The movie The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a true story of Holidays life and song career and how the singing of “Strange Fruit” got her into a lot of trouble. The movie starts off with an interview Billie is having with a white lady and the first question she asks after telling Billie how much she loves her is “what’s it like to be a colored woman” (2.45). This sets the tone to show how people of color were treated and defined by their skin. Throughout it we see the struggles that Black people encountered and the way it effected even Holiday as she was trying to show her view on the situation in America.
We see that because she sings the controversial song “Strange Fruit” she is targeted by the government because it is “un-american” and shows something negative going on in America. The FBI uses a Black agent to get her arrested and this shows how the government tries to pin Black people against their own community to “better” them. Even when she stops singing the song they still try and frame her because she is a strong Black women and that to the white man is a threat. Throughout the film we see how the white agent wants to take her down and multiple times plants drugs on her to do so. The whole film shows the injustices the Black community has to deal with daily.
The agent that had her arrested on her death bed was rewarded by JFK. “…earned for you the respect of the world community” (2:02:00). This tells us how white men are praised at the hands of Black lives. The film also shows us the lack of progression we have made on this injustice. Stated at the beginning of the movie it says, “In 1937 a bill to finally ban the lynching of African-Americans was considered by the senate. It did not pass” (1:00) and the movie ends by stating, “In February 2020, the Emmett Till anti-lynching act was considered by the senate. It has yet to pass” (2:03:00).
I think the director wanted us to think about the criminalization of Black Americans and the way systems are set up against them. This movie makes us think about how many times this has happened and how many people in power have hate on their mind. We also are shown that a century later we are still dealing with the same injustices, the question is what can we do to make the next century different.