Africans and Black Brits in Hollywood: A New Blackploitation?
For decades, black actors in Hollywood struggled to get roles on the big screen. Even when the roles did come, they were often relegated to racist caricatures, such as Butterfly McQueen’s performance as a slow-witted maid in the classic box-office juggernaut, Gone with the Wind [1939]. Over time, these social strictures on black representation were relaxed a bit, with screen stars like Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Will Smith breaking boundaries to become global forces.
Still, the production of black stars did not correlate with the recognition of those stars. For instance, the Academy Awards [colloquially referred to as the Oscars] has given less than 2% of its nomination slots to black filmmakers. This legacy of perceived racial discrimination has had unintended consequences on the psyche of black Hollywood, leading to high sensitivity on issues like what stories black people are allowed to tell, and most importantly, what kinds of black people are allowed to tell those stories.
When British-Nigerian actress, Cynthia Erivo, was cast as the titular character in the movie Harriet about the legendary black slave abolitionist, a figure dear to African-American history, uproar arose from various corners of the internet. Many believed that, Erivo, by her non-American heritage, was unfit to be the face of such a monumental story as she could not relate to the history of slavery she is not connected to. A huge chunk of the criticism came from the advocacy group, American Descendants of Slavery [ADOS], who argue that their lived experiences as descendants of slaves are on a different existential level from black Britons and Africans and therefore deserve to have the roles of their cultural figures depicted by people from their own culture. They do have a point: black actors from other parts of the world have taken on African-American roles to great success.
In 2013, British-Nigerian actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kenyan-Mexican actress, Lupita Nyong’o starred in the movie 12 Years A Slave, based on the real-life account of a 19th-century African-American slave. For their performances, both actors earned Oscar nominations. In 2017, British-Ugandan actor, Daniel Kaluuya, played the role of a young black American man kidnapped by a white cult-family in the horror film Get Out. He also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In 2019, British-Nigerian actress Erivo played Harriet and got the Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Looking at it that way, it could appear that African-Americans are being erased from their narratives. But some believe such sentiments are purely xenophobic and resulting in unnecessary sophistry: black is black; why does it matter where you come from? Such view was echoed by Star Wars actor, John Boyega. Writing on Twitter, he said “Black brits vs African American. A stupid [expletive] conflict we don’t have time for.” Boyega’s comments were specifically in response to Samuel L. Jackson’s claim that foreign actors cannot grasp the reality of African-American existence and for that reason, their performances would not accurately depict that reality.
But that could easily be seen as hypocritical. African-American actors have never shied away from playing roles as black people of other nationalities in movies. American screen legend Forrest Whittaker played Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland. Will Smith played a Nigerian scientist in Concussion [2015]. American actress Anika Noni Rose played the role of Kainene, an Igbo victim of the Biafran War in the film adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Even Black Panther, a movie about a super-powered African country, had a cast predominantly of African-American actors. It appears the only requirement to play a black role in Hollywood is to, simply, be black.
