'The Six Triple Eight' Film is not as Authentic as it Seems

The World War II film ‘The Six Triple Eight’, written and directed by Tyler Perry, has been trending in Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the UAE since its release on Friday and for good reason.

Perry pays tribute to the service of the 6888th Central Postal Directory battalion of the US Women’s Army Corps (WAC), which was the first predominantly African-American women’s battalion sent overseas during World War II.  The battalion was tasked with sorting millions of backlogged mail for US soldiers in Europe within six months, but they completed the task within three months. They were given this task because the letters would provide US soldiers with a vital boost of morale during the war.

The film opens with a battle in 1943 where a plane is shot down. The pilot, Abram David, dies on the spot, but he leaves behind a bloodied letter at which point the film goes a year back revealing the story behind the letter. This part of the film develops the emotional backstory of an individual female officer, Lena Derriecot (Ebony Obsidian), from the battalion. This emphasizes the significance of the battalion’s job which is to help the soldiers connect with their loved ones.

The film shows the journey of Lena and her friends as they train as soldiers and are eventually sent to Europe to get this job done. In Scotland, their real struggle begins; first, they have to march immediately after arriving on the dock, despite coming from a tumultuous journey.

Second, they are allocated to the King Edward’s School, which is completely in shambles. Nonetheless, the battalion’s leader, Major Charity Adams’ (Kerry Washinton), says “We are no strangers to making a shack a home” and the battalion gets to work. They clean up and renovate everything. This sequence shows that despite the terrible conditions, the battalion remains steadfast and resilient to turn the situation around.

‘The Six Triple Eight’ sheds light on the systematic discrimination the black women of the battalion face. This is highlighted through Major Adams’ role, who struggles to prove her and her battalion’s mettle to their senior white officers, but they are constantly demeaned because of their race and gender. At first, Adams takes the blows, but when General Halt tells her she will be removed from the unit, Adams firmly says, “Over my dead body, sir,” which the real Major Adams was famed for saying. She adds, “I know we are fighting a war, but our war starts with being Negro. We are fighting on every front.”

Although, Perry took on an enormous task with directing this film, the story has been reduced to a compact and uncomplicated narrative that does not do justice to the actual story of the 6888^th Battalion. In the film, the battalion’s work in Europe begins in the second half of the film, which leaves it with little time to cover so much. Despite, the characters addressing the issues they face with sorting the mail, the terrible working conditions, and the attacks during the war, it is not visually shown in the film. This lack of depth undermines what the battalion struggled against to complete this daunting task, instead the viewer is given a romanticized version that barely touches these issues.

The biggest issue with the film is its management of systematic racism and sexism. The film constantly shows a white officer coming in and humiliating them. These characters are one-dimensional and heavily based on stereotypes; the characters from the battalion silently take their insults or have confrontations with them. Perry’s perspective of this issue lacks nuance, which is much needed to highlight the problems with the discriminatory nature of the US army during that time.

Since the film is based on a real-life story, the director should have experimented with the medium as well. Perry could have juxtaposed pictures, footage, and letters from real life with the film’s narrative, to give the film an authentic feel. Without this, the narrative feels like an event that occurred outside of the war, which characters link back to only through words, not with the difficult experiences of that time or place.

If ‘The Six Triple Eight’ was made to pay tribute to a black battalion of WAC, the film half-heartedly fulfils its purpose.