Exit
centers on the 2009 shooting death
of Oscar Grant III, a black man shot
dead by a police officer in Oakland;
The Butler draws its meat from the
life of Eugene Allen, a black butler
who worked for the White House
for over three decades.
Put another way, these roles
have to be played by black actors.
Each of these men has more than
earned the nominations they’re
expected to receive (now’s a good
time to pinch in some salt: awards
bloggers love to shower performances with praise, but nominations are certainly not guaranteed),
but the fact that they’re generally
only rewarded for roles that literally could not have been given to
white actors is cause for concern.
“Generally only rewarded for
roles that literally could not have
been given to white actors” is not
casual phrasing. A study of the roles
that have earned black men Best
Actor nominations reveals that
this is a historical problem. Sidney
Poitier won in 1963 for playing a
black itinerant worker in Lilies of
the Field, a movie based on a novel
by the same name. Jamie Foxx won
in 2004 for playing Ray Charles in
Ray, and Forest Whitaker won in
2006 for playing Idi Amin in The
Last King of Scotland. The only
BEHIND
THE SCENES
HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
Each of these men
has more than earned the
nominations they’re expected
to receive... but the fact that
they’re generally only rewarded
for roles that literally could
not have been given to white
actors is cause for concern.”
black man to win Best Actor for a
role that could have been played by
a white actor is Denzel Washington,
who won in 2001 for his turn as a
LAPD detective in Training Day.
That’s one man over 85 years of
Academy Awards. The situation
isn’t much better at the Golden
Globes, where Morgan Freeman’s
performance as a chauffeur who triumphs over racism in Driving Miss
Daisy joins the otherwise identical list of Best Actor winners. (Nor,
it’s worth noting, does the picture
improve when including Best Actor nominees at the Oscars, a class
that includes blacks playing “black
roles” such as Will Smith in Ali,
Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda, Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow,
Freeman in Invictus, Washington in
Malcolm X, Laurence Fishburne in
What’s Love Got to Do With It, etc.)
Jordan has discussed enjoying
filming Chronicle, which he describes as a win because the character was originally supposed to
be a white Jewish man. “[With]