Magical Realism, Simulation Theory and Sinners
You can have my English lit degree for free
First of all, for ethical reasons, SPOILERS AHEAD. Don’t read unless you’ve seen Sinners!
Some say magical realism began with Christopher Columbus’ diaries. When he went to Cuba, Columbus wrote of the natives, “There were men with one eye, and others with dogs’ noses who ate other men, and that when they took a man, they cut off his head and drink his blood and castrated him.” Since then, it has become intwined with the South American literary tradition. Although the South American magical realist writers say that it is not really their choice to write in this register. The reality of South America is simply magical.
What you probably already know about magical realism: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, maybe Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, surrealism (you’re not sure if they’re related), everything is normal until something weird happens, ghosts, words you don’t understand are written in cursive.
What you might not know about magical realism: Academics have decided that it is Political and it is an Indigenous Act of Resistance.
Magical realism is actually more similar to simulation theory than to surrealism. Let me explain. Baudrillard came up with this lovely little book called Simulacra and Simulation. By simulacra he means things that everyone knows aren’t real, but we pretend they’re real. Like Quorn chicken nuggets, or the real estate market in New York, as shown in Friends. Art can be generally (although there are LOTS of exceptions) thought of as simulacrum. Now, simulation is where things get dicey. This is when something that is not real is presented as not real. Like, The Hunger Games. We know that there is no Hunger Games or District anything, right? Maybe you see where I’m going with this. The final term I’m going to use in this essay, and the most important term, is hyper-reality. This is when the simulation becomes more important than reality. We frequently point to the similarities between The Hunger Games and our current system of wealth distribution. When something shocking happens, we often say, “it was like something from a movie.” Influencers and Reality TV stars tell us that are being ‘real’ with us.
Hyperreality is very bad. It is how misinformation thrives and how the media is able to overwhelm us with information until we are paralysed with fear. It is how babies become TikTok stars and celebrities are asked about climate policy rather than experts.
One of the main issues that South American writers had with the European literary tradition of ‘the novel’, was its promise that the depiction is in fact reality. Zamora and Faris write about this, “Realism intends its version of the world as a singular version, as an objective (hence universal) representation of natural and social realities - in short, that realism functions ideologically and hegemonically.” (pg.3)1
One of the main differences between realism and magical realism is that magical realism “expects readers to accept - as opposed to ignore - the illusion of the fictional world as it were a part of their experienced reality.” (pg.78) This is why academics argue that magical realism is Political. I agree with them. Rather than further contribute to hyperreality, magical realist writers instead use bizarre and supernatural occurrences to shock the reader into realising that no novels are real. The only ‘real’ thing is the present moment. Speaking of the present, magical realism is particularly concerned with the past and how history is re-presented.
Oftentimes, the magical part of magical realist texts occurs when something traumatic happens. Arva2 talks about how although magical realism uses rich, sensual language, it rarely refers to the specifics of the violence that the author is referring to. Magical realism then is used as a way to process collective historical trauma.
And this is where Sinners comes in. This is Ryan Coogler’s first film that he both wrote and directed and its clear how his other movies have influenced him. We have the unreality, the magic, the bizarreness from Black Panther (2018, 2022) and the concern with history, the Black American experience and injustice from Judas and The Black Messiah (2021). The film follows Sammie (Miles Caton), a young musician working on a plantation in Mississippi in the 1930s. His twin cousins (Michael B. Jordan) come to town and the first half of the movie follows a day in their life as they work to open a jazz bar in an abandoned shed.
We are welcomed into a rich community, full of magic, superstition, wit and music. The Asian family who run the supermarket, the local witch (and one of the twins’ lovers), a fieldworker/bouncer called Cornbread and an old pianist playing for beer fill the screen with banter, colloquialisms and wonderful little details that make you forget you’re watching a movie. Yes, Coogler does with film what Márquez did with novels: he shows us the rich tapestry of an an eccentric, diverse and bustling community, amplifying the abundance and colour with mastery of his craft.
However, the real magic begins once the sun sets and Sammie starts to sing. Yes, I’m going to talk about That Scene. The one that might just win this film an academy award. In it, characters from past and present show up once the music begins and dance with the characters in the film. African tribe dancers, eighties rock gods, dancers wearing elaborate traditional Chinese formal wear glide delicately alongside modern-day D.J.’s wearing crop tops and over-ear headphones. The idea that music can invoke past and present ancestors is one that was common in Caribbean religions.3 Although I don’t know as much about it, I would imagine it was similar for Black people in the South of the United States as well. The reason for this was that when slaves were brought from Africa to America, the only way of preserving their African heritage and passing it down through the generation was through bodily actions rather than the written words. Hairstyles, rhythms, knowledge of nature and herbs to cure illnesses or to induce abortion, this is how history was preserved. So by singing the same kind of music sung by their ancestors, Black people in Mississippi in the 1930s were connecting with their African roots. I like that Coogler also transposes this idea onto other cultures as well. Particularly Ireland. He shows that music is a way of asserting your identity in a country desperately wanting to make you new.
Now its finally time to talk about vampires. Arva wrote about how many of the most traumatic and violent scenes in Márquez and Rushdie’s novels were ones that featured magic most heavily. She argues that magic is used as a way to process the unspeakable, to explain the horrific, to collectively move on from systemic injustice. This rings true for Sinners too. In the final third of the film, we find out that even if the vampires had never shown up, the ‘Klan’ had planned to burn down the bar anyway. Either way, everyone who dared to enjoy themselves in that bar would be dead by sunrise. However, by attributing the violence to paranormal forces, Coogler defies hyperrealism. He prevents his audience’s eyes by glazing over yet another story about racial violence in the South and instead shows them just how horrific this violence was by defamiliarising us. We don’t expect the villain to be a banjo wielding Paddy, and we don’t expect the hero to be an old drunk slitting his wrists. We are wide awake for the whole thing.
This is what makes the film great. This is what makes magical realism great. It connects history, community, eccentricity, trauma, the fantastic, the violent, the heroic. It is an epic register for the marginalised. It is a good time.
So that’s a brief introduction to magic realism, its themes and its concerns. If you enjoyed this type of thing, let me know in the comments below and maybe I’ll turn this into a kind of series where I give my undergraduate degree away for free.
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community (Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris)
Writing the Vanishing Real: Hyperreality and Magical Realism by Eugene L. Arva (2008)
For an example of this in literature, see Pauline Melville’s short story “Erzulie”.