Before I launch into a full on tirade about the lack of prominent young black actresses in Hollywood, I’d like to give you some background: I am a black female screenwriter–not a super successful one yet, but I’m working on it. I stand in the back of a long line of hopeful, underrepresented, passionate women writers, who work day jobs and use their nights and spare time to build a story and create characters that no one thinks our kind is capable of bringing to life.
During the early stages of my screenplay, after I’ve broke the story and placed those colorful index cards filled with plot points all over my walls like I’m Kubrick, I open Google and pick different actors and actresses to fill the roles in my movie. This helps me personalize my characters and makes the insane process of creating a story from scratch a little easier. Recently, I have been working on the black version of the popular late eighties cult classic, “Heathers” starring a then mega famous Winona Ryder and super-mega famous Christian Slater. Here’s a baby synopsis: “A girl who halfheartedly tries to be part of the "in crowd" of her school meets a rebel who teaches her a more devious way to play social politics. It’s like “Mean Girls” but better, like way way better.
When I went to cast the role of the lead character, “Alexis” in my Google search, I realized that if I wanted to cast a prominent young black female actress my choices were Keke Palmer (True Jackson VP) or Camille Winbush (Vanessa from the Bernie Mac show) Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class). Not to say that there are not hundreds of other young teenage Black actresses, I’m just not as well versed in them. On the flip-side, if I needed a young Caucasian actress, I could name 40 off the top of my head.
This is ridiculous.
In the eighties and nineties we had more black shows and movies released than any other time before or after it. Cosby Show, Living Single, Martin, Girlfriends, Waiting to Exhale, Moesha, New York Undercover, all 900 of the pre-Ray Jamie Foxx movies that no one ever talks about, the rise of Robin Givens, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Lela Rochon, Lisa Bonet, and Queen Latifah. The list is endless. The characters were not all stereotypes and they were universally loved. The new millennium hit and studios brought our reign to a screeching halt. Why did it have to fall apart? Why is our progress being reverse as time goes by? All I want is to write a reflection of me that I can root for on the silver screen. I’d give up a paycheck to kickstart a film where the Black Girl Nerd wins the day. I’m sick of living in an era where my only commercials options for Black Cinema lay in the hands of one or two major Black filmmaking players who are not even telling a story that connects to me
*cough Tyler Perry*
We are multi-talented, trendsetting, strong, and fierce people. Directors like Ava Duvernay, Victoria Mahoney, and Tina Gordon Brown are leading us into a renaissance of Black film and it’s about time someone took notice. plI hope that a year from now, when I start working on my next project and I open up that Google search engine that my choices have quadrupled or better yet quintupled. If you’re out there fighting the good fight and getting turned away from auditions because you’re “too urban”, my heart is with you, but you have to keep fighting the good fight. The movement is upon us and you need to be on the top of your game, practiced, polished, and rehearsed because my movie needs some diverse leads and I ain’t settling for Hilary Duff or Emma Stone: I want you. I’ll end this with a partial quote from Heathers that I modified for a beautiful ending to this article:
“What’s your damage, America?”
