The Center for the Study of Southern Culture’s SouthTalks series will screen “Jesus Was a Democrat” at 4 p.m. today in the Barnard Observatory.
The documentary follows Steve Holland, a former member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from Plantersville, as he moves out of his office in the State Capitol at the end of his political career.
Center for the Study of Southern Culture Director and McMullan Professor of Southern Studies and English Kathryn McKee offered a brief summary of the documentary.
“(‘Jesus Was a Democrat’) is about the unusual combination of two careers — state legislator and funeral home director — and the unexpected confluences between them,” McKee said. “The film’s subject, former Mississippi State Representative Steve Holland, will also be known to viewers as a central figure in the recently released Netflix documentary ‘The Kings of Tupelo’ and as the man who suggested, long before President Trump, that we rename the Gulf of Mexico.”
McKee clarified that Holland was only teasing when he suggested the rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
After the screening, McKee will interview Holland in front of audience members.
“I have known Steve Holland … for a long time,” McKee said. “I’m interested in hearing Steve talk about what it’s like to see his story on the screen. I’d like to know if watching it shows him elements of his own experience that he might not recognize otherwise.”
Rex Jones, the producer of the documentary, will also attend the event. Jones, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, said that it was a joy to work with Holland.
“Steve Holland is a gracious Southern gentleman and interviewer’s dream given his loquacity,” Jones said. “I knew very little about him going into the project, but I found him to be an open book and embodiment of the sacred and profane. You never knew which side you were going to get, but he was completely earnest in both.”
Jones and McKee acknowledged that the documentary has an inflammatory title, though they hope that viewers can look past this and take the film for what it is.
“The film’s title obviously attracts attention, but the film itself is much more wide ranging than that single line suggests,” McKee said.
Jones echoed McKee’s sentiments.
“We live in a time of great political polarization,” Jones said. “It is my hope that the film, despite its provocative title, can effect a little bit of positive change in bringing people together across ideological divides by revealing some universal truths that unite us: We all have hopes, dreams and fears, and we all have suffered disappointment and loss. Through it all, we each must try to be a blessing and not a curse.”
UM student Jacob Manrique, a freshman business and finance double major from Houston, also commented on the title of the documentary.
“I don’t know anything about it, but it sounds like an interesting and complex topic,” Manrique said.
McKee encouraged audiences to attend the event.
“This film is fun to watch,” McKee said. “Steve Holland is an entertaining storyteller but also a man who invested 35 years of his life in working for the people of Mississippi. It’s fascinating to watch the closing days of that career. Plus we get an inside look at both the Capitol and a coffin. Where else are you going to find that?”
Jones agreed with McKee’s endorsement of the documentary.
“If you’ve never heard Steve Holland live and unfiltered, this is a perfect chance to witness his formidable oratorical skills and meet a civic leader who, although you may not agree with his politics, has always put the least, the last and the most vulnerable (first),” Jones said.
