The Wisdom of Black Snake Moan

Andras Jones

[The New Masculine] • The story of a southern nymphomaniac named Rae (Christina Ricci) who is beset by erotic fits, the movie Black Snake Moan is particularly notable for Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of Lazarus the elder blues man who, upon discovering Ricci’s beaten, unconscious and half-naked body out front of his rural home one morning, takes it upon himself to "cure her of her wickedness" by chaining her to a radiator in his house. Ricci, in yet another iconic turn in her strange and brilliant career, spends half the movie in her underwear racked with erotic conniptions and Jackson gives one of the best actor-playing-music performances you are going to find on film. It’s a button pushing and pulpy concept and one which particularly lends itself to the blues milieu in which it is set.

On an archetypal level Black Snake Moan offers a clever exploration of some important aspects of the divine masculine, particularly in Jackson’s Lazarus, a man who courageously and audaciously holds space for the emergence of the divine feminine. At grave personal risk to himself Lazarus takes Rae in, nurses her back to health, and when she awakes from her physical illness, insists that she take the whole cure, in the form of the chain, and heal her spirit. Within the conceits of the film it could be said that Lazarus tames a bad girl and makes her good but on another level you could say that he provides the solid masculine force for Rae to push against as she takes ownership of her power.

I am sure that there is much to be troubled by in the story of a man who chains a half-naked young woman to a radiator, and yet I could not help but be moved by this film. I know that I have often felt the woman in my life wanting me to boldly take charge of a situation, even as a more vocal aspect of her seemingly makes it clear that she wants to bolt or fight or fuck it all to hell. It’s not easy to know when it is time to say as Jackson’s character does in the film, “I will not be moved.” To know when taking charge is the generous thing to do and to be able to step up to this fatherly role with compassion, is one of the important lessons for the new masculine. In Lazarus as played by Jackson we have an entertaining role model in this regard.

I find it interesting that the filmmakers give Ricci’s character a boyfriend who represents an altogether different and wounded aspect of the new masculine. Justin Timberlake plays a soldier who has panic attacks, a sensitive man playing at being a tough guy and failing miserably. Enraged at Ricci’s infidelities, he still knows that her energetic power is his salvation, and it is. This football star, American hero, wanna-be good old boy is lucky to have such a slut for girlfriend, and lucky that she found such a good black daddy to take her in hand. Such is the wonderfully subversive logic of Black Snake Moan.

For all it’s many charms Black Snake Moan is surprisingly puritanical, which is kind of hypocritical considering that what sells the movie for mass consumption is Ricci’s nubile form, but in a way even this is in keeping with the spirit of the blues that underpins the film. Balancing the sacred with the profane in twelve bars of lurid righteous beauty.