Cinematic drama Ma Rainey’s black background it can be established in the racially divided United States of the 1920s and was written almost 40 years ago, but it comes with a lot to say about the present.
Starring Viola Davis as black blues singer Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Boseman as trumpeter, the film hits Netflix on Friday as Hollywood and the United States fight systemic racism.
“The reason why (the film) resonates today is that racism has not been destroyed. It just evolved, ”said Davis.
“You can’t go through 400 years of systemic racism, politics and practices and not have an impact on education, how women are paid and how black people are paid, and the dignity they make us see,” added.
Ma Rainey’s black background takes place on a hot Chicago day in 1927 during a tense recording session in which the diva-like singer engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and her band for money and control of her music.
Davis, who won an Oscar for supporting actress in 2017 and is expected to be nominated next year, said he saw Ma as a liberated woman “which meant she wasn’t a woman of her time because she was a woman who, without any excuse, knew her worth. ” – Reuters
