Line #14 Film/MississippiBurning


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8	''Mississippi Burning'' is a 1988 film directed by Creator/AlanParker and [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory very loosely based]] on the investigation of the murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 Mississippi. Two FBI officers (Creator/GeneHackman, Creator/WillemDafoe) must work their way through a hotbed of county-wide lies and deceit, with little support from citizens, to solve the murders.
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11	!!This film provides examples of:
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13	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: After Anderson sings the Klan song to Ward (see VillainSong below), Ward says he's not laughing because he doesn't share Anderson's sense of humor. However, when Anderson tells him a joke a little later: "What has four eyes and can't see? Mississippi.", Ward does laugh at the joke.
14	* AnswerCut: After just another Klan raid on the black community, Ward is desperate and asks Anderson what he would do. The latter smiles. Cut to the next scene of an arranged meeting with young black boy Aaron who successfully persuades his friend into helping identify the culprits.
15	* AudienceMurmurs: At the KangarooCourt scene, the audience reacts with loud murmurs to the judge's words.
16	* AwkwardSilenceEntrance: The town bar goes silent when Ward decides to sit down next to one of the blacks.
17	* BadassBookworm: Agent Ward.
18	* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: During an attack at a black family's house, the Klan's members also set the barns on fire causing the animals inside to be burned alive. Frank Bailey also mentions that killing black people "wouldn't give it no more thought than wringing a cat's neck" impying that he could also be an animal abuser.
19	* BigDamnHeroes: Sadly subverted with the attacks on the black community, as none of the FBI agents are able to prevent these attacks.
20	* BigotWithABadge: Most of the local police force belongs to the Klan and is involved in the murders, as in RealLife.
21	* BitchInSheepsClothing: In public, Pell seems like a reasonable deputy who is just doing his job helping the white and black folks in town. In reality, he's just a hateful, racist BigotWithABadge who had just participated in the murders of the three Civil Rights workers.
22	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Klansmen get arrested...but they are given really minor sentences. Despite her home being trashed, Pell's wife insists on rebuilding her life. And the final shot, a desecrated graveyard, shows that hatred still burns in the state of Mississippi]].
23	* BlackAndGrayMorality: Toward the end, once the FBI adopts Anderson's preferred tactics, we get some gray shades into an otherwise overly [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white morality]] scheme.
24	* BookEnds: The movie starts and ends with a gospel song.
25	* BringMyBrownPants: Apparently Lester lost it during his faux hanging.
26	* BystanderSyndrome: Discussed when [[spoiler: the Mayor hangs himself]].
27	--> '''Agent Bird''': I don't understand why [[DrivenToSuicide he did it]]. He wasn't in on it. He wasn't even Klan.
28	--> '''Agent Ward''': Mr. Bird, (The Mayor) was guilty. Anyone's guilty who lets these things happen and pretends like it isn't. No, he was guilty all right. Just as guilty as the fanatics who pulled the trigger. Maybe we all are.
29	* ByTheBookCop: Agent Ward, [[spoiler:until Mrs. Pell's beating convinces him that playing by the book won't lead to justice]].
30	* IChooseToStay: Despite her home being trashed in retribution for testifying against the Klan, Mrs. Pell insists on staying in town, believing there are enough good people in town who know she did the right thing.
31	* CowboyCop: Agent Anderson.
32	* DangerouslyCloseShave: The FBI agent played by Gene Hackman intimidates Clinton Pell - a local deputy sheriff and member of TheKlan - who was getting a shave by replacing the barber.
33	* DangerTakesABackseat: How they kidnap the Mayor in his car.
34	* DeepSouth: The film is set in Mississippi and tackles racism and corrupt hicks.
35	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The film illustrates the Ku Klux Klan-dominated atmosphere of 1960s Mississippi with the antagonists frequently shouting racial slurs and performing cross burnings.
36	* DirtyCop: The Mississippi police always turns a blind eye on the Klan's terrorist tactics. Some of the officiers are even part of it.
37	* DirtyCoward: Pell. The entire film, he makes vague threats, insinuations about how he's untouchable, and basically is a rude, obstructive asshat to everyone who comes into town, especially regarding the case of the missing three civil rights activists. Never once, in the entire film, does he ever show a spine. The moment it becomes clear that someone has the guts to stand up to him, and his boss [[spoiler:and the Klan]] isn't around to protect him, he folds in on himself like a paper bag in the rain. To say nothing of [[spoiler:the beatdown he gets from Anderson, who made it clear he'd cut his throat with a razor blade if he felt it was necessary.]] Many of the other Klansmen are also like this. [[spoiler: Mayor Tillman also prefers to hang himself than face justice.]]
38	* DomesticAbuse: [[spoiler: Pell brutally beats his wife when he finds out he helped the FBI.]]
39	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:The Mayor]].
40	* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:Frank Bailey, one of the other Klan members, looks uncomfortable while watching Pell beat his wife]].
41	* FalseFlagOperation: After he talks to the feds, Lester gets attacked by fellow supremacists in shrouds, chased out into the woods, and strung up. The FBI agents arrive just in time, chase off the attackers, and save him, telling him he was lucky he was being monitored. They convince him they won't always get there in the nick of time, and that he'd better testify against the others and receive protection from the government. [[spoiler: Of course, the attackers are feds in disguise.]]
42	* FatBastard: The oversized and cocky Sheriff Stuckey.
43	* GoodPolicingEvilPolicing: The local sheriff's department is in bed with TheKlan, while the FBI is trying to bring the racist murderers to justice.
44	* GoryDiscretionShot: The headshot in the opening scene is not shown directly. All we see is the blood splattering on the co-driver's face.
45	* GreenEyedMonster: Anderson talks about his own father, who poisoned a black man's mule because he couldn't stand the idea of a black man being better off than him.
46	* GroinAttack: Anderson inflicts one on a Klansman.
47	* HesJustHiding: InUniverse, the police who helped murder the three civil rights workers [[BlatantLies fraudulently claim the kids are hiding out somewhere]]. [[TruthInTelevision This was an actual conspiracy theory proposed by many white supremacists]] including Mississippi's own Senator James Eastland.
48	* HighHeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Deputy Pell]]'s wife [[spoiler:informs on TheKlan. She gets beaten up for it, but survives]].
49	* IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: Ward warns Anderson to not go after Clinton Pell who just beat the hell out of his wife for ratting out the location of the bodies.
50	-->'''Ward''': I'm telling you to stop. We're not killers. The difference between them and us.
51	* ItsPersonal: Agent Anderson loses his cool after [[spoiler:Mrs. Pell, to whom he was attracted, is beaten by TheKlan for being an informant]].
52	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Anderson applies this technique in order to get his suspects to talk. Ward is not fond of this approach as coercion wouldn't hold up in court. But it turns out Anderson only uses the testimonies to play the Klan members against each other.
53	* JurisdictionFriction: Justified, because many of the cops [[spoiler:are [[DirtyCop in league with]] the Ku Klux Klan]].
54	* KangarooCourt: Several Klansmen are tried for arson in a local court that has ''no'' intention of imposing any real punishment for the crime.
55	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Sheriff Stuckey manages to be acquitted in Federal Court in the conviction montage at the end of the movie. And none of the others get more than ten years in prison despite committing a triple homicide.]]
56	* TheKlan: Featured prominently as the villains.
57	* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: There is a KickTheDog moment during the nightly attack on the church members. One of the Klan members kicks the black boy while the latter lies wailing on the ground.
58	* LaserGuidedKarma: The crooked mayor (played by Creator/RLeeErmey) gets this in the form of a black FBI informant who after [[LetMeTellYouAStory telling him the story]] of a teenager who was castrated by a couple of Klansmen, threatens to castrate him if he doesn't talk. Lester Cowans ''almost'' is [[spoiler: lynched by his fellow Klansmen who think he will talk. It was actually FBI agents disguised as Klansmen in order to scare him into talking]].
59	* LetMeTellYouAStory: The ScaryBlackMan intimidates the kidnapped mayor by telling him a story about the [[CripplingCastration violent castration]] of a fellow black man by white supremacists. And then he makes moves to perform the same action on the mayor, which [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique gets him to talk]].
60	* [[spoiler: MayorPain: Mayor Tilman, who covers up all the Klan's crimes and is racist like the rest of the villains.]]
61	* MightyWhitey: Played straight and averted. The two FBI agents who come in to speak on the behalf of those oppressed and end up bringing national attention to the situation in the South. In truth, the civil rights movement in the area was already thriving and FBI agents investigated the Klan only under heavy pressure from the President. They end up saving the day, but equally the movie makes clear that initially no one nationally really cares and to the extent that anyone cares it is because two white northern men were murdered. Blacks in the movie also show suspicion of outsiders and make clear they are more than capable of helping themselves and willing to defend themselves - but with the system against them they encounter set back after set back and the FBI is there to help - very slowly and incompletely - tip the balance more toward them so they can get some justice.
62	* MissXPun: One of the Federal agents tells the other that Mississippi stood for Miss Is Hippie.
63	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Many of Ward's well-intentioned, by-the-book actions early in the film make the white population of Jessup County feel angry and threatened, which only makes matters worse for the black community. Anderson calls him out on this, to no avail (at least initially).
64	* NonActionBigBad: Clayton Townley is the Grand Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan but he just orders the attacks and murders on the black community without taking part in them. Anderson also lampashades this mentioning that Grand Wizards never get their hands dirty.
65	* ObviousStuntDouble: Once Anderson begins beating Pell in the barber shop, it's clear that it's not Creator/BradDourif in a lot of the shots of him being thrown about the room; when he gets tossed over a bench, a very obviously balding stunt double has replaced the fully-haired Dourif.
66	* OddCouple: The two agents have a different approach to their police work which creates friction between them.
67	* OldCopYoungCop: Anderson and Ward, although Ward is apparently Anderson's superior.
68	* PoliticallyCorrectHistory:
69	** It seems very unlikely that whites in 1964 Mississippi would sit and eat in the same restaurant with blacks -- even allowing for segregated sections. Black folks couldn't come in and sit down and order a meal. The most they could do was to order food for carry-out, and then stand at the end of the lunch counter and wait to receive it.
70	** FBI agents as heroes to the Civil Rights Movement. As most historians know, J. Edgar Hoover was no fan of the movement in RealLife and the agency in fact took several notable measures to undermine and sabotage the movement (although individual agents as depicted here, of course, may have had differing views on the situation). On the other hand, the FBI would end up disrupting the Klan and its operations with its COINTELPRO program, but that was something that took place shortly after the murders in Mississippi. Upon its release, Coretta Scott King and the NAACP condemned the film for this reason.
71	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The white supremacist villains.
72	* RansackedRoom: Pell's house at the end. It is inferred that the "Klan" and their followers trashed her place to tell her she's not welcome anymore after breaking the code of silence.
73	* RousseauWasRight: Despite the above, Pell's wife [[IChooseToStay insists on staying and rebuilding her life]], claiming most people in her town are decent enough to acknowledge she did the right thing. She discusses this in an earlier scene.
74	-->'''Mrs. Pell''': It's ugly. This whole thing is so ugly. Have you any idea what it's like to live with all this? People look at us and only see bigots and racists. Hatred isn't something you're born with. It gets taught. At school, they said segregation was said in the Bible... Genesis 9, Verse 27. At 7 years of age, you get told it enough times, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live it... you breathe it. You marry it.
75	* ScaryBlackMan: The FBI brings in a professional Scary Black Man to intimidate the corrupt mayor into revealing who committed a hate crime.
76	* TheSheriff: Jessup County's sheriff does ''not'' appreciate FBI interference in his county's affairs, [[spoiler:since he's in league with the Klan himself]].
77	%%* TheSixties: The film is set in the summer of 1964, where the real-life murders and FBI investigations took place.
78	* SmugSnake: All of the Klan members, who despite being cocky and dismissive of the FBI, start cracking as the FBI pours on the pressure.
79	* SoundtrackDissonance: The lovely hymn "When We All Get To Heaven", played over the scenes of yet another vicious Klan attack.
80	* SouthernGothic: While nothing supernatural is going on, the film has such a heavy and oppressive atmosphere that at times it borders on becoming a southern gothic.
81	* StoicSpectacles: Agent Ward.
82	* StoppedClock: Ward mentions in passing that they found a wristwatch in the car which stopped at 12:45.
83	* TantrumThrowing: The ScaryBlackMan throws a coffee cup against the wall during his interrogation of the mayor.
84	* TattooedCrook: [[spoiler:The Mayor has tattoos on his forearms, probably from military service, and he's a CorruptPolitician]].
85	* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Anderson and Ward don't like each other, or approve of each other's methods, but they still work together, to the point when the mayor threatens Ward over his investigation, Anderson threatens him right back.
86	* TownWithADarkSecret: Three people were murdered and half the townspeople are in on it.
87	* TrainEscape: The two FBI agents are cut off by a train during their pursuit of some Klan members. The delay causes them to arrive late to prevent the mutilation of the black boy in the forest.
88	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The film is InspiredBy the murder of voting rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman by the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan. The similarities to the real murder case end there. For example, in the movie they bring in a special black agent who threatens to castrate the mayor to get him to tell where the bodies are located. In reality, it was a case of offering a substantial reward, one which Highway Patrolman Maynard King took up, and informed the FBI of the location of the bodies and the perpetrators.
89	* VillainSong: Anderson playfully sings a Klan song while he and Ward drive into Mississippi.
90	--> Now, I'm listening you communists, niggas and jews
91	--> Tell all your buddies to spread the news
92	--> Cause the day of judgement will soon been nigh
93	--> As the lord in his wisdom looks down from high
94	--> Will his battle be lost by mixing the races
95	--> We want beautiful babies, not ones with brown faces
96	--> Never, never, never, never, I say
97	--> Cause the Ku Klux Klan is here to stay:
98	--> Never, never, never, never, I say
99	--> Cause the Ku Klux Klan is here to stay:
100	--> '''Anderson''': I hope these Ku Kluxers are better at lynchings than they are at lyrics.
101	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: TheKlan appears to be this among the white citizens of Jessup County, although [[spoiler:Mrs. Pell]] probably isn't the only one who doesn't like the violence but is too frightened to speak up.
102	* VomitingCop: When seeing the buried bodies at the dam, one of the agents steps aside and vomits.
103	* WindowPain: The Klan sends a message to the two agents by shooting a hole into the window of their apartment. It also happens later to Lester.
104	* WouldHitAGirl: [[spoiler:Deputy Pell beats up his wife when he finds out that she has helped the FBI.]] Also applies to several Klan members who brutally attacked the churchgoers, which included one savagely kicking a woman while she was on the ground.
105	* WouldHurtAChild: A Klansman (possibly Frank Bailey) shows no remorse in kicking Aaron in his face while threatening to kill him if he talks to the FBI again. And ''this'' was when Aaron was praying to God for forgiveness. He kicks him again after finishing threatening him.

Context Film / MississippiBurning