lament for the decline of service as an American ideal—for the cultural twilight of the Halloween job: those occupations, such as police officer, firefighter, Marine, and, yes, postal worker, whose worth is not measured first and foremost in dollars but in public esteem. Or should be, anyway. More in Culture Catch Up on The Atlantic Photo Album Included in The Atlantic 's photos of the week are images of a freestyle-motocross trick, a robot-boxing match in Shanghai, a performing-dog show in Canada, and more. Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
Indianapolis Star
17 hours ago
- Indianapolis Star
Ralph Lauren's Oak Bluffs collection celebrates historic Black beach community
Cricket sweaters, patchwork blanket, and distressed baseball caps. Each is part of the new collection called Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs, celebrating the historically Black community of Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The collection is an evolution of the 2022 collection based on Historically Black Colleges Morehouse and Spelman, who are again partners in the Oak Bluffs collection, and is a part of the company's "Design with Intent" portfolio. "Ralph Lauren as a man, as a brand is sort of the world ambassador to Americana," James Jeter, Creative Director for Polo Men's at Ralph Lauren told USA TODAY. "With that comes this incredible responsibility for us to tell these incredible American stories as fully, as broadly, as accurately as possible." The collection deftly weaves HBCU campus style drawn from Morehouse and Spelman with resort wear that references the historic Black beach town and Black traditions. "It was just very important to tell that story, the multi-faceted, multi-dimensional experience that is the Black experience that also translates into the American experience," Dara Douglas, Product and Brand Lead for Design with Intent, told USA TODAY. It is accompanied by a documentary on the community directed by Cole Brown titled "A Portrait of the American Dream: Oak Bluffs" that debuted on the brand's YouTube page on July 24. "Oak Bluffs' unique history, traditions and sense of community deeply inspire me and speak to what we are all searching for – a place where you can be free, uncontrived, joyful and truly at home," Ralph Lauren, Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of the eponymous preppy stalwart, said in a July 23 press release. Oak Bluffs was once a part of nearby Edgartown and was deemed to be the place "suitable" for Black workers at nearby resorts, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Oak Bluffs community envisioned by the collection started in earnest when Charles Shearer opened Shearer Cottage in 1912, according to The Root. The Black news outlet described the inn as, "an act of defiance in an America riddled with discrimination and racial segregation, where safe lodging for Black travelers was a rare luxury." "So by default really, Oak Bluffs becomes the place ... for young, educated, affluent African Americans—the politicians and the movie stars." Dr. Elaine Weintraub, historian and co-founder of the Martha's Vineyard African American Heritage Trail, told the Trust. At the heart of Oak Bluffs, according to the Root, is a beach called the Inkwell that served as a place where, "Black folks could swim, sunbathe, and just be, without getting side-eyed or harassed." Weintraub described vacationers to the Inkwell, Shearer Cottage, and Oak Bluffs throughout the decades as a "who's who" including Madame C.J. Walker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., actress Ethel Waters, and singer Lionel Richie. "Well, I think perhaps I should say what you I think are aware of. Our people are deeply mystical, you might say spiritual and we have a an appreciation for place," Dr. Lawrence E. Carter Sr., the Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, said in the documentary. "How Martha's Vineyard became Martha's Vineyard has an awful lot to do with traffic, who came through here and by coming through here bequeathed something." Dorothy West, the youngest member of the Harlem Renaissance, said of Oak Bluffs, "I thought there was always summer here" in an interview published by the Martha's Vineyard Museum Oral History Channel. "I think historically it has represented a place where African Americans could be successful, could be around other African-Americans, could share in a culture and a place in the sun and that they'll own and that they'll belong," Weintraub said. Oak Bluffs still holds that same significance today. Netflix's show "Forever", released in March, showcased this on an episode titled "The Vineyard", allowing viewers to see the vibrance and richness that still exists in Oak Bluffs. The 2022 collection was described by Jeter as a "period piece" that drew from the ephemera of Morehouse and Spelman, of which Jeter and Douglas are alumni, from 1920's to the 1960's. "You'll notice that there's this kind of decorum (in the 2022 collection). We leaned a little bit into politics of respectability, which really started such an incredible conversation," Jeter said. He added that imagery for the collection's campaign was "intentionally less serious" and leaned into a multi-generational interpretation of summers on the shore. "Quite frequently people think of the output that comes from the Black experience, whether it's through entertainment, through sports. So you constantly see the Black body in motion, but this notion of rest and relaxation as a space that the black body could occupy I think is quite revolutionary," Douglas said. The collection comes as companies have backed away from concepts labeled DEI following pressure from the Trump administration and other right-wing forces. Jeter and Douglas both pointed to the collection as a part of the company's commitment to widening the brand's view of what is included in "Americana," with James saying "we intended to stick to that."
Atlantic
a day ago
- Atlantic
The ‘Slacker' Teen Who Was More Than Just a Punch Line
In the first episode of The Cosby Show, Cliff Huxtable (played by Bill Cosby) walks into his only son's messy room with a mission: getting him to care about improving his straight-D report card. But the teenager proves difficult to rattle. After his father makes a big show of giving him Monopoly money and then taking it all away bill by bill for hypothetical expenses, Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) holds firm in his assertion that he doesn't need to emulate his parents in order to be happy. 'If you weren't a doctor,' he tells his father, 'I wouldn't love you less, because you're my dad.' Can't the same be true in reverse? For a moment, it seems as if Theo has gotten through. But instead, Cliff goes off, scolding his son for being 'afraid to try, because you're afraid that your brain is going to explode, and it's gonna ooze out of your ears.' The genius of the scene is that both characters are right. Theo is afraid to try, but he also recognizes one of his father's limitations: Cliff has a very specific idea of what success looks like, which can burden his children as they try to live up to it. It's a testament to Warner's skill as a performer that even when Theo isn't winning an argument with his dad, he evinces a complex vulnerability. Warner, who died last week, at the age of 54, struck a delicate balance while playing Theo: He's hubristic but not smug, clueless but not buffoonish. Nailing these nuances was key. Although today Cosby's name is inextricable from his tarnished legacy, The Cosby Show was nonetheless groundbreaking in its portrayal of a well-educated, middle-class Black family—and Theo's story bookends the series, starting with the Monopoly lesson and ending with his graduation from college. Cliff uses tough love to teach his son that hard work is instrumental to prospering in life. But Warner played Theo as the house jester, balancing the dramatic tension of his character's uncertain future with his impeccable ability to deliver a one-liner. Ultimately, Theo's development does not amount to simple 'success' or 'failure.' His arc comes into focus when he finds his sense of purpose—in part by challenging his parents' judgments and assumptions. As a high-school freshman at the start of the series, Theo isn't much for studying. Instead, he hopes to skate by on charisma alone—which rarely works—and aspires to land a variety of improbable dream jobs, such as tennis pro, pilot, and model. Theo's apathy serves as a counterpoint to Cliff's moralizing about the importance of education and family values to one's social mobility, which echoed Cosby's own. In retrospect, Cliff's fears about his son's future foreshadowed the comedian's public excoriations of Black youth, which drew national attention in the early 2000s—mainly, his charge that they were ' going nowhere.' The harshness that sometimes emerges in Cliff's approach to parenting lands with a more punitive thud in that context. And with Theo, we eventually see that the slacker persona his father has projected onto him is not the full picture. Theo's apparent lack of motivation occasionally drives his father to theatrical extremes. In one episode, Cliff enlists the entire family to simulate the 'real world' for his son; the exercise walks Theo through getting a job, renting an apartment, and surviving life's unpleasant realities for a day. Like the earlier Monopoly gambit, it doesn't really work. When his mother, Clair (Phylicia Rashad), suggests afterward that he's learned an important lesson, Theo clarifies for her. 'I learned that when I go into the real world,' he says, 'I don't want to do business with anyone in my family.' The episode's punch line reflects a common parent-child dynamic: Rather than attempting to find common ground, both sides put up a wall—in the Huxtables' case, through humor. The Cosby Show indulges in this again and again, as Theo's parents invent dramatic ways to school their son; they even go so far as to stage a mock trial to catch Theo in a lie. Their son, meanwhile, typically shrugs it all off with a joke. The show's early years often played the chasm between Theo's overconfidence and the outcomes of his actions for laughs too. For example, take a scene in which he tries to impress his older sister Denise's (Lisa Bonet) study buddy: Theo adopts a baritone voice, and then Denise manhandles him out the door. As with many adolescent boys, Theo's bravado is a mask for his still-developing identity. The relatability of his 'fake it 'til you make it' attitude renders him endearing, even when he's the butt of a joke. Still, Theo's self-mythology suggests a latent sadness, perhaps stemming from a suspicion that he might live out his adult life as a regular person, rather than the educated professional his parents expect him to become. But for as often as the show points out the teen's foibles, Warner never lets viewers dismiss Theo outright. For a while, he animates his character's puppyish demeanor with perfectly timed voice cracks and awkward body language. Yet the actor slowly recalibrates as both he and Theo age, shifting the fumbling swagger toward a more mature kind of self-assurance. Some of the show's most rewarding scenes arrive when Theo, as an older teen, earns his father's respect by showing up as his full self. On two separate occasions, Theo and his best friend, who goes by the nickname 'Cockroach' (Carl Anthony Payne II), write a rap for a class assignment. Both iterations include catchy lyrics that demonstrate an understanding of the material; teens like Theo and Cockroach can do great work, the show suggests, when they have room to be creative. It feels fitting, then, that Theo's emotional turning point comes from a diagnosis that upends his parents' skepticism about him. After he enrolls in college, Theo learns that he's dyslexic, which reframes his academic challenges, flighty aspirations, and self-doubts. (Charting a clear path forward is hard when you believe that you aren't smart enough to advance.) The revelation frees Theo from the 'failure' narrative that the adults in his life have pinned on him; he begins performing better academically as a result. More important, he invests his downtime in a meaningful, altruistic pursuit. As a volunteer at the local community center, Theo lights up while mentoring tweens who have struggles similar to his own, and not just because he's good at it. Working with a younger generation gives Theo a platform to draw upon his life experiences and learn as he goes, affirming his newfound sense of accomplishment. When one of his advisers tells him he's doing well but isn't 'there' yet, Theo agrees—a moment Warner underscores by smiling to himself as he murmurs, 'But I'm growing.' The pleasure Warner brings to the exchange reflects just how much his character has transformed from an aimless teen afraid to fail into an adult who recognizes that trial and error are part of life. The Cosby Show closes with the whole family gathering. Although Cliff reflects on the long, hard road his son faced to get here, Theo's real triumph is different, and more significant. He's no longer feigning confidence or struggling to understand why the things that come easily to others are so difficult for him. He won't become a doctor or a lawyer. After years of effort, he's defined what personal success means to him. A sense of direction is what his parents have wanted for him all along. And now he's found it for himself.
