The First Time I Saw Myself Onscreen

Adepero Oduye in Pariah.

My single mother wasn't the affectionate and maternal sort like Clair Huxtable, let alone affluent and married. So the television raised me on exclusive beauty, slowly and subliminally forcing me to admire fictional characters that looked nothing like me. I grew up watching an endless amount with a preference for soap operas and addressed that in prelude to last year's series on Best TV Couples here. I didn't go to the cinema until around age seventeen, but always had a Halle Berry haircut (though my hair didn't like perms at all, lasting for a week or two before unapologetic nappiness returned). Every boy in school desired Halle Berry. Unfortunately, I (and most of the other Black girls) didn't resemble her at all.

On Saturday mornings, Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) taught me about funky style and fashion on white centric Saved by the Bell.

Her outrageously fabulous wardrobe and dreams for fashion school truly resonated with me. 

When last summer Ava Duvernay asked the question, "when did you first see yourself depicted on screen?" I simmered on the thought for a while, remembering the biracial and non-black women still heralded, still put on higher pedestals in all forms of media. I do recall childhood animated icons: Punky Brewster's Cherie, Jem and the Holograms' Shana Holsford, and The Magic Schoolbus's Keesha Franklin (the later two having been recently turned into racially ambiguous characters). Yet I couldn't hold onto them forever.

Although I didn't watch Felicity, it was special seeing Tangi Miller in those memorable "Oh What A Night" WB commercials. She would the only Black woman, essentially playing the role of spokesperson for our notably absent presence on the network. 

The teenager years were absent of Black girls. I escaped into the WB network (didn't have cable) and eating disorders, wishing to banish the newfound curves alongside my "problematic" short hair and distinctive face that looked like countless masks in the Africa sections of museums than anything on TV or film. It felt entirely wrong to be dark skinned with a broad nose, plump cheekbones, thick lips, and size 0 fantasies. Yet Tangi Miller's sepia skin, dark brown eyes, and long box braids in the commercials between consumptions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Roswell soothed a great inner belonging. She was in the Seventeen and Teen Vogue magazines, but never graced the covers. Always the support, the sistah girlfriend to Keri Russell's lead, Miller lingered in my mind, my spirit, constantly reminding me that we deserve to fit somewhere. Funnily enough, at the time, she was also dating Angel's J. August Richards. I imagined them as the Black King and Queen of the WB, that they clung to each other on a network lacking the very definition of inclusivity.

Adepero Oduye in Pariah.

Thus, the first time I saw myself depicted on screen was poignantly nestled in Adepero Oduye's performance in Pariah as Alike, the shy writer coming to terms with her sexual identity. I remembered racing down to the Neon Movies-- the only art house theater in Dayton, Ohio-- to watch a film that many heralded online, knowing full well that Black films, especially Black films with strong leads directed by women (Night Comes On and Fast Color) tend not to stay in theatres long.

Oduye's character not only looked similar to my physical (skin tone, prominent African features), she didn't wear makeup, loved English, wrote poetry, rode public transportation, and was constantly ridiculed by her peers for not appearing feminine enough. I sought solidarity in Alike hiding her true self, admiring the authenticity shining through Oduye's performance. She began my search for other similar multifaceted characters, for finding those that don't fit the European gaze, their expectation of Blackness, whilst also looking for validation in gifts they could offer the world.

In addition to Oduye, Whoopi Goldberg and Akosua Busia in The Color Purple, Alva Rogers in Daughters of the Dust, Mouna Traore in Brown Girl Begins, Karidja Toure in Girlhood, Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva in Rafiki, Dominique Fishback and Tatum Marilyn Hall in Night Comes On, and Marsai Martin in Little all come to mind as to how I see myself portrayed in both past adolescence and current adulthood on the film screen.

Awkward Black Girl, one of the best web series' ever, conveyed my experiences in the workplace. Plus, Issa Rae's expressions are on point.

Whether it's having a deep dark brown skin complexion like Issa Rae or Lupita Nyong'o, an impressionable gap between teeth like Uzo or distinctive negroid facial features and kinky hair like Viola Davis and Danai Gurira, finding these parts on another person in Hollywood has become a new source of unexpected joy. The representation of Black beauty-- the unapologetic, unambiguous African ancestral pride-- is taking phenomenal shape and putting us all on notice in a big, unforgettable way.