Little C: Queue the Eye Roll and The Power Point
Heeeeeey readers. How you doing? Some of you noted that I was a no show on Monday. Some of you checked in on me last night to check that I was in fact alive cuz I'm so damn tardy on my posts. Whoops. Super sorry. If it helps, today is gonna be a long post, so strap in.
The Oscars are coming up readers. That glorious time when Hollywood spends several hours in pretty dresses talking about how amazing they've all been over the last year. This year, at least, there's a little diversity in the nominees. Nominations for films like Moonlight and Hidden Figures feel like steps in the right direction in a film industry that struggles with an impulse to only make movies about straight white guys. Which, as we've mentioned before on this blog, gets really boring and more than a little frustrating. Television is going through the same struggle, but partly because of the wider range of platforms, it's doing a little better. Movies still have a ways to go if they want to catch up and start being really representative.
I was trying to talk to someone I work with about this the other day when they boldly (and incorrectly) said "Hollywood doesn't have a race issue." Forty minutes later when I had to stop ranting to get a glass of water they really regretted those words. In fairness they shouldn't have tested me the week that The Great Wall (also known as China needs Matt Damon to save them?) is out in theaters.
Now Playing to a mostly empty theater near you
When said coworker found an opening, they tried to argue that there were so few talented actors of color. And after having to retrieve my eyeballs because they had rolled right out of my head, I put together a slide show of 40 of my favorite actors who are stupid talented and not white. Don't test me, high school gave me power point skills that I have literally no other use for. I won't make you guys sit through the whole thing, but here are some highlights.
Santiago Cabrera
No one, but no one does charming and damaged the way that Santiago does. Most recently he was on our favorite show ever, The Musketeers. But our love for him really started when he was playing a drug addicted psychic painter on Heroes. His American accent is flawless, and his natural British accent is heartbreaking but when he has occasion in his roles to launch into Spanish... It can take several minutes and a defibrillator to bring us back to life.
Ming-Na Wen
Angel. Goddess. Ass-kicker. Ming-Na Wen is all these things. Currently she's playing Agent May on Agents of SHEILD. My Disney nerds will remember her as the voice of Mulan. She gets cast as these amazing tough warrior women, but she's just as capable of carrying a role that's based in humor or vulnerability. We got to see her on a panel at Comic Con a few years ago, and halfway across a crowded hall filled with nerd, she was still capable of being the only thing you can focus on. The woman has more charisma in how she flips her hair than some actresses posses in their entire bodies.
Delroy Lindo
Okay, so it's another Brit. But a Brit who's been working steadily in American Film and TV so long that I always kind of assumed he was from this side of the pond. And so brilliant that he can take poorly written roles and make them captivating and substantial which is a favorite quality of mine. You can catch Mr. Lindo on the new show The Good Fight this fall where you too can fall in love with his effortless presence and dulcet bass voice.
Deepika Padukone
Deepika has spent most of her career in Indian Cinema where over the last decade she's done everything from fight scenes to dance sequences. She made her introduction to US audiences in XXX: Return of Xander Cage. She's fucking mesmerizing on screen and I desperately hope that she stays over here for a little while and gives us more to watch.
Alice Braga
Again, I had no idea that Ms. Braga was from Brazil. The first time I saw her she was in a Spanish speaking role (she speaks Spanish, English, and Portugese fluently) and it was so natural that you would never know it wasn't her first language. Gotta love someone who's a killer actor in three different languages. Currently she's running drug cartel on Queen of the South and I watch to feel fear as well as a deep sense of awe.
I know there are so very many people that I didn't cover here. We have a long list of POC actors that we adore to the ends of the earth, but also we are always looking for suggestions of actors that we should be developing deep crushes on. I'm going to need everyone to keep in mind that while Constance Wu and Idris Elba do not appear on this list, our love for them is like the ocean; deep, vast and totally capable of destroying anything in it's path.
Happy watching
Little C
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