Murmures
Why an African-American Director Wouldn’t Have Cast Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave?
mars 2014 | Faits de société | Cinéma/TV | États-Unis
Source : The Root
© Mark Sullivan/Getty Images for DuJour Magazine (12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and actress Lupita Nyong’o)
Français
By: Keli Goff, The Root
Si l’Afro-Britannnique Steve McQueen n’avait pas réalisé le film nominé [et primé]aux Oscars, une actrice au teint plus clair aurait été choisi pour jouer le rôle de Patsey, estime Keli Goff (The Root). Un réalisateur Africain-Américain n’aurait pas pris Lupita Nyong’o, annonce la journaliste dans le titre de son article.
English
If Afro-Brit Steve McQueen hadn’t made the Oscar-nominated film, a lighter-skinned actress might have been cast in the role of Patsey.
If there was any doubt left that Lupita Nyong’o is the Cinderella of this award season, it was erased by Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue. Not only did she land a slot on the issue’s coveted cover (she was one of six black actors included this year), but an article about Hollywood’s most powerful stylists dubbed her the actress most A-list designers are fighting to dress for the Oscars.
The way she’s been embraced as a style-and-beauty icon and an A-list Hollywood ingenue is a milestone-one that she herself remarked on at Essence’s Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, recounting her own gradual embrace of her beauty as a young girl, and telling black girls of today to embrace their own beauty.
But here’s a larger question: Would Nyong’o be on Hollywood’s radar at all if not for her discovery by Steve McQueen, an Afro-British director of Trinidadian and Grenadian descent? To be more blunt: Would an American director have felt comfortable casting a woman of Nyong’o’s hue as the leading lady of a major Hollywood film? A quick look back at film history and a discussion with an expert on skin color in American culture indicates that this is unlikely.
READ MORE AT theroot.com
If there was any doubt left that Lupita Nyong’o is the Cinderella of this award season, it was erased by Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue. Not only did she land a slot on the issue’s coveted cover (she was one of six black actors included this year), but an article about Hollywood’s most powerful stylists dubbed her the actress most A-list designers are fighting to dress for the Oscars.
The way she’s been embraced as a style-and-beauty icon and an A-list Hollywood ingenue is a milestone-one that she herself remarked on at Essence’s Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, recounting her own gradual embrace of her beauty as a young girl, and telling black girls of today to embrace their own beauty.
But here’s a larger question: Would Nyong’o be on Hollywood’s radar at all if not for her discovery by Steve McQueen, an Afro-British director of Trinidadian and Grenadian descent? To be more blunt: Would an American director have felt comfortable casting a woman of Nyong’o’s hue as the leading lady of a major Hollywood film? A quick look back at film history and a discussion with an expert on skin color in American culture indicates that this is unlikely.
READ MORE AT theroot.com
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