Can the Michael Ealy Era Begin?

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

Talk about Michael Ealy and Black film! Click here.

The Wesley Snipes era is officially over. (I know you're saying, girrrrl, that's BEEN over!)

Based on the promotion for "Never Die Alone," which featured the chocolate chest, dripping in gold chains, of the story's drug dealer, you might think that the Snipes spot is being filled by rapper DMX, who looks best with his baldie and—like Snipes at his kingpin heights—with dark shades and expensive suits.

But no. It's not DMX. This pop cinematic shift is more dramatic. "Never Die Alone," which came and went quickly at the box office, is wholly owned by the actor Michael Ealy. You could say that for Ealy, who first created a community buzz in the lukewarm "Barbershop," this film marks a huge coming out party, which continues with the world premiere of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” this weekend on ABC.

Both films are not only a coming out for him but for his generation of actors, which has yet to claim the same star and leading man status of those, like Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne and Snipes, who launched the new wave of Black film nearly 20 years ago.

But, of course, the biggest shift is, you know, the light skin thing. Coming out of our precious Black power and "Black is Beautiful" movements of the 1960's and 1970's, the generation that launched the current Black film movement was loathe to create it with the same pre-Black pride ideals of beauty that included light-bright heart throbs like Smokey Robinson and Dorothy Dandridge.

Snipes burst onto the scene, most notably in "New Jack City," like an ebony lord and, with the persuasive power of the big screen, made very black very much in vogue—for Black men at least. Actor-comedian Joe Torre made the trend cinematically official in the film, "Sprung," when he told the character played by filmmaker Rusty Cundieff, that very dark brothers like him were in style and that women were not checking for yellowboys like Cundieff anymore.

Snipes has been followed in the new generation by popular chocolate actors like Omar Epps, Mekhi Phifer and DMX, who bridge the earlier generation's Black is Beautiful stand with hip hop's obsession with street authenticity and "keeping it real." As Dael Orlandersmith, the author of the stage play "Yellowman" so poignantly reminds us, light-skinned men, though considered "pretty" by some, were often dissed as "soft" (and worse) by others.

Though color discrimination among African-Americans, born and instigated since slavery, has created a large portion of the long-standing Black middle class that is light-skinned, there is ample color diversity among the poorest and most "street authentic" among us as well. So, along with Wesley Snipes in "New Jack City," there was the steely-eyed gangster Allen Payne. A few years ago, the actor Terrence Howard stole the show as a conniving trickster in "The Best Man" and has, since then, played a series of hardened, somewhat sinister characters. He has been the nasty light-skinned brother with light eyes from around the way.

So enter now Michael Ealy. While Terrence Howard, perhaps to stake his rightful place in the macho hip hop cultural hierarchy, has had to play, at times, almost a caricature of heartlessness, Ealy doesn't need to drive that fast or that hard. He is also an around-the-way brother. Maybe he just got out of jail, maybe he's on parole but he is not heartless. In both "Barbershop" films, he is the roughneck barber Ricky, who is, on the side, studying to get his G.E.D. In "Never Die Alone" he is an enforcer for a drug dealer who is the sole caretaker for a younger sister—the only family he has left. In “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” he is a rough hardworking man who gambles, but is sensitive enough to tell the woman he loves that she is totally free to be herself, and that she “is the kind of woman who makes a man forget to grow old, forget to die.” Damn.

Ealy is able to convey, with his chiseled features and blue eyes, both enough vulnerability and toughness to make him acceptable to both the male hip hop-erati and to female filmgoers, who need to see some heart. Like the better actors before him, he has the ability to communicate without words and with facial expression alone. Whereas many of our hip hop gangsters have mainly shown how heartless the world has made them, Ealy is always more of a tortured soul who shows how he struggles to retain his center and humanity.

"Never Die Alone" is based on the Donald Goines novel of the same name and tells the story of the final days of King David (DMX), who returns home seeking redemption for his past misdeeds. In the process, he meets violence and the story of his life, told in flashback through audio tapes he made, reveals the seeds of hate, violence, death that he has sown.

One reason that Ealy's character, also named Michael, is allowed to shine is because DMX's character is such a snake, and, when Hollywood allows us, we always rout for the underdog. Hip Hop has long searched for it's "Godfather" in film and "Never Die Alone" is ample proof, despite its rampant misogyny (as if "The Godfather" isn't), that we best look to our literature for dialogue, plots and characters that are richer and more complex than what is typically offered by our standard screenplays. And we best look to actors like Ealy, who, unlike most rappers-turned actors, have the both the looks and emotional range to convey more than a visual style and flash.

A version of this article first appeared on www.SeeingBlack.com.

— March 4, 2005

© Copyright 2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.