Mary says nothing but is clearly displeased with Solomon's outburst, yet it is quickly silenced by Edwin, who laughs at the idea of 'sin' against a slave. Mary further provokes her husband's temper by suggesting Solomon is making a fool of him, prompting Edwin to take the whip back and beat Patsy nearly to death with it.ĭuring this beating Solomon angrily proclaims that God will punish Edwin for his cruelty. At first Edwin forces Solomon to whip Patsy for him, which Mary finds objectionable but allows until she realizes Solomon is holding back. When Edwin begins to falter, Mary decides to push the matter and takes his pride to force him into acting. In the end, Mary's rivalry with Patsy comes to a dramatic and horrifying conclusion when Patsy is caught stealing soap, prompting Mary to demand that Edwin whip her for it. She proceeds to tell him not to concern himself with anything other than manual work and warns him that any further attempts to educate himself will result in twenty lashes. Solomon lies and says he can read but has 'no understanding of the written word'. She even asks him if he knows how to read or write. Mary has brief interactions with Solomon and, while generally dismissive of him, is intuitive enough to detect that he seems more intelligent than other slaves. She is especially threatened by Patsy, Edwin's 'favorite', and thus is particularly cruel to her she beats Patsy, demands Edwin punish her, and generally inflicts as much pain as possible upon her.

She is also aware that Edwin frequently rapes their female slaves, whom she sees as her rivals rather than his victims. She is aware of her husband's uncontrollable rage and violence, which she often encourages. Mary, the matriarch of the Epps plantation, holds her status as a lady of high class in very high regard. Zara in Abominable, Diane Sherman in Run, and Mildred Ratched in Ratched. Ellie Staple in Glass, Sally McKenna, Ally Mayfair-Richards, Bette and Dot Tattler, and Wilhelmina Venable in American Horror Story, Anne Gillette in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Dr. She was portrayed by Sarah Paulson, who also portrayed Dr. She is the wife of the main antagonist Edwin Epps, who neglects his wife in favor of one of the female slaves Patsey, whom he abuses and rapes regularly, causing Mary to abuse Patsey as well out of envy. Mary Epps is the secondary antagonist of the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave.

If you won't stand for me, I pray you'd at least be a credit to your own kind and beat every foul thought from 'em! It’s sometimes too talkative, but it’s visually and emotionally compelling. There’s fine support from Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti and Lupita Nyongo, among many others, but the film belongs to Ejiofor and Fassbender and their battle of moral wills. Much later, Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) tried to redress the idealistic balance but simplistically showed the slaves as noble savages, rather than complex humans. Perhaps it was always going to take a black director to get the picture of slavery focussed correctly. Selznick made his epic Gone With the Wind (1939), Joseph Breen at the Hollywood Production Code Administration fretted upon the lusty embraces of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, and over Butler’s earthy wording, ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,’ but the movie’s soft-toned portrait of slavery didn’t bother Breen one bit.ĭW Griffith’s masterly, but morally suspect, Birth of a Nation (1915) effectively blamed the bloody rupture of the American Civil War on Abolitionist agitators and “uppity shines”, a view endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson. One wary producer told Ford: “If you make a film about n*****s, only n*****s will pay to see it.” In the 1950s, John Ford tried to raise cash for a biopic of Frederick Douglass but found no funding. This follows on from 2013, when Spielberg’s Lincoln and Tarantino’s Django Unchained spotlighted one of American history’s most wounding legacies.ĭespite its inherent drama, American cinema has mostly skirted slavery.

Edwin epps 12 years a slave