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I’m happy when black women win; the significance is important to the whole. If nothing else, Viola Davis’s Emmy win for her role as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder got that “first black woman to ever win” thing out of the way so that everybody could stop harping on it as if badass actresses like Viola, Regina King, Kerry Washington, Gabrielle Union, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nia Long, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and the like haven’t been here, grinding and putting it down on television and film while the industry collectively slept on our skills. Perhaps what was most important about Viola’s win was her lifting her voice on our behalf, insisting that Hollywood follow in the footsteps of showrunners like Shonda Rhimes and Lee Daniels in opening its eyes—and its scripts—to the physical, emotional, mental, and social complexities of black womanhood and all the possibilities that lie in its exploration. Consider how Viola devoured the meatiest parts of her role: she showed that a dark-skinned African American woman could be sexy and sexual, cunning and conniving, slick and brilliant and all kinds of evil, and, between all of those loud moments, deeply vulnerable.
I was at my place, trying to rest up from my hectic schedule filming Empire, when I grabbed myself a glass of red wine and caught up on the episode in which Viola thoroughly turned out the How to Get Away with Murder audience in her iconic scene—the one in which she sits down in front of a huge mirror in her dimly lit bedroom and slowly peels off first her wig and then her false eyelashes, and then wipes away every bit of her makeup until she sits there barefaced, having a real-woman, totally stripped-down private moment in the most public of arenas: national television. I’m here to say, right hand held high, that her work that night was so thoughtful, so truthful, so damn genius, I rewound the scene over and over again, screaming from my gut each time she finished stripping away her layers and stared at her authentic, natural, beautiful black self in that mirror. She wasn’t just looking at her own reflection, she was glowering at us, the viewer, daring us to think and stretch beyond the beauty ideal as defined by the pop culture that is shoved down our throats with practically every flicker of light emanating off the television and film screen. In the vein of our greatest actors, Viola brought intelligence, experience, and even a little pain to the moment, displaying in no uncertain terms that she will never fit into “the standard,” and that’s okay—not just for her, but for us all. Brava, dammit—that’s the way you get it done! Truly, Viola is a gift.
Lord knows it’s a message that should be shouted from every rooftop in Hollywood, so that the decision makers can move beyond the stereotypes and actually see us black actresses and what we have to offer. Not everyone is going to have the look of, say, a Halle Berry, or the ethnic ambiguity of a Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and they shouldn’t, considering the diversity of black women. We are light as your white neighbor and as silky and chocolate as the Congo, thin enough to fit in that double zero and curvy enough to fill out a size twenty-two, stretched tall and really squat, too, with weave down our back and with hair so kinky it’ll break the teeth out of a strong comb. Some of us are sweeter than a Georgia peach and as quiet as a church mouse, and a gang of us are loud as we want to be and quick to verbally slit throats. And this is just a small sampling of us. There is no one way to present a black woman; we have a voice and we have the right not only to have that voice but also to see it reflected back at us on the screen.
Of course, this is no easy proposition. Time and again, I’ve lost roles because someone with the ability to green-light a film couldn’t see black women beyond a very limited purview he or she thought “fit” audience expectations. Such was the case when I lost the chance to play a pregnant Russian stripper in St. Vincent, the comedy-drama starring Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy. Theodore Melfi, the film’s screenwriter and director, wrote the part specifically for me; he was able to see Taraji Henson outside the box—a black woman playing the gritty girlfriend of a grumpy old white man who, despite his battles with drinking, gambling, and general inappropriateness, ends up becoming a reluctant role model to a twelve-year-old neighbor. I was excited about the part and happily informed Theodore that I wanted it. After all, I’d be acting against two comedic gods in the industry, I was downright inspired by Melissa’s ability to stretch outside her funny bones to play a straight, serious role, and I was intrigued by the awkward relationship my character would forge with the grumpy, angry counterpart she’d find in Murray’s character. Despite my enthusiasm, the role instead went to Naomi Watts, who went on to earn a Screen Actors Guild nomination for her work. She captured the magic of the role—the stretching into her comedic chops, nailing the physicality of being pregnant and working a stripper pole. It was a meaty gig. I would have loved it. Alas, I couldn’t get served at that particular restaurant.