Last week Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o won the Oscar for
best supporting actress for her portrayal of slave girl, Patsey in the film
Twelve years a slave.
The main plot revolved around the kidnap of Solomon Northup,
and his travails as a slave for 12 years, hence the title, but arguably the
film would have been nothing without the harrowing tragedy that was Patsey’s
life.
I have a theory about black Oscar winners.
Whenever I hear a black actor has been nominated for the
Oscar, I am always eager to see what role he or she portrays. Invariably it is
a role that perpetuates a stereotype as, flawed entertainers, obsequious
servants, sex objects, as a foil for a main white character or depraved
gangsters.
A casual perusal down the list of black winners will more
than bear that out. This not to take away from the acting skills of Sydney
Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington or Forest Whitaker.
It seems to me that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts &
Sciences, the institution that awards the Oscars, would experience some
cognitive dissonance in trying to award a black actor who portrays a heroic
soldier or devious Wall Street broker or a lovable idiot savant. I am sure back actors have played these roles
before and carried them with distinction.
I confess an ignorance of the processes employed by The
Academy in nominating its potential weinners, but we judge them by their
fruits. It’s a pattern I will be glad to be wrong about.
Which brings us to Lupita’s performance. In the 134 minutes
of the film I will be surprised if her parts put end-to-end last 20 minutes –
that’s why her Oscar was for supporting actress.
Two things stood out for me.
Patsey called for a character out of Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness, a primitive, gullible, hopeless figure who it is hard to like or pity.
That Lupita, a worldly lady, born abroad of middle class parents – she did not
fall of the turnip truck by any means, found it in herself to portray this
tragic heroine was a feat fit for high praise.
Her portrayal of this African caricature was so compelling
it left me thinking the producers of the film should have turned the script
around to be about her.
But it also left me wondering – with my theory as a
backdrop, whether the esteemed judges of the
Academy did not see her
performance and think, “Ya! That’s what we can relate to as what blacks are
about!”
Related to that I cannot remember any other mainstream
production in which a character was subjected to the depraved brutality as
Lupita’s character endured in one five-minute clip of vicious lashing. Jesus’
flogging in The Passion of the Christ may have come close.
Secondly, while the film was sprinkled with some real
psychopathic characters, surreal episodes all through the film reminded you
that this was a way of life, supported by a system of administration, authored
and supported by some of the fathers of modern democracy.
It was also a scary reminder that a system can be engineered
for one purpose – cheap labour in this case and justified to and gain
acceptance in a wider society a totally different way: blacks needed
civilising and this was the way to do it.
There were a few surreal scenes with one slave master
leading his household --- family and slaves, in church service and you had to
wonder.
It is a watch-through-your-fingers film, a thought provoking
film and when it is all over you slink out of the theatre as if you had
witnessed or been party to a crime whose story you will not repeat elsewhere.
The hype surrounding the film may have detracted from its
impact but it is a moving snapshot of one of the darkest periods in human
history that some would understandably not want to rehash.
This a game changer for Lupita’s budding career, but it is
hard to see how it opens the doors for other African aspirants to Hollywood.
There are some subjects that just don’t play out well for the money making
moguls of Hollywood or for money spending movie goers.
In the 20 weeks since its release “12 years a slave” has
brought in $50m. Gravity an action/adventure film that was released around the
same time and in fewer theatres had, by the time of writing, made $270m.
Congratulations again to Lupita, whose latest movie
“Non-Stop” opened last week and has already earned $28m, her talent is
undeniable, now she can get on with the business of making money.
