Liam Neeson can go to hell. This statement may seem too harsh or too tame depending on what side of the fence you sit on, however this writer is standing firm in his conviction. During an interview with Clémence Michallon about Cold Pursuit, another bland and wildly unrealistic movie about a 60 year old man single-handedly toppling an international drug cartel, sentient pile of corn beef, Liam Neeson, revealed some wild fantasies. Sitting down with The Independent, Neeson made a parallel between the primal need for revenge his character felt in the movie, and his own personal life experience. He shared that a close friend of his was once raped, and that the only detail she could remember about her attacker was that he was Black. Neeson then decided to take matters into his own hand:
|“I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody – I’m ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could,” another pause, “kill him.”
Neeson had every intention of making an innocent Black person pay for the crimes of an anonymous assault. He claims to understand that his actions were wrong, however he couldn’t begin to understand how his racist fantasy coincides with the long history of criminalizing Black bodies. The image of Black people, particularly Black males, as brutes and ogres began to spread widely after slavery. A deep racial fear of miscegenation, which is sexual relations between different races, led to a number of laws, false accusations, propaganda and murders. White men positioned themselves as the protectors of white womanhood. The 1915 film The Birth of a Nation , which shows a heroic Ku-Klux-Klan crusading to kill monstrous Black rapists, was one of the most popular films of its time. This fear would also spill off the silver screen as race riots inspired by false accusations spread.
In 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a White woman accused a Black male of sexual assault, which caused a two day riot. Over 1000 angry rioters armed with weapons, killed 300 Black people and left 9,000 homeless as they burned property. In 1923 in Rosewood, Florida a woman claimed she was attacked by a Black male, and a mob would destroy a nearby Black town. Only nine would survive. The photos of Emmett Till’s bloated body remain a grisly reminder of the violence that is spurred from these racial fears.These accusations, whether real or imagined, were used as scapegoats to release anger and hatred upon Black bodies.
When Neeson talks about his “primal” need for revenge, and looking for any “black bastard” to provoke him so he may kill him, it echoes the same sentiments that caused these riots. Liam Neeson seems like a man who used his friend’s assault as an excuse to release some deep seated biases and racism. This is the same sort of racial fear that turns any and every Black body into a brute, a monster, or in more modern codes, thug or demon. So to double down, Liam Neeson can go to hell.
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