The telling of our stories

Why do we use American actors to portray South African legends? Don’t we have actors and actress that can portray these political figures? 

We have seen Morgan Freeman portray the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela in Invictus. The movie ranked in more than $122 million and was a one of the major blockbusters from 2009. Freeman received critical acclaim for his portal as Madiba and was nominated at the Screen Actors Guild as well as the 2009 Academy Awards for best male actor in a motion picture. A trend is being formed where American actors portray these living legends.

   

 

The official trailer of “Winnie” was released a few months ago, where we see Academy Award winning actress, Jennifer Hudson portray Winnie Mandela and Terrance Howard playing Nelson Mandela. There is absolutely no believability in these actors as their American accents stick out like a sore thumb. Don't believe me watch the trailer of Winnie below:

Because South African directors don’t have producers and the distribution to record a biographical motion picture such as Invictus and Winnie. The arts and entertainment in South Africa have been neglected and are not being funded as nearly as much as we like them too. Until this problem is solved we have to be satisfied with American’s telling our stories to the world.  The scary thing about this is that our history is often chopped and changed for a global audience. As the credits roll and we see “based on a true story” how ‘true’ are they really?