[May 19th marks the 100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm, leading up to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in 2025!]
On two
ways to analyze Malcolm’s brief
appearance in Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014).
Just over
ten years ago, I wrote
a piece about Selma and its representations of history for my
Talking Points Memo column. While I didn’t address the film’s depiction of
Malcolm X in that column, I’m certainly continuing to consider those
overarching questions in this post, so in lieu of a first paragraph would ask
you to check out that prior column and then come on back for those further
thoughts.
Welcome
back! I know that my use of “distort” in that column’s title and main idea is a
controversial one, but I stand by my meaning: that our dominant narratives of
the Civil Rights Movement, in cultural works as in every other layer of
collective memory, have been those of white perspectives, and thus that we were
and remain long overdue for narratives shaped by Black perspectives instead
(even if, per the example on which I focused there, Lyndon Johnson comes off
looking worse as a result). The film’s depiction of Malcolm X is shaped in a
parallel but slightly different way: Selma’s central shaping perspectives
are those of Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King; so when
Malcolm X enters the story (played by Nigel Thatch, who has reprised the role in the
recent TV series Godfather of Harlem), it’s through their eyes that we
see him, especially in the
scene when Coretta convinces Malcolm to support her husband despite their
differences. That makes Malcolm’s role in the story the equivalent of what
literary critics would call a
foil—a supporting character (or other element of a text) who exists to shed
light on the main character through comparisons and contrasts.
That’s unquestionably
the case for Malcolm’s role in Selma, but I would also add this: Malcolm
and Coretta’s conversation is one of many scenes in the film where multiple
African American characters discuss strategy, usually without any white
characters present; indeed, I would argue that the majority of the movie’s
scenes feature such conversations. (Including the best scene by far and one of
my favorites in 21st century cinema to date, between King and the young
John Lewis; it doesn’t seem to be online at the moment, but is well worth
seeking out.) This might seem like a given in a film about one of the key
collective actions of the Civil Rights Movement, but I’m pointing it out because
I believe it was truly groundbreaking in 2014, and is still a rarity (although
other recent films such as Rustin
[2023] have extended the tradition). Even the subject of yesterday’s post, Spike
Lee’s Malcolm X biopic, due to its epic scope and multiple throughlines doesn’t
make such conversations a central element. Which means that even though Malcolm’s
appearance in Selma is a brief one, it’s also groundbreaking in its
cinematic depiction of his strategic thinking within the movement and in
conversation with other movement leaders—making this a meaningful cameo to be
sure.
Last
MalcolmStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you’d highlight?
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