March 4th, 2014
I haven’t seen Twelve Years a Slave in part because I didn’t see any of the movies nominated for Best Picture this year and in part because of essays like this and in part because of over-the-top praise like this. That said, if it manages to make a movie star out of Chiwetel Ejiofor, that would make all the bleating “racism in America” columns worth it, because Ejiofor is awesome.
Remember a few years ago when everyone thought it would be so great to have Idris Elba play James Bond? That was a classic error of recency. Elba is great, but he’s all wrong for Bond. It would have been, This guy was in The Wire! Look! A black James Bond!
Ejiofor, on the other hand, is perfect for 007. Plug him into the series and I doubt anyone would even think about his skin color after the first 3 minutes. I hope Ejiofor makes piles of money and gets tons of work from here on out. Because he is a bona fide leading man.
All of that said, I’ve been thinking about the cultural climate surrounding 12 Years a Slave and wondering: If Seinfeld was in production today, could you have an episode where the gag revolves around two characters making out in the theater during a showing of 12 Years a Slave? If not, why not? Could Bernie Mac have done it if his show was still around?
Nedward March 15, 2014 at 11:30 pm
There already was a black candidate for Bond (and he would’ve been fantastic): Colin Salmon, who additionally possessed the express support of Pierce Brosnan. Somehow that mini-campaign didn’t prevail upon Barb Broccoli or whoever else pulls the strings for this utterly degraded franchise, and we got the British Ryan Gosling instead