Denzel Washington names the movie that safeguarded cinema’s future: “The baton had been passed”
The journey towards equal representation and diversity in the film industry only began in the last decade or so, with many people of colour in Hollywood struggling to find substantial roles and opportunities similar to their white counterparts. The industry has built a reputation on its very frequent tendency to typecast based on dated stereotypes and limiting ideas, leaving many with few chances to showcase their talents and find success after playing characters that don’t reflect who they are or their skillset.
After years in which the blatant racial disparity on screen was ignored and dismissed, some people in the industry began to make a real effort to increase diversity, leading to a new era of storytelling where people who had typically been excluded were slowly given more power.
However, while this effort only became more widespread in recent years, there were many creatives who had been pushing for this change for many years, with Denzel Washington describing the emotional experience of watching one ground-breaking film for the first time and the actors who represented a new era in cinema.
While the Marvel studio has committed many atrocities over the years, they have also been responsible for a few films that have had a huge impact on popular culture and cinema as a whole, with the 2018 film Black Panther being a prime example of this.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, the film is a standalone film in the Marvel universe that follows King T’Challa as he returns home to Wakanda to claim the throne after his father’s death, with a powerful enemy threatening to attack his nation. Starring the late Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o, many have regarded it as one of the best MCU films of all time, with each cast member giving a stellar performance in a story world that audiences had never seen the likes of before, with a cast of mostly Black actors that became one of the most influential films of the 21st century.
Washington has been advocating for more diversity in the industry since the beginning of his career. The actor described his sheer joy at watching Black Panther for the first time and his quiet sense of relief that he was seeing this change being realised on the silver screen and safely in the hands of the next generation.
When discussing this, Washington said, “I cried a little bit when I saw Black Panther. I was on Broadway [in The Iceman Cometh], in fact, and I went to the premiere, and I wasn’t interested in the red carpet and all that. So I went backstage and I saw Chad and Ryan. I spoke to them and then I sat down and watched the movie. And I felt like the baton had been passed. I was like, ‘Wow, these young boys are gone,’ you know. I felt, I don’t know if the word is ‘relieved,’ but I was proud to see what they had done and seeing where they were headed. You know, I didn’t know then they were gonna make a billion dollars, but they did. So that, uh, that was a special moment for me.”
