Candyman: A Critique of Black Capitalism in an American Horror Film
S. E. Anderson
A Critique of Black Capitalism in an American Horror Film
The film, Candyman (1992), is a Blaxploitation film, a reactional Black revenge story that seeks to challenge white racism, privilege, and supremacy in American society. Candyman, directed by Bernard Rose and starring Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen, was inspired by English horror novelist Clive Barker’s 1985 short story, The Forbidden. In the original narrative, Barker details neither Candyman’s origins nor his race. Therefore, the film is an adapted version of the British narrative that explores American race and sex relations to explain the presence of Candyman in an urban environment, while also critiquing society’s views about police, Black men, including the phenomenon of black capitalists, and white women in the development of the Black brute stereotype.
The film immediately identifies itself as modern folklore. The story follows Helen, a white Master’s student studying modern urban folklore, specifically stories that attribute murders to boogeymen instead of people. When Helen expands her research on local folklore in Black Chicago by interviewing her university’s cleaning staff, she is told of the legend of Candyman, Daniel Robitaille, and becomes highly interested in the story because she lives in proximity to the housing project he haunts: Cabrini-Green.
Over time, Helen learns that during the post-Reconstruction era, Robitaille was the son of a former slave who created a wonderful life for himself as a successful Black painter by crafting portraits for wealthy families until he had an affair with the daughter of a white landowner and patron. The woman became pregnant, and her father decided to exact his revenge on Robitaille by rallying a white mob to torture and murder him. In the process of the attack, the rioters sawed off Robitaille’s hand, shoved a hook into his arm, stripped him naked, and spread a honeycomb from a nearby hive across his body. Then the bees from the hive stung Daniel to death and his body was burned on a pyre right where Cabrini-Green stands today. Thus, Candyman and his legend were born. White people lynched Candyman for impregnating a white woman, which according to her father, could only be the result of rape. Candyman, both the character and film, reconstructs white fears of Black men in society.
Helen’s apartment at Lincoln Village was originally part of the Cabrini-Green project, but the city allowed private companies to purchase some of the buildings and convert them into private apartments and condos to better redline and gentrify the neighborhood. Candyman was said to haunt Cabrini-Green, killing people when summoned. Most recently, Candyman killed a woman named Ruthie Jean. In her apartment, Helen says Candyman’s name to summon him and prove to Bernadette, her thesis partner, that she does not believe in the legend.
Helen and Bernadette later visit Cabrini-Green to better investigate and understand the Candyman phenomenon. Helen finds Ruthie Jean’s apartment which is filled with graffiti, candy, and razor blades to signify Candyman’s presence there and the audience can assume that this is the final nail in her coffin, because Candyman has now undoubtedly taken notice of her disrespect. Helen finds that the community at Cabrini-Green has in many ways been abandoned by their society. She believes that they attribute assaults and murders to Candyman because of their isolation. Anne-Marie McCoy, a mother Bernadette and Helen meet at Cabrini-Green, echoes the feeling of abandonment when she describes calling the police as she heard Ruthie Jean scream, but no one came to her rescue. However, Anne-Marie believes Candyman is the murderer. Nevertheless, the convoluted story of Candyman is intrinsically tied to racism in Chicago.
Another recent assault attributed to Candyman is the castration of a boy in a bathroom at the project. Helen is led to the bathroom by a boy and resident named Jake, where she is assaulted by the man who has been acting under the alias “Candyman.” She identifies her assaulter, and he is soon arrested. This moment in the film is very indicative of this society’s priorities. There had been two other murders done by this impersonator, which had gone unnoticed, but her assault resulted in Cabrini-Green being locked down. The fake candyman expected his murders would go unsolved because the police were not typically concerned with the murders of Black people. The only reason he is arrested is because he assaulted a white woman. American society is concerned with the protection of white women, and it is unconcerned about Black people dying.
Interestingly, in the film, Helen’s husband Trevor, who is a Semiotics professor, gives a class lecture on myths and legends, stating that these stories represent society’s fears: “These stories are modern oral folklore. They are the unselfconscious reflection of the fears of urban society.” This statement reflects Candyman’s story as well. It reflects society’s fear of Black men along with white racial guilt and shame over slavery. Candyman is an example of a Black man who was killed for the protection of a white woman, who did not need protection in the first place. White urban society had and still fears integration and interracial mixing. Nevertheless, this lesson outlined the theme for the film to follow as Candyman represents the fear of Black men raping white women, casting Candyman as a classic Black brute.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Black men like George Meadows, Dick Rowland, and Emmett Till were falsely arrested and lynched for all types of reasons, but the most common crime they were accused of was rape, specifically of white women.
Cultural norms, Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws placed white women under the control of white men and forced them into subservience. White women were given the advantage of being white in a white society. Moreover, white men who subscribed to the cult of domesticity and white supremacist ideology viewed white women as fragile, naive, childlike, and indecisive beings who should not be communally granted the agency to consent to a relationship with a Black man. Candyman is a classic Black Brute stereotype and his obsession with wanting to kill Helen is an allegory for rape. Candyman is portrayed as embodying a key feature of a brute: the ability to commit an animalistic and predatory murder that destroys his innocence and reconstructs postbellum racist ideologies. As sociologist and founder of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery David Pilgrim explained, “Black brutes are depicted as hideous, terrifying predators who target helpless victims, especially white women.” Therefore, by framing Candyman as a violent rapist, the film’s producers revictimized both Candyman and his former lover for their consensual relationship that was unnecessarily criminalized. Later in the film, the plot alludes to Helen being the reincarnation of Candyman’s former white love. This is the reason Candyman is so aggressive with his advances and why he has been torturing her throughout the film. He believes that if Helen is killed in the same gruesome way, he and his former love’s spirit will live together for eternity.
Candyman is attracted to Helen, and her opposition to his advances paints a very obvious yet twisted picture of attempted rape. Helen’s obsession with Candyman, along with the murders he commits in her name, particularly the killing of her friend Bernadette, lands Helen in police custody and a psychiatric ward. When she gets strapped down in the ward, she even screams, “I can’t defend myself.” Candyman appears and taunts Helen, saying, “Allow me at least a kiss, Just one exquisite kiss.” Helen is clearly scared, and the sexual nature of this exchange is reminiscent of a rape.
Helen eventually escapes the ward (with the help of Candyman) and returns home to discover her husband’s infidelity. She leaves, considers suicide, and then visits Cabrini-Green once more to find a baby named Anthony that Candyman kidnapped from the mother she met at the project, Anne-Marie. When Helen encounters Candyman in his lair, he corners her and begs her to join him in the afterlife. During this interaction, Candyman places Helen on a pedestal and makes sexual overtures to her with his hook, and as he kisses her, bees from his mouth swarm her body. Candyman, Helen, and the baby represent the family and life Robitaille wanted. However, Candyman is no longer worthy of this family because of the crimes he committed, so Helen and the baby are later able to escape him and the bonfire project residents organized to destroy Candyman for good. Helen saves the baby but eventually dies from a combination of her final encounters with Candyman and suffering severe burns and smoke inhalation at the bonfire. The community of Cabrini-Green, led by Anne-Marie, later honored Helen by attending her funeral. When Helen’s grieving husband summons her the same way Candyman was throughout the film, she comes back to life as the new Candyman and murders him with a hook.
Ultimately, from this cinematic interpretation of Candyman, we see a critique of Black capitalism. Although Robitaille was a member of the Black petite bourgeoisie, he was still lynched. In the modern-day, Candyman has the power to terrorize anyone and he declares that he commits these atrocities to be remembered, which is a poignant commentary about the thousands of lynched Black people who we don’t remember today. Regardless of class status, their deaths were largely overlooked by white society. Lynchings exemplified how the Black community would never be truly protected by its government. Black people acknowledged those they lost, but they had no redress for the crimes committed against them. Helen displayed her hubris when she summoned Candyman and repeated that she did not believe he was real. Her denial of his existence further pulled him towards her. Candyman states that his power and his existence on the earthly plain come from people believing in and fearing his existence. Nevertheless, Candyman’s attacks on Helen and others who ignored and denied his existence caused his vengeance to keep his story alive. ///
s. e. anderson
author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners
www.blackeducator.org
"If WORK was good for you, the rich would leave none for the poor." (Haiti)
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