This month, the first 2016, marks a momentous occasion for the history of American cinema and we are barely celebrating. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has officially topped Avatar as the highest grossing domestic film in U.S. history by taking in more than $800 million at the domestic box office, all while displaying a perfect example of black heroism.
Millions of Americans will praise George Lucas for initially gifting us with the franchise before then praising J.J. Abrams for this new installment which was lauded as being explosive, energetic and downright nostalgic. After viewing the film, I’d have to agree with the critics, except for one huge detail that sought to diversify the nostalgia by tossing up the status quo. This is the detail that I want to celebrate. This is the detail that I want to discuss. When I think about the new highest grossing film in U.S. history, I can proudly say that the film in question is led by a black hero.
Not just any black hero, but a black hero of Nigerian descent. Finn, jubilantly played by British-Nigerian actor John Boyega, has been added to an extremely short list of black characters that have led the charge against evil forces determined to dominate or destroy the world as we know it. Cinema hasn’t seen a black hero this pertinent to survival and successfully played with so much dexterity and romantic appeal since Will Smith’s Captain Steven Hiller, who appeared in
Black heroes in film
Cinema hasn’t seen a black hero this pertinent to survival and successfully played with so much dexterity and romantic appeal since Will Smith’s Captain Steven Hiller, who appeared in Independence Day 20 years ago. These black heroes couldn’t be any more different from one another. Steven Hiller is the confident and brawny sex symbol whose muscles are doused in sweat; Finn is the conflicted and unresolved sensitive hero who digs deep down to discover monumental courage. Yet, both men fight with bravery. Both men assist triumphantly in saving their planets.
Side note, if you were to research the top 100 grossing films in U.S. history, only two of them star black leads — Star Wars: The Force Awakens at number one and Independence Day at 50.
Representation matters
I supported Star Wars: The Force Awakens with my younger kin in tow. I’d taken full advantage of my nephews’ and niece’s indecisiveness of choosing between another Chipmunk movie or something they couldn’t care less about, and directed their attentions toward a night of laser-beaming adventure. Of course, this mission involved the suicide of my coolness, but I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see how this heroic black character could inspire some positive self-identification for my relatives and I. We were not only going to see one of the most iconic fictional franchises in American history, but we were going to watch a black man succeed at being great.
I saw the value in this because there are currently two purveying narratives for Black males in Chicago, the city by which we call home. In the current media, we are either victims or parasites. The latest of Chicago police brutality cases involves the shooting deaths of a 19-year-old Northern Illinois University student, Quintonio LeGrier, and a 55-year-old homeowner, Bettie Jones. Jones is said to have been an innocent bystander accidentally shot by a CPD officer responding on the scene to a call made by the father of LeGrier. According to Chicago Police, Quintonio LeGrier was said to have been aggravated and extremely aggressive while armed with a bat. According to the authorities, he was a force to be reckoned with. Now he’s in the news as being another victim to overaggressive policing tactics. This comes on the heels of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, a teenage Black youth shot 16 times by CPD without retribution. Now, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel feels the weight of public opinion after releasing video evidence nearly a year after the fact.
Furthermore, before Mayor Emmanuel and the CPD went on the defensive, they authored a campaign in the summer of 2015 against gang violence in the black community after the mafia-style execution of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee in a South Chicago alley. The assailants were labeled as the vein of society, parasitic members of their community and at odds with the dignity and the safety of upstanding taxpaying individuals.
Black women matter
Even more discerning is the media’s lack of attention given to black female victims. The memory of Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old black female victim of a 2012 police shooting, rests on a grieving community that did not see the light of justice. Her name now falls on a long list, only mentioned in tandem with male victims. The messages relayed to any black youth in Chicago began to state that they would either fall victim to those sworn to serve and protect, fall victim to themselves or fall victim to obscurity. Either way, there are few portrayals of black heroism. There is only black suffering. Black death. Black invisibility. Be good and succeed in school, otherwise you’ll become a morbid statistic.
To conclude, I wanted to see how Star Wars: The Force Awakens would motivate a different perspective. After the screening, I asked my niece and nephews for their opinion on the film, not wanting to lead the direction of their discussion but rather allowing them an organic discovery. That discovery was never verbalized. They flatly described their admiration for the action and requested a late-night snack. I asked if they enjoyed the characters and they said, “Yeah, they were cool.” Cool? Nothing more. To my own fault, I left the subject alone, thinking to myself that today’s common teenager is not prepared to dissect racial politics. I might have missed out on a finding of my own. I could have been completely wrong. Now that the biggest film this country has ever seen stars a black hero, I am very anxious to revisit the subject. It would be incredible to Google “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with “black actor,” and not be met only with results detailing racist opinions.
This is a fertile opportunity to discuss the future of diversity in Hollywood. This is the perfect time to describe the effectiveness of our black lead on the opinions of movie-goers across the nation. Even further, now is the time to ask ourselves to alter our gaze by placing a black female lead in the same film. Would Star Wars: The Force Awakens have been just as successful if the co-lead protagonist, Rey, were a black woman? If not, then why? I would like to open the floor to these discussions and others of the sort that celebrate and praise blackness.
An alum of the coveted Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Donald Conley has been immersed in the arts since an early age. In 2013, HBO optioned the North American telecast & digital rights to Conley’s latest award-winning film, SLEEP. Conley added the title of associate producer to his resume after the successful 2015 release of the critically acclaimed feature length documentary, Evolution of a Criminal. Conley has been a strong advocate for arts education and community activism. He has most recently received his MA in acting, awarded by the United Kingdom as well as authoring opinion editorials and poetry. Twitter: @don_con, Instagram: @meekley.
