As usual, I ended up in an argument, ok I won’t call it an argument but a discussion. The discussion was about the movie Selma, the one about Martin Luther King, some found it disrespectful that a foreign black man played Martin Luther King, they felt the role should have gone to a “Native” Black man, of course, the Movie Harriet also came up. They felt the same way!!!.
Personally, I found no problem with it, I wasn’t bothered, either way, I was just looking for someone to tell a good story. It is about bringing a particular character to life. A “boogie” man has been created, and all the blame goes to that boogie man. If we really believe certain stories should be for a particular demographic or a particular nationality (since we are all of the same race) of people then we should do that in every situation, we should be the first to criticize it if it were the other way round.
Nick Fury
Let us start with fiction, we all know the character Nick Fury, (in the marvel universe) well anyone who knows the comics knows that Nick Fury is a white man yet Samuel L Jackson played the character so well that, I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job.
Domino
Does anyone remember Deadpool 2,? Domino is originally a white woman in the comics, Zazie Beetz did an amazing job, there were no complaints. For those who don’t know Zazie Beetz is a black Actress.
In the 1990’s Omar Epps, played the leading role in a movie called “Deadly Voyage”, it was about an African immigrant who witnessed several murders on a ship including. If it were the other way round I’m sure people will complain that the role should have gone to an African, since it was their story.
Denzel Washington played a South African Lawyer named Steve Biko, the movie was called “Cry Freedom”. Again no one said that role should have gone to a South African.
Here is a list of Actors who have played Nelson Mandela
Danny Glover
Morgan Freeman
Terence Howard
Lawrence Fishburne
Sydney Poitier
Mandela was a South African, so to those people saying certain roles should be left for certain groups of people, Well that didn’t happen in this case
Will Smith Played a Nigerian Doctor, Dr. Bennett Omalu, I wonder why that role wasn’t left for a Nigerian Actor
Don Cheadle played Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda and Forest Whitaker played Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.
I can see both sides of the argument, a movie like Black Panther can’t be played by a white man, goes against the story itself, even though we had 2 stories about fictional African countries played by “Native” black Americans, (Coming to America, Black Panther).
The truth of the matter is that people will complain about anything, at the end of the day, we just have to be fair … it’s not about marginalization, it’s about Acting, let us leave it at that… questioning someone’s identity is the very definition of discrimination.
