Today’s black actors need to take more risks
I apprecIate why black filmmaker Spike Lee and actress Jada pinkett Smith are boycotting this year’s Oscars, but how many black actors today are giving themselves the chance to shine? Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry and Whoopi Goldberg have no one snapping at their heels. they’ve tended to play sympathetic or noble roles in the same way that Sidney poitier and Diahann carroll did before them. But times have changed and so has Hollywood.
truly heroic parts in films are few and far between, and tend to be offered to established stars with the skills to stop the characters seeming dull and boring.
But many great actors kickstarted their careers, and even got their academy awards, playing dysfunctional characters. portraying a crook, an alcoholic, a sex worker, even a lunatic, have been among the highlights of the most impressive screen careers.
Bette Davis, Kirk Douglas and Jack Nicholson almost always played people you wouldn’t introduce to your parents.
For some reason, black actors are either rarely offered or reluctant to accept unpleasant, but meaty, parts. perhaps a fear of promoting negative racial perceptions prevents them from doing so.
I can think of only one black performer, angela Bassett, who plays women of dubious morals. at the age of 57, she’s still mesmerising in these ‘bad girl’ roles, the latest being a lesbian vampire in tV’s american Horror Story: Hotel. She hasn’t yet won an Oscar, but she has dozens of other awards. JOHN RUTHERFORD,
Sevenoaks, Kent.