Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, and Yara Shahidi – what do all of these women have in common? They are the basis of Black female Hollywood today. If you were to ask a non-Black person to name three Black female actresses, there’s a high chance that one of these three would be included in the list.
Who wouldn’t be included in the list? Likely Ryan Destiny, Marsai Martin, Lupita Nyong’o, Issa Rae, and many more. The simple answer to why these women are excluded is colorism. Colorism plays a big role, not only in Hollywood, but in society today.
This ideology dates back to slavery when house slaves were Black with light skin, while field slaves were Black with darker skin.
Historically, Black actors were excluded from Hollywood, and when they were included, they were discriminated against and commonly played stereotypical roles.
“Gone with the Wind” is a heavily acclaimed film from 1939 that romanticized slavery and racism. Although Hattie McDaniel made history as the first African American to win an Oscar for her performance in the film, she did so by playing the stereotypical role of a mammy.
So how does this deep-rooted history of Hollywood and the systems of America relate to modern society? Today, this ideology still reigns true when you look at who’s praised and who’s running Hollywood.
According to IMDB, a dark skin Black female lead wasn’t in any of the 50 highest-grossing blockbusters of all time. Additionally, only three of those movies had Black male leads: “Independence Day,” “Lion King” (2019), and “Black Panther,”.
Some popular movies with dark skin female leads include “Us,” “Little,” “The Help,” “The Color Purple,” “Precious” and “Queen and Slim.” While successful in their own right, their scarcity speaks to the uncertainty of greater change in Hollywood’s attitude toward Black female stars.
The actresses in these films may win awards and gain recognition, but it’s never enough to have a lasting effect on white Hollywood or to evoke real change. Hollywood should normalize movies with dark skin Black female leads for all audiences, not just Black audiences.
Black dark skin actresses are commonly boxed into the same type of roles and movies, and usually, they can be categorized as trauma movies. They commonly play a slave, a maid, the supportive best friend, the sassy or angry Black girl, or a hyper-sexualized character, further feeding into stereotypes.
Creators of movies like “The Notebook,” “The Hunger Games,” or even “Mean Girls” might not have even thought to cast an actress like Keke Palmer or Tika Sumpter as a lead. As audience members, Black dark skin girls are never given coming-of-age movies, rom-coms, or sci-fi movies. Instead, we are left with movies that spotlight the trauma and horrors of Black people in today’s society.
Yet when you look at the movies that Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, and Yara Shahidi ( all light skin Black women) have starred in, there’s a wide range. Zendaya has starred in the recent Marvel Spider-Man trilogy, “The Greatest Showman” and “Dune.” Amandla Stenberg has starred in “Everything, Everything” and “The Hunger Games,” and Yara Shahidi was the lead in “The Sun Is Also A Star.”
These roles give some Black women a sense of representation, but they also further fuel the issue of colorism in Hollywood. Zendaya acknowledges how this pattern leaves dark skin women without representation, and has spoken out about the issue.
According to Teen Vogue, at the 2018 Beauty Festival, she said “As a Black woman, as a light-skinned Black woman, it’s important that I’m using my privilege, my platform to show you how much beauty there is in the African American community,” she said. “I am Hollywood’s, I guess you could say, acceptable version of a Black girl, and that needs to change. We’re vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to be the only representation of that.”
Stenberg also chose to turn down the role of Shuri in “Black Panther,” as she felt a dark skin actress should be cast to play the role instead.
In an interview with Variety, she said, “Me and Yara and Zendaya are perceived in the same way, I guess, because we are lighter-skinned Black girls and we fill this interesting place of being accessible to Hollywood and accessible to white people in a way that darker-skinned girls are not afforded the same privilege.”
These practices are detrimental to all audiences, not just Black women. Colorism in Hollywood perpetuates stereotypes and heightens stigma among all audiences alike. And it’s on Hollywood executives to create projects that reframe the norm and portrays audiences outside of their own.