I Am Obama: The American Imagination and the New Black Hero

By Derik Smith, PopMatters. Posted March 13, 2008.

America is ready for a new black hero. But, it didn't need Barack Obama's strong showing in the Democratic primaries to confirm this. Three weeks before the Illinois senator claimed the January 3rd caucus in corn-fed, white bread Iowa, the science-fiction blockbuster I Am Legend swept through theaters like a prophetic, cinematic wind whispering: "Obama cometh." The film grossed over $70 million in its opening weekend as audiences and critics celebrated Will Smith in the potently symbolic role of "the last man on Earth" -- the isolated human survivor of a viral epidemic that has decimated the species.

In the predictable arc of the film's plot, Smith's character manages to rescue humanity from probable extinction. His blockbuster portrayal of the solitary savior of the human race is a watershed in American film history. Never before has a black actor been granted a major Hollywood role with such symbolic power. As much as Obama's viability as a presidential candidate, America's eager consumption of a narrative in which the fate of humanity is left in the hands of a black man surely signals an important development in American race-thinking.

Anyone who has found him or herself in CNN's "Situation Room" knows that these are heady times of "hope and change". The millions of movie-goers who paid money to watch Smith single-handedly lead humanity toward a new beginning seem to confirm the rhetoric of the chattering classes. If Americans are willing to believe that the former Fresh Prince of West Philly can save the world all by himself, then there is a possibility that a black man may be the next president of the United States. This possibility quickens the heart of many Americans -- white men included -- because it suggests that the nation is coming into the social maturity defined in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and imagined in so many poetic American dreams.

However, some close analysis of the Obama candidacy and Smith in his I Am Legend role also reveals that the viability of the new black hero is dependent upon his ability to carefully regulate his blackness. To satisfy the needs of the national imagination, he must cultivate the patina of blackness while radiating a transcendent racial identity that is not immediately linked to black community, which remains profoundly stigmatized. Because he maintains a prescribed distance from black community, the ascendancy of the new black hero is no way equal to a national desire to redress some of America's most pressing race problems. Ultimately, America's recent fascination with a darker national savior has to be considered in the context of a rich tradition in its narrative in which self-sacrificing men of color offer both salvation and absolution to white protagonists.

Smith's public character has been delicately molded so that he can play the new black hero. Smith exudes the cool that is so marketable in black men, while meticulously suppressing any trace of the racial angst popularly associated with blackness. In part, he has been able to maintain his non-threatening persona by working in films that often attempt to mute issues of race. For example, in The Pursuit of Happyness, his 2006 film that looks back nostalgically upon the 1980s (what could be better than Reaganomics and Rubik's Cube mastery?), Smith plays a capitalist striver who must sever his ties with black community -- represented by his ungrateful wife, and a triflin' friend -- in order to achieve success in the white world of finance.

Despite its seemingly important themes of integration and black social mobility, the film diligently avoids any attempt to treat race as Smith's character struggles through the Horatio Alger narrative. This suppression of racial subtext is not uncommon in movies that call upon the star power of bankable black actors. To produce films palatable for large white audiences, Hollywood often strips black stars of their racial identity by divorcing them from a recognizably black social sphere and other cultural markers. Put simply, black superstars are usually surrounded by all-white supporting casts. (Think of Smith in the Men in Black movies, Eddie Murphy in the Beverly Hills Cops franchise, Jamie Foxx in his post-Oscar films -- excepting Dreamgirls -- and Wesley Snipes in almost any movie before or after he stopped paying taxes.)

For his part, Obama has also carefully calibrated his blackness in order to become the new black hero of America's political realm. Because of his mixed African and European ancestry, Obama's effort to regulate public perceptions of his race is a complicated matter that has received ample attention in mainstream media. Commentators have noted his expert ability to leverage a genetic heritage that is clearly marked by both whiteness and blackness, and the reassurance that his European lineage offers to some fans of the new black hero.

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