Amidst the daily onslaught of racist rhetoric and humanitarian atrocities plaguing the United States since even before the early stages of the 2016 election, Americans often wonder what the movie or television version of these past few years will look like when—or if—we ever come back from the insidious climate so many have become accustomed to.
Portland based media company Eleven Films literally just gave us a preview, and it's terrifying.
Presented in the format of a movie trailer, the film advertises "white nationalist domestic terrorism" as a suspense trailer, using actual clips from the last few years. Many of the selected clips are from last week alone, in which a shooter in El Paso, Texas killed 22 people in response to the so-called "Hispanic invasion of Texas." Last week also saw 680 people in Mississippi believed to be undocumented immigrants taken into custody, leaving their weeping children with no one to pick them up after school.
Watch the haunting "trailer" below:
Beginning with Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude's viral commentary last week on MSNBC, the trailer features pictures of Ku Klux Klan meetings and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) grinning in front of the Confederate flag. It shows white supremacist Richard Spencer bellowing "Hail Trump! Hail our people!" as supporters brandish Nazi salutes. It uses the heartbreaking moment of Heather Heyer's murder at the hands of a neo-Nazi during Charlottesville riots, two years ago today.
But it's not without reason to hope. After all, what movie doesn't have good guys?
The video features some of the most memorable moments of the resistance: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) noting the breadth and strength of the "squad" across the United States, 2020 presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke railing against President Donald Trump's rhetoric, Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris dancing in rainbow sequins at Pride, and other notable lawmakers fighting back against the spread of white supremacy across the nation.
Unlike most movies though, it's not assured which side will win. Because, as Eleven Films reminds viewers in the trailer, this isn't a movie. It's our lives.
Across the board, that's what people found so chilling about the minute and a half long video.
Calls to run the trailer across the networks for as many eyes as possible are growing.
Points like the ones made by Eleven Films are crucial and likely to grow over the long road toward the 2020 election. Hopefully, Americans will find themselves invigorated to vote against white supremacy, so that one distant day, this will finally be just a movie.
