Why I’ll Never Watch “The Green Mile” Again

I was asked why “The Green Mile” is a beloved movie I’ll never watch again. OK, I’ll go there.

There are two tropes that King uses: the “magical” and “sacrificial” Negro images: a solitary black character who gives his life to ennoble (and sexualize) a white character. But in the book, the title represents life itself, a “Green Mile” that none of us survive. Fine. I rolled with that. But there is a major difference between book and film.

In the book, Tom Hanks’ guard SUSPECTS that John Coffey might be innocent, and tries very hard to get someone to listen: the warden, the governor, etc. He fails.

In the movie, he KNOWS Coffey is innocent, but does NOTHING to try to save him. Oh, yes, Coffey says he’s tired of living. Sob sob. Who wouldn’t? In my opinion, this is where, if the film-makers had valued his life, Hanks gives an inspirational speech that inspires Coffey to live. Or breaks him out of prison (as they broke him out to heal Hanks’ wife) and get him across the state line, where he sees a beautiful dawn for the first time in years, and cries with joy. If this had been a “Lassie” movie, and the pooch had been accused of biting Timmy, and she was about to be put down, the last act would have been Timmy waking up from his coma, telling them that Lassie had been protecting him from a wolf, and we’d have had a mad chase cross-town to save her.

They didn’t’ value his life at all. He existed as a symbol, not as a human being. They had ten minutes of stupid mouse…