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In a recent discussion obtaining over at Ms. Susan Walsh’s place Hooking Up Smart, I left the following sidebar comment:
I remember, I think it was last year on another forum, the White guys went beserk for my suggestion that if the powers that be who presided over the James Bond franchise really wanted to shake things up and breathe fresh air into the franchise, they’d make Bond a Brotha Brit. I can easily see Idris Elba, who is a Brit btw, pulling it off. But, like I said, the White guys in the forum nearly had a bird, LOL. They argued that Bond could only be a White guy, but when I mentioned that according to Fleming, Bond had dark hair and Daniel Craig is a blonde, they flicked that off. So much for being purists, LOL.
The UK has a very long history of involvement on the African continent – Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, just to name a few, to say nothing of Jamaica and other points in the Carribbean – it is very easy to envision a Black Bond. Moreover, with the Cold War nearly a quarter of a century in our rearview mirror, and with the center of the action in the world now taking place in the largely non-White world, WHY NOT make Bond Black?
But, like I said, we like our heros White – even when it defies basic commonsense.
O.
We often have discussions about Black folk and the roles they do or don’t play in Hollywood. Contrary to the usually grossly misinformed opinion of many, the truth is that Black folk are still highly constrained as to range of roles they get. Here’s another series of comments I made to that effect, again from the same blogsite above”
First off, please name me five top billing Black actors? By that I mean, actors who are Black, and can carry a film on their own – NOT a sidekick.
I`ll wait.
There are only TWO Black actors at present, who can carry a film completely on their own – Denzel Washington, and Will Smith. That’s. It.
ALL the remaining Black actors are in essence, supporting actors – sidekicks.
Let’s count the ways, shall we?
Brooklyn’s Fines featured an all ensemble cast, but it was quite clear who were the stars, and they weren’t Black – they were Ethan Hawke, and Richard Gere. Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes were supporting actors.
Speaking of Cheadle, both he and Terrance Howard played second fiddle to Robert Downey Jr. in both Iron Man films.
Morgan Freeman, who portrayed Nelson Mandela in Invictus, played second fiddle to Matt Damon, who played the captain of the South African rugby team. Prior to that Freeman played a supporting actor role to Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy’s Wanted. And before that, he played second fiddle to Christian Bale’s Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.
Common played second fiddle to Bale in Terminator Salavation.
Indeed, even when Black actors win Oscars, they STILL can’t headline a “mainstream” movie. Case in point?
Forrrest Whittaker, who won an Oscar for his portrayal as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the Last King of Scotland, starred in the film Repo Men – he got second fiddle to Jude Law, who, last time I checked, wasnt an Oscar winner.
Jamie Fox, who won an Oscar for “Ray”, played second fiddle to Gerard Butler, who, like Law, has yet to win such a high honor. But he was White, and White Americans still pretty much like to see their heroes as White Men.
There are an entire slew of excellent Black actors who will NEVER carry a major motion picture simply because they’re Black. Morris Chestnut, Omar Epps, Blair Underwood, etc et al. Most of these actors wind up in “Black” vehicles for most of their careers.
so this idea that Hollywood is just bursting at the seams with Black actors…well, we gotta take a closer look at that.
Finally, I offer the following comment from a recent discussion here at the The Obsidian Files:
I was about to take it down for the night, but I gotsta respond to this…
As for Star Trek, as a diehard Trekker, I think I can weigh in here. You’re talking about Zoe Saldana, who played the “new” Uhura, who had a thing going on with the “new” Spock. Last time I checked, not many Sistsas were into Sci-Fi, so I would like to see some data on what you claim in that regard. That said, yea, there is SOME truth about SOME Sistas going bonkers over Black Man/White Woman love/sex scenes in movies. But given that the tables were turned in the recent Star Trek movie, I would think Sistas wouldn’t have a problem with that. Again, I need to see some movegoing data. Do you have any, or if not, where’d you get your info from?
As for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which starred Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko, his wife, who as Black, was killed off very early on in the series. Personally, I would have loved to see him have a love interest who was also Black. Why?
Because these shows, films, etc, they send messages. And I think it’s important to send the message that not only are there black folk in the future, but they still do fall in love – in fact, there are Black folk on and from other planets. Why not? If we can have every other race represented, why not Black folks too?
Now, going back to the Star Trek movie…
Kirk was shown to be a rambunctious kid, which is a nice way of saying, a rule breaking jerk. Yet, he wasn’t seen as a problem, but rather a guy with merely some rough edges. As i sat there watching the movie, I said to myself, that if James Tiberius Kirk were instead Jamaal Tyrone Kirk, he’d be locked up somewhere, not in Starfleet Academy on the way to becoming caption of the USS Enterprise.
And with that, I’m out. Catch ya on the black hand side…
I’ll just end this post with a very interesting episode from my own life, many years ago, that remains one of the most profound yet…
Around Thanksgiving time, I was spending time with my fam, and was vegging out on the couch with one of my nephews, Khaleel. A perceptive Scorpion with a bunch of planets in Capricorn, I’ve always had a liking for his way of looking at things, which became very apparent early on in his life.
We were watching an CGI animated film called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It was something that appealed to young boys as it had Sci Fi and adventure themes. Basically, Humanity was being overrun by alien phantoms who on the warpath.
In the final epic battle taking place on Earth, one of the group’s members, a Black seargent, gets wounded and decides to sacrifice himself so that the rest of the crew – all White – get onto the spaceship and blast off. Of course, the “heroic” Black soldier dies.
After that scene, my nephew Khaleel looked up at me, and asked, “Uncle, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Khaleel. Shoot!”
“Why does the Black guy always have to die?”
That’s a question no White person is pressed with. And I couldn’t answer my nephew, either. I was speechless. The message, to his then barely ten year old mind, was clear: that his life simply wasnt worth as much as that of Whites, even in a distant future where we fly around like the Jetsons.
And so, I turn it over to you, my esteemed readers: what do you think of what I said? Do you agree, or disagree, and why? What roles does Hollywood play in our lives? Should it be there just to provide mindless entertainment, or should it be a vehicle through which we see the best part of ourselves?
Holla back
Now adjourn your asses…
The Obsidian
