It’s hard not to love Lupita Nyong’o.
The newest winner of the best supporting actress Oscar for her work in 12 Years A Slave, Nyong’o has been a revelatory It Girl.
Her heart-wrenching performance in the film, her striking good looks – deep-chocolate brown skin, natural short hair, tiny-but-muscular frame – and bold fashion sense has made her the toast of Hollywood and the media gossip machine.
And now, we gasp collectively and ask, what’s next?
Nyong’o has taken the world by storm. And some folks now want her to be it – Storm the mutant, that is.
A #LupitaForXmen campaign cropped up online recently calling for Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in whatever new X-Men films may come down the pike. (Of course there will be more X-Men movies, Days of Future Past notwithstanding.)
Seriously, what’s not to love about Lupita Nyong’o playing Storm, comics’ top black-is-beautiful female superhero, the wonder woman of browngirls everywhere?
Visually, to see Nyong’o’s short, compact frame command winds and thunderbolts on screen could be great. Nyong’o is Kenyan, and Ororo Munroe has a Kenyan mother.
The casting of Nyong’o would be seen among Storm fans as a corrective to Halle Berry’s oft-considered lackluster performances in the X-Men films. (Though, to be fair, Storm was vastly underwritten in every damn film. Guess they had to sell more Wolverine action figures.)
And imagine if Marvel buys back the film rights to X-Men. Nyong’o could pop up as Storm in a Black Panther film! Starring Gbenga Akinnabe (The Wire) or Chadwick Boseman (42) as T’Challa! And Nyong’o’s 12 Years A Slave co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as T’Chaka and Michael Fassbender as Klaw?
Excuse me while I fanboy the hell out.
And if you needed some convincing of how awesome that idea could be, amateur artist Daniel Thompson drew up Nyong’o in her classic jumpsuit-with-winged-cape look. She’s, in a word, dreamy.
Nyong’o playing Storm is a nice dream. And Thompson’s drawing is really good. However, I also am wary of the dream, despite how awesome it could be.
Why? Because what could become of Nyong’o not just as an actress in Hollywood, where parts are limited and quality parts are scarce, but as a black actress in Hollywood, for whom a full range of roles is even more scarce.
Seven black women and seven black men have won Oscars for acting. Hattie McDaniel (1939), Whoopi Goldberg (1990), Halle Berry (2001), Jennifer Hudson (2006), Mo’Nique (2009), Octavia Spencer (2011) and Nyong’o (2014). Sidney Poitier (1963), Lou Gossett Jr. (1982), Denzel Washington (1989, 2001), Cuba Gooding Jr. (1996), Jamie Foxx (2004), Morgan Freeman (2004), Forest Whitaker (2006).
Fourteen black actors in 86 different Academy Awards ceremonies.
When you look at their roles, and those of other black nominees, their blackness is integral to nearly all the roles they played. Can you say a similar statement about white actors and actresses who have won Academy Awards?
Black actors have enough trouble getting a full range of parts as it is. If Nyong’o gets to hang out in popcorn blockbusters, great, but we already know she can carry a dramatic heft not needed for most of those films. If she gets those roles along with screwball comedy and heavy drama, then sure.
However, in a business climate of major studios chasing easily translatable blockbusters to sell internationally, what room does that leave for black actors not named Will Smith? Washington, Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson have ascended into the godlike realm of prestige, so they will get meaty roles until they die or retire.
But black actresses? When does Viola Davis or Octavia Spencer or Alfre Woodard shine as lead actress in a Streep-level film? When will Halle Berry get another such role again? Why is Jada Pinkett-Smith on television shows?
We live in a world where non-black audiences reportedly won’t turn out for big movies seen as majority black. Where 12 Years A Slave ads in Italy featured big headshots of Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt rather than its star, Ejiofor.
Yes, superhero movies are blockbusters these days. Tell me how many of them don’t star white men playing heterosexual characters. When it was confirmed that Paul Rudd will star in an Ant-Man movie, I wrote on Facebook that I was excited that Rudd is preparing for Still No Black Panther Movie. (And yes, Still No Wonder Woman Movie is in my holster as well.)
We’ll have a movie with a talking space raccoon before Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy billed cast’s people of color are covered in green skin or CGI’d into a tree, with another white male protagonist at the center.
Among superhero fanboys and within the mainstream comic book business, race is a heavy subject. Fans are a mostly white and male audience that has been conditioned to follow white and male heroes for decades as established (and, in some eyes, untouchable) canon.
Many of those fans remain blind to the racial politics of recasting some heroes as women and people of color, only to sideline or kill them off for a glorious return to the “classic” character. And the few black heroes, in many artists’ hands, end up looking like Europeans colored brown. Sometimes, the colorists forget to make them brown at all.
Tell me about the many, many times that fanboy audiences didn’t get mad whenever a nonwhite actor is cast as a fictional superhero (Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four, Jessica Alba in the old Fantastic Four), or even talked about as a possibility (Donald Glover in The Amazing Spider-Man).
Hell, in the case of The Hunger Games, some white fans were unhappy with the casting of black people playing character who are described as black in the source material!
So excuse me if I am a bit wary when I see mainstream audiences fawning over Nyong’o like some grand novelty or fresh flavor. She may be those things, but I’m curious about the why of it. Especially when, for black actors, an Oscar win doesn’t often translate to unlocking the stores of Hollywood success and prestige.
There have been reports about Nyong’o meeting with J.J. Abrams for a potential role in Star Wars Episode VII, possibly even in a starring role. I want her as the lead role.
If Nyong’o is the latest It Girl to follow in the footsteps of Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence, then bring on the diversity – of roles. Star Wars? X-Men? They sure do sound right.
I’d also take an adaptation of the Parable of the Sower series starring Nyong’o and directed by Kasi Lemmons. (C’mon, a blerd can dream.)
Whether she becomes a witch of the weather, or a disciple of the Force, I hope we’re seeing just the beginning of Lupita Nyong’o’s ascent.
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