TCM showed “Song of Freedom” a couple of weeks ago. I thought, whom better to play Paul Robeson than James Earl Jones. Everything about Robeson was awe inspiring. Such a commanding performance.
However, it reminded me that Jones did have a one-man Broadway show in the late ‘70s about Robeson. Unfortunately, I never got to see it, but I understand there is a DVD. While Robeson is, of course, unique, I imagine Jones was the perfect person to channel the icon.
“His embodiments of Johnson repopularized the phrase great white hope which has come to mean the hope of the white race to gain dominance in a space where Black people are reigning.”
I think “regain” dominance is the dynamic. The hope that there exists a white man who will restore the stability of a universe rendered unstable by by someone who isn’t white.
TCM showed “Song of Freedom” a couple of weeks ago. I thought, whom better to play Paul Robeson than James Earl Jones. Everything about Robeson was awe inspiring. Such a commanding performance.
However, it reminded me that Jones did have a one-man Broadway show in the late ‘70s about Robeson. Unfortunately, I never got to see it, but I understand there is a DVD. While Robeson is, of course, unique, I imagine Jones was the perfect person to channel the icon.
“His embodiments of Johnson repopularized the phrase great white hope which has come to mean the hope of the white race to gain dominance in a space where Black people are reigning.”
I think “regain” dominance is the dynamic. The hope that there exists a white man who will restore the stability of a universe rendered unstable by by someone who isn’t white.