News — hollywood

Sometimes, it takes starring in more than 30 movies, a dozen television series credits as well as a good amount of accolades and awards over three decades for you to say you have had enough of living up to the misspelling of your name.

Hollywood actress Thandie Newton now wants to be known professionally and publicly as Thandiwe, reverting to the Zimbabwean Nguni spelling and sense of her name. The 48-year-old was born to a white British father and a Black Zimbabwean mother who also happened to be a royal.

“That’s my name. It’s always been my name. I’m taking back what’s mine,” Newton said of Thandiwe to British Vogue. Thandiwe is pronounced tan-DEE-way and the actress wants her future film and TV credits to carry the name her mother bestowed on her.

Nguni is a collection of Bantu languages in southern Africa. This group of tongues includes Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Swati. In these languages, Thandiwe means ‘beloved’.

In 1991 when she first starred in a film, Flirting, along with Nicole Kidman, Newton’s name was spelled as Thandie. It would seem that was not her choice but rather a mistake on the part of the producers. Intriguingly, she has also starred in another movie along with Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover where she played the titular character, Beloved. That was a movie based on a Toni Morrison novel.

So why has it taken this long for a woman who has been known to global audiences for 30 years to rectify a mistake? Newton explained that she is taking advantage of the phase the film industry has evolved to where Black identity is now allowed to exist and is not repackaged for white consumption and satisfaction.

“The thing I’m most grateful for in our business right now is being in the company of others who truly see me. And to not be complicit in the objectification of black people as ‘others’, which is what happens when you’re the only one,” she continued in the interview.

Newton’s point taps into a long history of the harmful cinematic depiction of Black people, including the era of Blaxploitation, as well as the burden that often comes with possessing an African name in western countries.

It has been known for a while that Newton had African parentage but many thought she was Zambian. That is because until the early 2000s many of her biographies said she was born in Zambia. She however explained that she was born in London but grew up until age three in Zambia.

Marsai Martin is proof that age is not an excuse to put dreams on hold. The Guinness World Record holder for the youngest Hollywood executive producer has the green light from Disney to produce a Disney Channel original comedy series, Saturdays.

The 16-year-old, according to Deadline, will produce the pilot for Saturdays under her Genius Entertainment production company which she runs with her parents, Joshua and Carol Martin. This was after Disney ordered a single episode of the series.

Martin could not hide her joy as she celebrated the news on Instagram, writing, “Y’all see me seeing you, right? 😉 can’t wait for this! @disneychannel.”

Writer and executive producer Norman Vance Jr., who executive produced Moesha, Roll Bounce, and Girlfriends, will do the same for Saturdays, and Charles Stone III from Drumline and Black-ish fame will be the director. 

As Deadline reports of the show’s plot, “Saturdays follows Paris, who, since the age of four, has been honing her skills on the cool parquet floor of Saturdays, a local skating rink owned and operated by a former ’90s hip-hop back-up dancer.

“With its neon lights, galaxy-painted rink and killer D.J. spinning the latest music, Saturdays is the place to show and prove. Paris is the leader of a skate crew and is determined to take them all the way to the top. However, she has sickle cell disease, and when it flares up, it’ll take every ounce of determination to prove the doubters wrong, including her concerned family.”

Many are excited about the representation this project will bring for those who have been diagnosed with sickle cell disease. The lead character has sickle cell, a disease that affects mostly Blacks.

Although there is no apparent premiere date, the show’s principal cast has been revealed. Danielle Jalade as Paris Johnson will star as the determined 13-year-old roller skater who is determined to excel in her chosen sports despite her disability. Golden Brooks and Omar Gooding will play Paris’ parents and Jermaine Harris, her brother. Daria Johns and Samantha Smith will be her ride-or-die besties and per Deadline, rapper Yolanda “Yo-Yo” Whitaker was cast as the owner of Saturdays.

Though Martin broke into Hollywood after she was cast to play the role of Diane Johnson in popular sitcom Black-ish in 2014, the teen proved her talent went beyond acting when it was announced she was going to executive produce the movie, Little.

Then 14 years and 241 days at the time of the movie’s release in 2019, Martin wrote her name in the history books as Hollywood’s youngest ever executive producer. Martin, who successfully pitched the story to Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, said she had the idea for the movie when she was as young as 10 years old.

Besides executive producing the movie, Martin also starred in it alongside Issa Rae and Regina Hall. In the film, Martin plays the role of a younger Regina Hall after a little curse takes the strict businesswoman back to her little 13-year-old self.

The “Black Panther” movie has inspired many initiatives to empower African Americans and Blacks in general. Columbus-based entrepreneur Maurice Womack was moved by the Marvel film to co-found with his wife an educational eco-system for black learners called the Wokanda APP.

The platform was launched on February 1 and houses a group of experts who are committed to educating subscribers on topics such as entrepreneurship, finance, health care and other topics through BLCK (Bite-sized Learning & Community Knowledge) Talk. What’s more, the topics will be taught by all Black experts.

“We’re really focused on empowering the Black community,” co-founder Maurice Womack said. “We’re using African American experts to reach the African American community. We’re trying to create a community where you’re learning from people who are recognized experts in their field, who are teachers that look like you. We as a community have a lot to offer each other.”

Aside from providing education to members, the communal platform also seeks to encourage lasting personal and professional relationships. On its website, Wokanda says its “mission is to empower the Black community with knowledge, ideas, and connections to one another.”

“We truly believe in the mantra that ‘Knowledge is Power’ and we are providing a platform to facilitate its distribution. We’re building a library of knowledge from a nation of subject matter experts and a community of learners to engage with each other and information.”

Some of the experts on the platform include Barbara Fant, a poet; James Rose III, an investor; Dawn Carpenter, a finance expert and Tracie Cleveland Thomas, executive director. Others include Evelyn Sullen Smith, an attorney and Joe Moss, an entrepreneur.

“(We’re) really trying to creating a long-term community resource around learning and around the topics that matter to us from leaders around the community who are important to us as experts,” Womack told The Columbus Dispatch.

Explaining the rationale for the name of the platform, Womack said the platform derives its name from the word “woke” and Wakanda, the fictional Africa country of superhero Black Panther.

“If you think of Wakanda, it’s the pinnacle of Black success,” Womack told bizjournal. “It was this idea of working together, being able to empower ourselves with our own knowledge and our own community. I think in one word, it embodies what we’re trying to do.”

Womack said he and his wife started the Wokanda platform after the failure of their STEM education consulting company. The web services interactive platform targeted children in under-resourced areas of science and technology-based coursework.

“People are accustomed to using Zoom now because of the pandemic, so it’s not as hard of a sale,” Womack told The Dispatch. “But these experts happen to be Black people, and they’re teaching culturally responsive topics in a way that’s familiar to us.”

The Wokanda app works through registering and paying up a membership fee which ranges from $14.99 for current students and $19.99 a month for others. Womack said his goal is to reach at least 1,500 registered members before the end of 2021.