Editor’s
note: This letter was discovered to have been written before the release of
Black Panther.
Dear White People Hollywood,
We write to you in light of recent events concerning our
portrayals in your movies. Truth is if you’re reading this it’s because you
refused to take heed of our suggestions from brothers like Binyavanga Wainaina.
Also if this letter comes off as cliché, well… guess whose fault it is?!
Hollywood
is arguably the most watched movie industry in the world and as such we feel
the need to correct you on certain things, least the world takes your movies
for gospel. I mean I certainly don’t expect to build a real life Iron Man suit
anytime soon to fly away, but the thought has crossed my mind since I
discovered 3D printers.
We know in the past you’ve faced certain accusations,
some made popular with hashtags like #OscarsSoWhite
and controversies like giving Oscars to the right people, but for the wrong
movies (Denzel, Leo, etc). We’re not here to delve on the past or gather more
ammunition against you for we know the Oscars have tried to diversify over the
years and that is good. We also don’t really have a problem with White actors
getting nominated based on their great performances, even if it results in an
ugly hashtag like #OscarsSoWhite…
just don’t let our other Black coalition brothers know we said that.
It
is also why we write this letter, to make sure you don’t falter in your diversification
and mind control expansion of the world. We the concerned citizens of Africa
write to you in concern of how we would like to be portrayed from henceforth.
For starters, stop distinguishing us Africans between those in North Africa and
those in Sub-Saharan Africans. Africa is Africa. You portray one group as
desert Islamists and the other as starving hungry children. We are all starving
Islamist children in the desert with laptops and the energy to respond to you,
so stop separating us.
Second,
while we would like to be treated as one, we are not. Realize that all Africans
DO NOT have that one accent you’ve been parading around for the past twenty
years in your movies and TV shows. As a matter of fact there is a bounty on
finding that one African who first spoke like that and gave you the impression
that we all speak the same and ending his life, so when next you speak to an
African who doesn’t sound like that, you will at least have an alternative
accent to use for the next twenty years.
Third, we would also like to discuss the potential of
making a Hollywood movie about Africa that is mutually beneficial to us both.
First we would like Brad Pitt to produce said movie, he and his Plan B company have funded 12 Years a Slave (the movie, not the years
we spent listening to you recycle that accent) as well as Selma, which caused a debate about whether the White guy, Lyndon B.
Johnson was portrayed unfairly (welcome to our world). We want Brad Pitt,
because it seems Brad Pitt likes Black people. More importantly Brad Pitt funds
movies about Black people!
We’ve also decided that the star of the movie will be
White and from South Africa, that rainbow nation that gave us Mandela. We’re
not casting a White hero because we think it’ll help sell our movie, but
because we don’t need the hashtag #AfricanMoviesSoBlack and because aside
certain countries like South Africa, it’s hard for White actors in Africa to
get roles where they’re not the devil. So you see, we do care about diversity
and not stereotyping!
We also have a storyline we’d like you to follow. Also
take note we will not allow product placement for Western products that put
more money in the hands of the West than the Motherland, so cozy up to some
African companies, no matter how inferior you think some of their products are.
We buy African… even if they are imported African fabrics from the Netherlands!
Our hero, who we shall name Cecil Madiba Rhodes, shall be
an old man, say in his sixties who decides in his old age to wander the
Motherland (I know some of you are saying shouldn’t his motherland be Europe,
that’s beside the point). And you best cast an African for this! If you hire
any Non-African in this role, I assure you we will burn down Hollywood starting
with that sign! We don’t need anyone trying to sound like us… just hire us for
a change!
The plot will revolve around him having multiple
adventures as he journeys round the continent. Now before you question how
you’re going to fit that into two hours, may we remind you of the numerous
biopics where you squeeze a person’s life into the same amount of time? Good!
If you don’t think it’ll work, there’s always Netflix and no chill!
So, let’s look at the rest of this movie, eh?! Somewhere
along his adventure across the African continent, John Rhodes shall get
captured by Niger Delta militants (or perhaps, Boko Haram) upon entering West
Africa. The director would need to make sure that the actors playing the
militants are dark skinned going by Hollywood standards, because they’re no
light-skinned Africans. The militants shall speak very bad English, although
that can be blamed on the Nigerian educational system. The militants shall hate
Rhodes for his white skin and he in turn shall recognize the atrocities of his
ancestors and what a burden it is to be White. Or maybe the militants just want
money and like Chris Rock said, “If it’s all White, it’s all right!”
Who cares how Rhodes gets rescued, certainly not by the
Nigerian government. We know you are not going to let the Nigerian government
look like heroes in a Hollywood movie, what kind of marketing is that? Rhodes
will most likely be rescued by a special American Black op team situated in the
country, not unlike Bruce Willis and his soldiers from Tears of the Sun. Or maybe the militants shall probably get tired
and realize his “white value” is not as high as that of White men from America
or Europe or maybe his ransom shall get paid. Whichever one looks more
adventurous or convenient.
Rhodes shall journey to East Africa, Kenya specifically.
No need to tell you why. He shall visit the Serengeti, enjoy the wild life and
in Nairobi, the capital, he shall see posters of Obama and Black hope. So
called hope! He shall go to the Congo and see almost extinct gorillas and since
this is supposed to be a positive movie (excluding the kidnapping, because
Nigerians have to be the bad guys), there shall be no encounters with child
soldiers, female mutilation or sex-crazed rebel soldiers.
He shall head up to Egypt, that’s if he doesn’t get
captured by Somali pirates on his way, where he shall see the pyramids and have
some sort of enlightened revelation that only non-Africans have in movies, when
they visit exotic foreign lands. Black people never have enlightened
revelations in Hollywood, except when the White man saves them, (are we still
doing that stereotype in Hollywood?). Have you noticed that most North African
countries are free of the darkly misconstrued images of Africa? Of course some
of them get portrayed as terrorists as I mentioned earlier, but that’s another
story for another day.
Rhodes shall finally return to South Africa, to the
scenic city of Cape Town. He sure isn’t going back to Soweto. And the movie
ends here. That’s how you sell an African movie to Hollywood. The truth is even
I’d watch it. Just remember, we don’t want an American or Englishman (even
though we love Benedict Cumberbatch) in the role and just remember to have a
variety of African accents, eh?!
Yours truly,
