-
Postscript: Looking for Denzel, Finding Barack
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
169 Postscript Looking for Denzel, Finding Barack Throughout his career, Denzel Washington has been a paragon of a well-mannered, good-intentioned, and deftly committed “race man,” a term from the beginning of the twentieth century that describes black men of stature and integrity who represented the best that African Americans had to offer in the face of Jim Crow segregation. The term has lost some of its resonance in a post–civil rights, post-race, post-blackness world, but it remains an unspoken measure of commitment to uplifting the race. Race men inspire pride; their work, their actions, and their speech represent excellence instead of evoking shame and embarrassment. Thus the pundit Roland Martin and the Reverend Jesse Jackson (even with an illegitimate child) can be race men, whereas the comedian Dave Chappelle and the rapper/mogul Jay-Z can never be. Washington’s hero and mentor Sidney Poitier had impeccable race man cred. The legendary black actor was one of the first to achieve mainstream success, and he never wavered. In films such as The Defiant Ones (1958), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and even Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), he made black audiences proud to be black. At the height of the Black Power movement, when his articulate, educated, and even affable characters were often measured against fiery political icons such as Malcolm X and the Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown, some blacks felt ambivalent about Poitier. But the actor’s willingness to support the civil rights movement appeased those who wanted a more radical image. It was an image that Poitier himself was heavily invested in: on the occasion of receiving an Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2002, Poitier remarked, “My love and my thanks . . . to those 170 Postscript audience members around the world who have placed their trust in my judgment as an actor and filmmaker.”1 There’s little doubt that Poitier and contemporaries such as James Earl Jones and Raymond St. Jacques influenced Washington in his choice of roles. Early in his career, he was often drawn to the part of the heroic do-gooder; his roles in Cry Freedom (as the martyred anti-apartheid hero Steve Biko) and the Civil War epic Glory (which earned him a 1990 Academy Award for best supporting actor) displayed his gravitas. The tear he shed when his character, Private Trip, was flogged in Glory lent black men a depth of humanity not seen in American cinema before or, arguably , since. In his collaborations with the director Spike Lee, Washington complicated the race man ethos. No longer defined solely by their willingness to stand up for their race, characters such as Bleek Gilliam (Mo’ Better Blues), Jake Shuttlesworth (He Got Game), and Detective Keith Frazier (Inside Man) represented the new race man, whose main emphasis was on being manly. These characters were self-absorbed and selfish and demanded the respect they thought they deserved. Still, many black audiences embraced them, if only because Washington had earned their trust, especially after his signature collaboration with Lee on the film Malcolm X. That trust—so crucial to Poitier’s career—began to erode with Washington’s portrayal of Alonzo in Training Day (2001). When he finally won the coveted Best Actor Oscar for that role, on the same night that Halle Berry won Best Actress, much was made of their being rewarded for portraying characters who demeaned African Americans. And yet it was still easy to give Washington a pass, because the Motion Picture Academy had ignored his more celebrated roles as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Malcolm X. The cultural landscape had changed considerably by the time Washington appeared in the films American Gangster and The Great Debaters in late 2007. In the aftermath of the Don Imus debacle , rap music and urban reality television in particular became litmus tests for the perceived erosion of black culture’s prestige. Washington’s desire to portray the gangster Frank Lucas in [54.89.70.161] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:30 GMT) Postscript 171 the film American Gangster—the kind of character who has become a staple of so much commercial rap music—understandably raised eyebrows. In an interview with Men’s Vogue, the actor defended his choices: “It’s not about the black experience. It’s more specific and selfish than that. It’s what I feel like doing, not what I feel like people need.”2...