Lupita Nyong'o fits into white America’s stereotype of black actresses.

Kenyan columnist Prof. Makau Mutua offers an interesting perspective on Lupita Nyong’o’s recent wins.  In a column in Kenya’s standard newspaper, Prof. Mutua opines that Lupita’s success has more to do with White Hollywood power brokers extolling her, than it is genuinely about her talents, despite how much of a talented lady Lupita is. For a start, Lupita has won dozens of awards for her role in the 12 Years a slave movie, and her star is set to shine even brighter as she gets nominated for numerous awards. Here is Prof. Mutua’s take.

“I was joyously delirious when Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, the daughter of Senator Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o and business executive Dorothy Nyong’o, scooped the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the gripping historical drama 12 Years a Slave. I texted Senator Nyong’o my hearty congratulations on the incredible feat of his daughter. We exchanged several messages, both of us awed by

the moment. America and the world were entranced by Ms Nyong’o, the erudite, scholarly, and seductively beautiful diva. Everyone knew that a new magnetic film star had been born. Elegant and graceful, Ms Nyong’o has since been the talk of the celebrity world. But as we celebrate Ms Nyong’o, let’s complexify and interrogate her sudden rise to stardom.

Some historical context is in order. In addition to the Oscar, Ms Nyong’o has been nominated for various titles at least 50 times for her role in 12 Years a Slave. She’s bagged at least 24 awards out of those nominations. In April, she was named People magazine’s Most Beautiful Woman. It’s difficult to think of another more celebrated artist within such a short clip. Get this — black actors and actresses Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, Cecily Tyson, and James Earl Jones have never won an Oscar. To be fair, white actors and actresses Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DeCaprio, Peter O’Toole, Glenn Close, Bette Midler, and Amy Adams have never won an Oscar. But it’s not the white actors and actresses who’ve won an Oscar that concern me today. That’s because I want to focus on race, Hollywood, and the objectification and fetishisation of the black body in American cinema. To do so, I want to dig deeper into the infrastructure of Hollywood. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, known simply as the Academy, has 6,000 members who determine Oscar winners. But the Academy is one of the most racially segregated institutions in American life.

Ninety-four per cent of its members are white and 77 per cent of them are male. That’s not a ringing endorsement of diversity. Until 2000, only a measly handful of blacks had won Oscars. Black actors and actresses will tell you that it’s not easy for them to get work in Hollywood. That’s because the film industry prefers blacks to play generally subservient, demeaning, and vulnerable roles. Blacks who play leading and strong roles are rarely recognised. They may be nominated for an Oscar, but rarely win. This year, for example, actor Chiwetel Ojiofor, the star of 12 Years a Slave, lost the Best Actor Oscar to actor Mathew McConaughey of Dallas Buyers Club. Mr Ojiofor was an educated, strong, and defiant free black man during slavery. He played the role so convincingly the Oscar should’ve been his. 

But Hollywood isn’t comfortable valourising — and acknowledging — black men who challenge white power structures. There’s no doubt Ms Nyong’o acted her way into stardom. This was especially stunning because it was her debut performance. But the role that she played — Patsy, the enslaved woman who was sexually plundered by her white enslaver — is one that Hollywood considers “natural” for black women. It’s a depiction of a white man who completely dominates his “black property.” In the role, Ms Nyong’o is vulnerable and hopeless. Her beautiful body is perversely sexually fetishised as an object of lust and rape for the white enslaver. The repeated brutal rapes and savage whippings to the point of unconsciousness are totally dehumanising, revolting, and difficult to watch. But Hollywood prefers these subservient roles for blacks. It’s a racialised hierarchy.

Historically, Hollywood has had a fascination with black actors of light skin, sometimes known in the street pejoratively “high yellow.” It’s a skin caste system whose legacy goes back to the enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Those blacks with a light skin had more European ancestry in them, often as a result of rapes and sexual assaults by white enslavers. Some of these “children of the master” were derisively termed by political activist Malcolm X “house niggers” as opposed to “field niggers.”

In any case, the proximate blood relations between the white enslavers and their black progeny left light-skinned blacks with a legacy of more property, social capital, and acceptance by white society than their dark-skinned kin. This skin-tone legacy endures in America today. Often, whites exhibit more social and professional acceptance of light-skinned blacks. Blacks with more European features and longer hair are often depicted as beautiful and presented in American media, including television, as the quintessence of black success. High fashion models until recently generally fit this mould before the stunning Alek Wek of Sudan — the black golden beauty — broke through. I hope Ms Nyong’o, dark and gorgeous with her close-cropped African hair, won’t just be another exotic flavor of the month.

The original version of Prof. Mutua's column appeared on Standard newspaper;

standard.co.ke