Huffington Magazine Issue 72 | Page 75

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N BLEAK situations,
incremental improvements can be mistaken
for bigtime progress. So
it goes with Hollywood’s consistent
inability to include actors of color.
Popular critical consensus suggests that we may have as many
as four black Best Actor nominees: Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a
Slave), Idris Elba (Mandela: Long
Walk to Freedom), Forest Whitaker (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) and
Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station). Ejiofor is currently favored
to win the category, where he’ll

I

BEHIND
THE SCENES

probably be joined by the likes of
Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips),
Robert Redford (All Is Lost) and
Bruce Dern (Nebraska).
That these men of color are even
being discussed in awards blogger
circles is certainly cause for celebration, because each of their films
presents a perspective that doesn’t
get much play in Hollywood. But
insofar as these four movies are
important, they are also limited
by their veracity. They’re all based
on true stories: 12 Years tells the
tale of Solomon Northup, a free
black man who was captured and
enslaved and wrote an autobiography by the same name; Mandela is
self-explanatory; Fruitvale Station

HUFFINGTON
10.27.13

Chiwetel
Ejiofor plays
a freemanturned-slave
in Steve
McQueen’s 12
Years a Slave.