The genre Denzel Washington grew to despise: “I’ll be first in line to punch that person”
For the better part of the last four decades, Denzel Washington has been one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. He has lent his commanding, charismatic presence to blockbusters, dramas, romances, and action movies and is one of the few names left who can guarantee audience interest with his presence alone.
Over the years, Washington’s relationship with race on film has always been fascinating. He makes plenty of movies that speak to the Black experience alongside many that have nothing to do with his race. However, his desire for Black actors to have more opportunities has always driven him in his choices—perhaps this is why he grew weary of a certain genre pretty darn quickly.
In 1995, Washington spoke to Time magazine during a period in which he starred in three movies in quick succession: Crimson Tide, Virtuosity, and Devil in a Blue Dress. An actor of any race could have played his roles in the first two of these films, while the third was the only one that specifically required a Black actor. At that point, though, Washington claimed he wasn’t choosing films based on what people thought he should do. Instead, he simply wanted to do good work and didn’t feel his race had limited the kinds of films he was offered.
However, this isn’t to say Washington wasn’t keenly aware of what he represented to every young Black actor trying to make their way in Hollywood. After all, he has been remarkably open about how few roles there were for Black actors when he first broke into the business. In 2016, he told Sirius XM, “It’s much better now,” he mused. “I’ve been in the game – whatever it is – 35, 40 years. Obviously, it wasn’t like that when I started, if you got a role at all, which is why I thought I’d just be doing theatre the rest of my life.”
In fact, Washington claimed he didn’t even aspire to be a movie star in those early days “because I didn’t see anybody that looked like me anyway.” He knew comedy wasn’t his thing, so he wouldn’t be an Eddie Murphy type, and he had no desire to “be that third what’s-his-name from the back,” admitting, “I got too much ego for that.”
This led Washington to conclude that Black creatives had to write their own material if they wanted to get anywhere. He believed it was the only way they’d become stars capable of telling their own culture’s stories, but once in that position, they could help the actors coming along after them. “I’m going to make sure that there’s hundreds of roles for the next generation,” he said, “and utilise the power that I have at this moment in order to do that, and nobody’s going to get in my way.”
Naturally, though, because Washington has been around the block a few times, he’s fully aware of how Hollywood can pervert even a story with noble intentions. Take movies like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society, for example. These electrifying portraits of life in South Central Los Angeles showed young Black people growing up amid the spectre of gang violence and a trigger-happy police force. These films were written and directed by artists like John Singleton and the Hughes brothers and were genuinely heartfelt stories of Black culture told by Black creatives.
Washington loved both films when he first saw them, but then he noticed something that bothered him. In the wake of Boyz and Menace, many imitators began popping up. It was a tale as old as time – Hollywood saw something that resonated with audiences, and it flooded the market. To Washington, though, even though these films granted more roles to Black actors and filmmakers, they weren’t pure expressions anymore, and he felt the proliferation of cinema depicting these aspects of Black life in America could end up having a negative effect.
“I don’t pay to see ‘life in the hood’ movies anymore,” Washington said in ’95, only two years after Menace II Society. “That story’s been told. If someone has something to spill from their heart, God bless ’em, they should. But if someone’s just saying, ‘Oh, I’m gonna keep doing this because it makes money,’ I’ll be the first person in line to punch that person in the head.”
