God Save Texas Review: Shedding Light on America’s Most Conflicted State

God Save Texas takes viewers on an enlightening tour of the massive and complex state. Inspired by Lawrence Wright’s book delving into the Texan soul, this three-part HBO docuseries enlists some homegrown directing talent. Renowned indie filmmaker Richard Linklater, documentary director Alex Stapleton, and border storyteller Iliana Sosa each lend their perspectives.

Over nearly five hours, their combined efforts peel back the layers on major aspects of Texas life. From Linklater’s examination of the troubling prison system to Stapleton uncovering racial injustice in the oil business to Sosa revealing the human impacts of discrimination along the Mexican border, no stone is left unturned. The trio tackle these weighty topics with both care and candor, aided by Wright’s recurring presence asking thoughtful questions.

While certainly not shying away from the state’s vast imperfections, God Save Texas ultimately aims to foster greater understanding on all sides of these complex issues. It confronts the lingering darkness while still allowing light to shine through. This makes for an eye-opening trip through the Lone Star State that informs as much as it challenges preconceived notions.

Reckoning with the Death Penalty at Home

In the first episode, acclaimed director Richard Linklater returns to his hometown of Huntsville, Texas to reckon with its integral role in state’s prolific use of capital punishment. With seven prisons, including the infamous one housing death row, the town’s economy relies heavily on incarceration. This might explain the cognitive dissonance Linklater captures when chatting with old high school friends and current students. To them, the constant presence of prisons blends into the backdrop of everyday life.

But Linklater scratches at this dark underside. Alongside author Lawrence Wright, he conducts piercing interviews with past and present employees of the prison system. Their firsthand accounts reveal the trauma of directly facilitating executions. We hear of guards’ sympathies for inmates and anti-death penalty advocates’ tireless dedication. The conversations bring sobering insight into the moral crisis taking place down the road from where Linklater grew up playing sports.

As he drives around town, more personal connections emerge. Linklater points out various locations that inspired his coming-of-age films. This underscores how the specter of capital punishment lurked just out of frame. Visually, he takes us inside the execution chamber itself. Descriptions of events leading up to and during lethal injections prove deeply affecting. So too do readings of final correspondence between inmates and loved ones.

Linklater marshals this all with subtle mastery, never inserting his own views unnecessarily. The matter-of-factness of his subjects’ words resounds louder than any emotional pleas could. He recognizes that the practice has become so normalized as to seem beyond reproach. But the faint hopes expressed by activists outside prison gates on execution days show the end may still be in sight.

The Buried Costs of Texas Tea

Director Alex Stapleton takes us on an illuminating road trip to Houston, the epicenter of the state’s all-powerful oil industry. Through conversations with her own family members, she unravels how the Texas Tea that fueled dazzling economic growth systematically excluded Black communities.

Stapleton examines the roots of this injustice, stemming from Texas holding onto slavery until the bitter end. The state sought to preserve the cheap labor that drove the early cotton trade. Later, oppressive policies like redlining, segregation, and environmental racism carried this disenfranchisement over to the petroleum sector.

The filmmaker sits with her mother and genealogist aunt, poring over generations of photo albums. We glimpse her ancestors who helped build the infrastructure behind Houston’s modern-day prominence. Yet the benefits of its booms historically bypassed their neighborhoods. This carries urgent implications today, as seen in the destructive wake left by Hurricane Harvey. Stapleton captures the anguish of relatives rendered homeless by the storm, only to now face callous municipal neglect.

Interviews with relatives like Stapleton’s plainspoken cowboy cousin resonate with good-natured humor and stoicism. But their stories expose the deep hurt left by discrimination. Scholars fill in details on sundown towns posting threats against Black travelers and officials targeting minority communities to host landfills. The sheer matter-of-factness with which these accounts are relayed sharpens their underlying tragedy.

Ultimately, Stapleton gives moving form to the idea that a landscape shaped by injustice can never truly thrive. Making space for voices long pushed to the margins suggests a way forward where prosperity in Texas might someday be shared by all who brought it into being.

The Sister Cities Torn Asunder

In the final episode, director Iliana Sosa brings an intimacy to the contentious border region joining Texas with Mexico. Focusing on El Paso and neighboring Ciudad Juárez, her personal ties create space for nuanced stories from this cultural crossroads. Though once described as “two sister cities with one heart,” oppressive policies have inflicted deep wounds of separation.

Sosa gives primary voice to the multitudes who traverse the Rio Grande daily, their lives transcending manmade boundaries. A journalist covers immigration with empathy. An advocate fights for easing restrictions so that transnational families might congregate without limitations. Such cases put faces to the statistics, making cold policy debates intensely human.

Details also emerge on the painful history of “disinfecting” border crossers with toxic chemicals. This echoes more recent efforts to drive Latinx communities from their El Paso homes in the name of development. Heartbreaking accounts of the 2019 Walmart shooting that targeted local Hispanics further highlight the area’s endemic challenges.

But Sosa artfully avoids letting darkness overtake light. Candid interviews with relatives, including her father who once worked across the border, resound with humor and wisdom. Scenes from an annual event reuniting divided families across the river over a bridge suggest the durable bonds holding communities together. The region’s vitality and resilience override attempts to rupture its solidarity.

By illuminating overlooked perspectives, Sosa ultimately relates the love anchoring this place in defiance of the hate too often projected upon it. She reveals La Frontera to be less a dividing line than a testament to the unbreakable ties that bind us beyond the forces determined to break them.

Seeking Justice in the Lone Star State

While wide-ranging in their specific concerns, the three episodes find cohesion in their overarching themes. There is a progressive ethos shining light into the darker corners of America’s most swaggering conservative state. Institutionalized discrimination and injustice emerge as constants from the prison system to the energy sector to immigration policy. But the directors balance righteous indignation with empathetic storytelling. Personal accounts give human dimensions to complex systemic issues.

Lawrence Wright’s recurring commentary thoughtfully examines the contrasts making Texas an ideological battleground. Its cities lean far more liberal than the Republican strongholds dominating state and national politics. This lets the filmmakers display cautious optimism amidst the harsh critiques. Even as problems are laid bare, the works ultimately argue progress lies ahead.

Linklater documents capital punishment’s dwindling public support with granular specificity befitting his trademark style. Stapleton uplifts marginalized voices who nevertheless persevered in shaping Texas into an industrial kingpin. And Sosa reveals the unbreakable bonds of community that withstand political rhetoric. There is acknowledgment of past failures but also the potential for reconciliation.

God Save Texas therefore amounts to more than just exposing the societal ills plaguing the iconic state. It seeks recognition of shared ideals that transcend partisan divides. There may be no easy answers, but each filmmaker expresses hope for positive change on the horizon. Light peeks through, pointing the way forward if Texans on all sides choose to take up the mantle together.

An Artful Interrogation of Texas’ Soul

God Save Texas represents a compelling new form of artistic activism. Its anthology structure crafts a mosaic perspective on the Lone Star State’s most pressing concerns. While distinct in their regional focuses, the episodes unite in their humane interrogation of injustice and marginalization. This serves as an accessible entry point to start thoughtful conversations around complex challenges.

The trio of acclaimed Texas directors bring sensitivity to undertold stories. They balance righteous anger with empathetic understanding. Heartrending personal accounts illuminate the human impacts of systemic discrimination. Moments of levity and everyday wisdom leaven heavy subject matter with hope.

It all coheres into a compelling contradiction, capturing the finest and worst manifestations of the Texas ethos. Reactionary conservatism squares off against progressive idealism. Provincial tendencies contrast with welcoming diversity. By presenting multiple truths, the filmmakers move beyond facile stereotypes to reveal nuances demanding greater mutual comprehension.

The miniseries deserves praise for artistically fostering difficult dialogues in a time of poisonous partisan division. It challenges viewers of all political persuasions to recognize shared values across seeming divides. There are no easy fixes, but reconciliation begins with seeking first to understand. By delving courageously into issues too long ignored, God Save Texas represents a thoughtful step toward the light from the darkness.

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