Obama-produced biopic explores legacy of civil rights movement leader
A new Barack and Michelle Obama-produced biopic about Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist who mentored Martin Luther King Jr, will explore how his sexuality has affected his legacy.
Rustin, who died aged 75 in 1987, was one of the key organisers of the 1963 March on Washington – where King Jr made his “I have a dream” speech to 250,000 demonstrators.
But as a gay man with affiliations to the Communist Party, his place in history has often been erased in the decades since.
Bayard Rustin points to a map showing the path of the March on Washington
From the 1940s until the end of the 1960s, Rustin was beaten, arrested and ostracised for his political convictions and sexuality.
“It completely played against him and also a lot of women in the movement as well,” said Euphoria’s Colman Domingo, who is playing Rustin in the Netflix biopic.
“I understand how black folks, at times, we can be a bit conservative. But I think it was all trying to come together to actually do what we believed was right,” he said.
“Yet you have people’s minds, bodies and souls who live outside of that, who are sort of outliers that get denied access in many ways. And [Rustin] was just very much a man of his own creation.”
Jendella Benson, author and head of editorial at Black Ballad – a media outlet and community for black British women – said Rustin was a victim of the respectability politics of the time.
In the US in the 1960s, homosexuality was classified as a psychiatric disorder and you could face being fired from work for being gay.
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“There were all these ideas about respectability, about the right kind of black person to lead us and who is the infallible black person that white people will have to listen to, that white people will have to respect who has done all the right things. And we don’t leave room for complication,” Ms Benson said.
“I think black communities often suffer from this idea of collective responsibility, which can be good, but also can be quite restrictive in terms of if one person messes up, it’s somehow a brush to tar the whole community with.
“And rather than interrogating that narrative, sometimes we play into it.”
A scene from Rustin (L to R), Michael Potts as Cleve Robinson, Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King Jr, Chris Rock as NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins, Glynn Turman as A Philip Randolph and Kevin Mambo as Whitney Young. Pic: David Lee/Netflix
Rustin isn’t the first instance in which an activist from the civil rights movement has been sidelined in favour of someone who better fits rigid societal expectations.
Journalist and author Gary Younge documented the story of 15-year-old Claudette Colvin in his book Dispatches From The Diaspora: Nelson Mandela To Black Lives Matter.
Gary Younge
She was removed from a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s.
“The civil rights movement [was] going to go with her [as the face of the protest] but she was dark-skinned [and] from the wrong side of town. And then she got pregnant and they dropped her like a hot potato,” Mr Younge told Sky News.
Shortly after, Rosa Parks was kicked off a bus in the same city and became synonymous with the civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks
“I’m proudest of [interviewing] Claudette Colvin [in the book] because I found her and I felt at the time she wasn’t being celebrated in the way that she is now,” Mr Younge said.
Just three years before the March on Washington, the US had its first televised presidential debate. For the biopic’s film director George C Wolfe this made the civil rights movement acutely aware of the impact respectability had on perception.
George C Wolfe and Colman Domingo
“President Kennedy had just won a presidential election because he was handsome and charismatic versus Richard Nixon, who sweated throughout the entire thing.
“So image was very important for black people at the time because they were aware that they were entering the mainstream,” Wolfe told Sky News.
Rustin is streaming on Netflix.
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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