A film critic, academic, and novelist notes the joy and acute pain of seeing award candidates who exploit African-American genius, including ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ and ‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday ‘.
Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah made me cry. My parents actively resisted the American system of white supremacy in the 1960s and 1970s. People like Fred Hampton were discussed in a way that made me feel like they were family. Whenever my dad talked about the 1969 murder of Los Angeles Panther leader John Huggins, or “John John” as he called him, his eyes filled with tears and he looked away, then looked at me, his eyes shining with two different elements: water and a certain constant fire. Fred Hampton has always been the most beautiful to me. He was beautiful, really – an attractive man. But he was so beautiful in his soul. My deep love for this brilliant revolutionary comes from published images of him, the memory of his power, his deep well of love for all people, especially black people.
And I hate it. I hate the men who killed him and I hate the system that enabled them to do that. Fred Hampton was more handsome than me in his ability to love.
The irony is so poignant, since Fred Hampton wanted to free poor whites from their expropriation. He would have released the men who slaughtered him if they had let him live. He sought the path of power for all marginalized people. Programs for breakfast, health care, schooling, taking gang members off the streets and reaching a new type of awareness: The efforts of the Black Panther Party have resulted in deep and engaged social work. And they murdered him.
They, of course, are the controllers of the system, men like Herbert Hoover, who led the effort to “eliminate a black messiah”, and the local police who did their bidding. Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah documents his sinister and predatory assault on the black genius. Daniel Kaluuya is excellent in his role as Fred Hampton, as well as Dominique Fishback, the beautiful sister who plays Hampton’s fiancee, Deborah Johnson.
With extraordinarily skilled narrative and powerful acting, the film centers on the man who set up Hampton, FBI informant William O’Neal. LaKeith Stanfield’s harrowing performance makes us sympathize with real life Bill O’Neal. The overwhelming weight of the control of white supremacy forces this Judas to betray the People.
Lee Daniels’ United States x Billie Holiday examines the same sinister control of glowing darkness. Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, used Billie Holliday’s drug addiction as a pretext to harass, arrest and silence his powerful 1939 elegy by protesting the lynching of black Americans, “Strange Fruit”.
In real life, Harry Anslinger spoiled well-known addicted white women, like Judy Garland, and supported his recovery without the scandal of criminal convictions. Lady Day, one of the most important vocalists of the 20th century, did not receive such grace and was treated like a slave. While Billie Holiday was in a hospital, recovering from liver failure, Anslinger handcuffed her to the bed, emptied her room of gifts that should have given her comfort, such as flowers and records, and prevented doctors from administering medical treatment until she died. She was 44 years old.
A child rape survivor who was forced to work in a brothel, Holiday maintained a strong resistance to the terror that killed her own father, who died after a Texas-only hospital for whites refused to treat him. This ancestral memory lit up her face whenever she sang her characteristic protest song. Daniels’ film captures that light, as well as the sexual abuse and financial exploitation that she has suffered throughout her career.
The trauma of being a black woman in this racist patriarchy weighs on me and all my sisters. Viola Davis perfectly conveys the double burden that we carry in Black Bottom by Ma Rainey. Each look, each gesture in her performance as the great blues singer expresses the perpetual tension necessary for the beautiful sound expression of black women to appear in the public sphere.
And Chadwick Boseman. In this, his last presentation, he does the same with blacks. As a fictional character Levee, Boseman embodies a kind of glory, the essence of the blues. His character is a genius, despite the intergenerational theft of black masculinity by white men who celebrate with black power. Directed by George C. Wolfe, Black Bottom by Ma Rainey examines system control within the music industry that would silence the beautiful blackness inherent in our most brilliant cultural workers.
One night in miami brings together four of these brilliant black culture workers: Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), about to become Muhammad Ali; Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), just before sharing his hymn, “A Change Is Gonna Come” with the world; Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), as he prepares to make the bold move from football to acting; and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), our “brilliant Black Prince”, as Ossie Davis praised him, as he plans his transition outside the Nation to his new role as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. How do our brilliant Black princes all do this? How do they, we, carry the burden of whiteness and still fight? How did we manage to remain so talented, refined, powerful and, as Ali would say, so beautiful?
Despite rape, torture, wiretapping, greed, lynching, theft, plagiarism, surveillance, all kinds of cheating and all the insignificances of everyday life, we remain resilient and resplendent. How? What makes them so strong, black? In Regina King’s lovely film, our power is the strength of our collective soul, our friendships, our commitment to each other. We, together, are our best resistance.
We are the power.
The historical and predatory consumption of black genius by whites suggests a certain mediocrity, that its power was only ensured by its whiteness. After all, why else would the theft need to occur? You mean you can’t just write your own music?
In the last role of his life, Boseman is a black genius inhabiting the soul of all nameless black geniuses, countless, geniuses like Levee, whose inner strength of the soul seeks the light he deserves. Levee’s father was also a genius. Genius is Levee’s patrilineal heritage. And suffering. Levee suffers the cruelty of being so talented, so high and then kicked so low.
Ma Rainey, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Billie Holiday, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke: These films celebrate our real-life geniuses, but our geniuses are everywhere, all of us, around. We are geniuses in the river, in the shack and in the dike too.
This winter, Black Hollywood gave the nation a gift, an opportunity to see itself through the eyes of the black people. An opportunity to witness black excellence. Now, more than ever, these four films should be seen. That’s because the black genius made them. If they are not recognized during the award season, the guardians should be ashamed.
Eisa Nefertari Ulen (she / she) is the author of Mourning for Crystelle (Atria) and professor of African and Diaspora literature at Hunter College in New York. A Pulitzer Center recipient, she received awards from the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the National Association of Black Journalists.
This story first appeared in an independent January issue of The Hollywood Reporter. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.