Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Any movie that stars LaKeith Stanfield is a yes for me. The brother was genius in “Atlanta” and in films like “Sorry to Bother You,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “Get Out.” He’s a really intelligent actor who’s great at giving us comedy and drama in the same moment. And he’s so Black in everything he does onscreen. As soon as I saw that Stanfield was the star of “The Book of Clarence,” I was in. He’s on my list of actors who will move me to buy a ticket to whatever film they’re starring in.
Also, any movie that features a Black Jesus is a yes for me because I’m certain that Jesus Christ was Black. The itinerant preacher who spread the radical idea that there is only one God and was executed for spreading that idea was unquestionably Black. I think he looked like me: brown skin, kinky hair. He spent his youth hiding in Egypt not Sweden. There’s no way Jesus looked like Bjorn Borg. The depictions of him with white skin are just perpetuating white supremacy.
“The Book of Clarence,” which opens Friday, is a smart and funny film that’s built around showing and telling the story of a Jesus figure who’s Black. There’s someone actually playing Jesus — Nicholas Pinnock — but Stanfield’s Clarence takes the idea of a Jesus figure in a fascinating direction. Clarence hilariously pretends to be Jesus-like because he wants the money and acclaim that Jesus has. But he lacks the faith. He thinks Jesus is doing tricks. So he sets out to do tricks — his friend acts like he’s blind so Clarence can appear to give him sight and then the unknowing audience can give them money. He’s a con man preying on those who have faith.
It seems like the film is setting up to be a sendup of the Jesus story, but then Clarence shows us that he has extraordinary character, selflessness…
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