Lupita Nyong’o Awesome
Lupita Nyong’o and her cart full of statuettes and other hardware for her contribution to 12 Years a Slave, resurrects the negative effects of the camera on the definition of beauty.
It also puts
her parents, Peter Anyang and Dorothy Nyong’o in a quandary. They don’t understand the nitpicking about
her colour, a feeling shared by millions of black parents from Georgetown
Guyana, Khartoum Sudan to Atlanta Georgia.
The camera
lies because it seldom sees little black girls as adorable. But they are, always have been. If they are made in the image of God, they
have to be. Fortunately, their parents
love them and sometimes spoil them silly.
Enter the camera. It decides that they are not beautiful because they don’t have colour assigned to hair, eyes and other colour coded features. Black girls are just beautiful, as in Jill Scott, Tasha Smith, Nigerian actresses Liz Benson, Ini Edo, Mercy Johnson, Chioma Chukwuka, your daughter and your niece.
Television
and cinema cameras are funny. They would
tolerate black men such as the late Bernie Mac, Taye Diggs, Tyrese Gibson,
Wesley Snipes or Lance Gross but don’t find actresses such as Janet Hubert or
Camille Winbush that breathtaking.
Talking
about Bernie Mac, he was part of the comedians in The Original Kings of Comedy,
the film Spike Lee shot in Charlotte North Carolina. The audience was black, the black you never
see in a commercial, television presenter or sitcom, but the black that is in
the majority in Chicago or Nairobi.
Peter Anyang
and Dorothy Nyong’o produced such a beautiful confident woman who said hello to
the world on her terms, because they did not rely on the camera. They used ancient ingredients such a cup of gentleness,
a plate of warm food, some fruit and vegetables, a pinch of discipline, a pint
of respect for family and community, a tablespoon of education and finally
rivers of love from Kenya’s streams and lakes.
Lupita
Nyong’o is in awe of her parents as beautiful human beings. “I want to thank my family for your training
and the Yale School of Drama,” is the least quoted line of her acceptance
speech at the 2014 Academy Awards after winning an Oscar for Actress in a
Supporting role.
It is
interesting that Lupita regards her upbringing as training because come to
think of it, it is training, training for life.
Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States is proof of that. Her parents, Fraser C. Robinson 111 and
Marian Shields Robinson did not say, “Baby girl, eat your greens. They are good for you and will make you a
healthy White House tenant.”
They used
the same ancient ingredients. What is
the big deal? The big deal is that gigabytes
of home love is all black girls have right now because the camera is not in
their favour, and never will be whether we have Michelle Obama or Lupita
Nyong’o in the headlines or not.
Once upon a
time, in my little corner of Africa, children were brought up by
community. Neighbours called me to order
or reported any mischief to my parents.
My teachers caned me and I could not tell my parents because they would
have given me a double dose of the punishment.
Aunts,
grandparents, and neighbours were also custodians of beauty. They told us we were beautiful. They said we were well-dressed. They said we were intelligent. In my language, adults like saying, ‘Sizogeza sibebahle,’ translated into: we are going to take a bath so that we can be beautiful.
Realistically
however, television, films and the internet also make African children
vulnerable to the camera. Hair salons
are everywhere, even in some of the remotest parts of Africa, and they sell
colour coded images of beauty.
That is what
makes Lupita’s parents so phenomenal (to borrow from Maya Angelou). They raised a woman who is comfortable with
her inner and outer self. That is
important because the camera is on today and off tomorrow.
Lupita has
worked behind the camera. She is a film
producer and director. She will be
alright. Her parents invested in love
software that produced all the hardware for 12 Years a Slave.
Nonqaba waka Msimang is the author of
Sweetness the Novel.
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