Recent Reading: The Green Mile

I think the story is quite engaging, but Spike Lee criticized the movie in 2001 as an example of the magical negro — a black man who uses his magic powers to solve the white man’s problems. It is an interesting question to ask how the story would be different if John Coffey were white. Or how would the story be different if all the characters in the prison were women; there is a large and growing number of incarcerated women in this country.