Viola Davis wants to enhance portrayal of Black people in movies

• Viola Davis believes women should embrace their inner warrior.
• The Oscar-winning performer is now trying to make changes on her own.
• Her upcoming film, The Woman King, follows the life and struggles of all-female soldiers in 1800s Africa.

Viola Davis, the Oscar-winning performer is now trying to make changes on her own. Since her community was underrepresented on television when Viola Davis was growing up in Rhode Island, United States, she felt invisible.

She argues that women should embrace their inner warrior in the current context, when they are still required to battle for their own rights to life and health, a sentiment she frequently echoes via her on-screen characters.

In an exclusive interview, Davis told: “When it comes to me, all the movies that I saw when I was growing up, the ones that affected me were movies where I felt that people got me and that they saw me. And then there were several movies with black women who were just a blip, or a bus driver. And I felt like, ‘Oh, no, that’s not it’.”

“When one sees Miss Tyson growing up in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, (things change),” the 57-year-old continues.

And she aims to accomplish that with her upcoming film, The Woman King, which follows the life and struggles of a group of all-female soldiers who defended the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s.

She told: “Our film literally can help women maybe tap into the warrior within themselves, especially in this climate with Roe versus Wade with everything that’s going on with women’s health, and women’s rights, to tap into that part of you, who is a fighter,” says the actor adding, “I don’t know how the film is going to stimulate change until the movie is out”.

“We get asked that question all the time. What I feel is that you are asking the wrong people that question. You have to ask the studio heads. You have to ask the dude who greenlight movies, who finance movies, you need to ask them,” she says.

Then she added: “Because I guarantee if you ask them, if you tap into their brains, you would know what the trajectory is in terms of our presence and cinema. As far as we’re concerned, it’s like, listen, we feel like we could do anything. That’s how we feel. And we’ve always felt”.

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