BLACK in focus
AMON WARMANN chews over the main moment in Black film and TV this month
THE EMMYS SHOULD HAVE GIVEN CARL LUMBLY HIS DUE
AS IS ALWAYS the case with awards season, there were both good and bad takeaways from this year’s batch of Emmy nominations. For every richly deserved ounce of recognition that Michaela Coel’s seminal drama I May Destroy You
received, there was a perplexing lack of love for the critically lauded likes of Steve Mcqueen’s Small Axe and Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad.
But the snub which stood out to me the most was the absence of Carl Lumbly for his phenomenal work in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.
Instead, the lone acting nomination for the Disney+ series went to Don Cheadle, who was only on screen for two minutes. To quote Cheadle’s own response to the nomination, “I don’t really get it either.”
Lumbly — a veteran actor who has been very good for a very long time — is no stranger to superhero projects that have something substantial to say about race and police brutality. In 1994’s M.A.N.T.I.S. he starred as Dr Miles Hawkins, a genius inventor who is paralysed from the waist down after being shot by a police officer but builds a hi-tech suit that enables him to fight crime. The show is significant for being the first series to have a Black superhero in the lead role. But after a revolutionary pilot that tackled difficult topics head on, the powers-that-be decided the show was “too grim and too realistic”, overhauling a series that was ultimately cancelled after one season.
Thankfully, things have changed a bit since then. As Isaiah Bradley in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier — a Black super-soldier who was experimented on, imprisoned by the government, and then all but forgotten — he anchors the show’s weightiest subplot with poise. His screen time roughly amounts to 15 minutes and he makes every single second count, communicating all of the hurt and suffering that Bradley has endured in a manner that feels painfully real. The moment where he gets a small measure of recognition for his heroics with his own mural at the Smithsonian in the season finale is enough to reduce many a grown man to tears, thanks in no small part to Lumbly’s perfect performance.
There’s much more of Bradley’s story that is yet to be told and it’s a safe bet that Lumbly will reprise the role, likely in a second season of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier that will hopefully give him much more to do. Maybe then Emmy voters won’t ignore what’s right in front of their faces: a superb performance that’s worthy of recognition.