There are few who will watch “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story”
who will come to the series completely unfamiliar with the individual
at its center. From his 2012 shooting death to the emerging generation
of activists and engaged citizens that arose from the 2013 verdict in
George Zimmerman’s resultant murder trial, the name Trayvon Martin
carries with it associations in different corners of the country. If
Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason‘s six-part documentary series
shows one thing definitively, it’s that Martin’s senseless killing has
come to symbolize so much more about how America sees itself today and
the elements of American life that remain unchanged after centuries of
turmoil.
One clear goal of “Rest in Power” is to reframe the story as that of
individual human beings and not as merely pawns in an ideological or
societal struggle. The breadth of interview subjects helps to ensure
that Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman are not merely presented as
abstract figures. Martin is shown as a student, an aspiring pilot,
someone who recognized which of his own decisions he was unhappy with.
Zimmerman is described as someone caught in a crisis of identity who
chose to embrace an angry worldview, even when presented with plenty of
alternatives. Family members, journalists, legal experts, and activists
alike offer their own analyses of how Martin’s story dovetails with many
others’ throughout American history.
Like many exemplary pieces of recent stories about criminal miscarriages
of justice, “Rest in Power” is not a forensic analysis. Rather than
being concerned with seizing a definitive answer to the events of
February 26, 2012, Furst and Nason take a wider view of the prevailing
cultural attitudes and prejudices that may have contributed to Martin’s
death, Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal or both. (If anything, there’s a
subtle condemnation of the national news media’s obsession with forcing
Martin‘s parents to confront a very crime scene in which their son was
murdered.) Even while considering Martin, Zimmerman, and the various
individuals involved in the trial procedure as living, complex human
beings, “Rest in Power” makes Stark observations about how the
investigation and trial became a prime example of narrative manipulation
and double standards.
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