When we talked about the similarities of civil movements between 1968 and 2020, it became clear that history repeats itself. The ability for the story of The Informer, both the novel and film, to be uprooted with a and set to a totally different country and context in Uptight, and still use a similar plot and underlying themes, and have it still be very applicable, stood out to me even more. History definitely repeats itself. Watching Uptight, it was shocking for me to understand how a story about two former Irish Republican Army members, and their story about ideology, betrayal, and poverty be so applicable to two black revolutionaries in Cleveland, Ohio almost 30 years later. If you watched Uptight without knowing about its creation, you would not even be able to tell that it was an updated version of the Informer. You would think it was original story based on the protests after the assassination of MLK. The Afro-American and Irish situations were not the same, however, there were shocking similarities. Every country is connected, making it inevitable for history to repeat itself.
The hopelessness of Afro-Americans felt in Uptight, I believe, is still felt today. MLK was the leader of The Civil Rights movement in 1969, at least as how history and media portrays it. I believe there is hopelessness in the current BLM movement, because there is no ‘face’ of the movement. The protests nation wide, beginning with the death of George Floyd has seen very little success in instilling any kind of long-lasting policy change. We see police violence against blacks and deaths of protesters everyday, and it is heartbreaking to say that it surprises no one. While social media has been instrumental in informing the world about the BLM movement and the injustices felt by Afro-Americans currently, social media cannot be the leader of the BLM movement. There have been many influential people to speak up about the importance of ending racial injustice in America, but there seems to be no change. It saddens me that in the current political climate, leaders of the country are more interested in being re-elected than addressing and correcting the racial injustices plaguing Afro-Americans.
If no policy changes occur to aid the BLM, history will keep repeating itself.
I think there’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying. History does in a way repeat itself. However, I feel that this repetition has more so to do with themes than details or specific happenings. Though civil rights are still being fought for today, there’s so much that’s changed between the movement with MLK and today. People haven’t really changed much, but issues, technologies, and standards constantly shift. One can legitimately question a person like King’s effectiveness in today’s world. The problems and rhetoric used to address civil rights has shifted and they continue to change. Though there are key points that align throughout time, I argue that the logistics and the issues themselves become altogether different. I think it’s a somewhat unfair comparison to say that what’s happening now is all but so similar to back then. Regardless though, there’s still a lot that can be learned from these events and there’s plenty of comparisons that can be drawn. So, in a way I agree, but I think it’s important not to overgeneralize in order to best address what’s been going on.
I wrote a post similar to this at the beginning of the semester, because I firmly believe that history repeats itself, and therefore I hoped to gain from this class an understanding of the parallels between today and 1968. I enjoyed reading your post because I think you felt a similar way that I did at the beginning of the class, but added to it using texts that we’ve dived into. I think you made a really good point when comparing Uptight to The Informer in that without seeing the latter, you might think that Uptight was an original story. I found it intriguing while watching Uptight that it could stay totally true to the atmosphere of the time (Cleveland in the 1960s), while simultaneously being true to its story’s roots ( Dublin in the 1920s). I’m hopeful that as this class progresses, we will be able to find more parallels between 1968 and today, in hope of learning from the experiences of 68ers to try to better orient ourselves amongst the today’s turmoil. I would be interested to know if the creators of Uptight felt a similar way when modeling their movie off the experiences of those who came before them.