Movie drama Ma Rainey’s black bottom may be set in the racially divided United States of the 1920s and was written nearly 40 years ago, but it comes with a lot to say about today.
Starring Viola Davis as Black blues singer Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Boseman as a hot-headed trumpet player, the film comes to Netflix Friday as Hollywood and the United States grapple with systemic racism.
“The reason why (the movie) resonates today is because racism hasn’t been destroyed. It just evolved, ”said Davis.
“You can’t go through 400 years of systemic racism and policies and practices and make it resonate today in education, in how women are paid and how black people are paid, and how worthy we are seen,” she added. .
Ma Rainey’s black bottom takes place on a hot Chicago day in 1927 during a thrilling recording session where the diva-like singer enters into a will with her white manager and her band over money and control over her music.
Davis, who won a 2017 supporting actor Oscar and is expected to be nominated next year, said she saw Ma as a liberated woman “meaning she was not a woman of her time because she was a woman who unabashedly knew her worth. “. – Reuters
