Black Sails: Historicising the Intersecting Traumas of Imperialist Capitalism through the Gothic Mode

Black Sails (2014-2017) presented a prequel to Treasure Island mixed with real historical characters and events in a story of resistance against imperialist capitalism. The pirates were cast as rebels against a dominant system in which wealth is directed to those in charge, while those who work for it are left with little. The series dramatises the ways in which multiple different interests are brought together under this agreement, because of the situations that the characters have found themselves in due to their not fitting into the dominant society because of their gender, their sexuality, their politics, their race. While not an ideal society by any means, the pirate society that develops around Captain Flint and the island of New Providence is shown as one that manages to negotiate multiple interests and groups in the name of survival and resistance to a system that wishes to crush them. The relevance of these themes to current concerns is emphasised through the series' use of the Gothic mode, drawing on aesthetic and narrative codes to trigger associations with the Gothic's concerns with trauma (personal and cultural), violence and power imbalance, particularly those that stem from the past but continue to have influence in the present. The use of the Gothic mode in Black Sails thus serves as an additional signal that the representations of past injustices and struggles are still relevant in the present, that these traumas are part of our current crises.