graphic by kayleigh woltal
At the 2022 Emmy Awards, Zendaya (an A-list actress and known goddess amongst mortals), took home the Emmy for Leading Actress in a Drama Series. In the days following the award show, headlines from white publications celebrating Zendaya for being the first Black woman to win the award twice flooded my timeline. What a lot of those articles failed to mention is that Zendaya is only the second black woman to ever win an Emmy in that category in the entire history of the Emmys (the first being Viola Davis in 2015 for her performance as Annaleise Keating in “How to Get Away with Murder”).
It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that in the entire history of the Emmys, only two black women have provided performances that the Academy has deemed to be the best. It’s totally unsurprising, however, that one of those women would be Zendaya. In case you haven’t noticed, Hollywood has Zendaya fever — she’s kind of everywhere. We’ve seen her dancing on Disney Channel, saving the world in Marvel movies and killing it on the trapeze in blockbusters.
But the honest truth is that more than Hollywood has Zendaya fever, it suffers from a little disease I like to call racism. I am by no means implying that Zendaya is not deserving of her success — I too religiously tuned into “Euphoria” every Sunday to see how Rue Bennet would ruin her life this week — but if a black girl is going to be cast in Hollywood, you’re either going to see Zendaya or her fellow light skin compatriot, Amandla Stenburg, in the credits. Black women are barely being represented on the screen and when they are it’s through the vehicle of the same two or three (light skinned) faces that have been labeled as acceptable representation. Zendaya herself has commented on this phenomenon saying, “I am Hollywood’s, I guess you could say, acceptable version of a Black girl and that has to change. We’re vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to just be the only representation of that.”
If you ask a non-Black person to name five black actresses, there’s almost a one hundred percent chance that they’re going to easily rapid fire off Zendaya and Amandla and maybe even Yara Shahidi (yeah, you thought I wasn’t going to mention Yara Shahidi), before puttering out into nothingness and white ignorance. To combat this, and also to celebrate some of my favorite performers, I’ve compiled a list of a few black actresses that I think should be on everyone’s radar.
Keke Palmer
This one might seem like kind of a softball, but if there’s one thing I’m going to do, it’s give Miss Palmer her flowers. Keke Palmer stays booked and busy. Most of us probably remember seeing Palmer for the first time starring as the titular character in either “Akeelah and The Bee” (2006) or the Nickelodeon series “True Jackson, VP” (2008). Despite her early success, Palmer is in no way just a child star. Her indomitable comedic talent has graced our screens in her roles as Zayday Williams in “Scream Queens” (2015), April Lewis in “Berlin Station” (2016) and as Emerald Haywood in Jordan Peele’s “Nope” (2022).
Keke’s presence on our screens isn’t limited to just acting. In 2014, BET aired the then 21-year-old’s talk show “Just Keke,” making her the youngest talk show host in the history of television. In 2019, she became a co-host on “Strahan, Sara, and Keke” (which she earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for in 2020). That same year, she was named on the Time 100 Next list as one of the most influential emerging voices of 2019. Baby, this is Keke Palmer!
Kiki Layne
If you’re anything like me, you love a good romance movie. The first time I ever saw Kiki Layne on screen was when she was delivering an absolutely heartbreaking performance in “If Beale Street Could Talk” (2019). Here was this girl I had never seen before on the screen simultaneously and masterfully capturing the tenderness and hopefulness of being black and in love and the pitfalls and travesties of being black in America (I’ve probably watched the movie 19 different times — Layne is a triumph).
After watching Beale Street, I was pretty much convinced that Layne was going to use her career to completely revolutionize the Black Romance drama, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised to watch her kick ass and take names as a Marine opposite Charlize Theron in “The Old Guard” (2020). She even did a lot of her own stunts — talk about range!
Teyonah Parris
An educated black Queen, Teyonah Parris studied and graduated from Julliard where she studied acting. Though she has a litany of acting credits (including “Empire” (2015), “Mad Men” (2007) and “The Good Wife” (2009)), the first time I ever saw Parris was in “Dear White People” (2014) (dear white people reading this — watch this movie). In the movie, Parris’s character, Coco, reckons with the realities of navigating racism and colorism as a dark-skinned black woman in entertainment — a conversation that isn’t happening enough in Hollywood (seriously white people, watch this freaking movie).
If you don’t recognize Parris from DWP, you may know her as Monica Rambeau in “WandaVision” (2021). She is sleighted to reprise her role as Monica in future Marvel projects, which will eventually make her the first black woman to be an Avenger. As if that isn’t already the most Girlboss thing in the world, Parris also originated the role of Kaneisha in Jeremy O. Harris’s critically acclaimed Broadway show “Slave Play” (2018).
Jurnee Smollet
Okay white people, remember when I said that you guys have to watch “Dear White People” (you still do, don’t think you got out of it)? Well, if you’re going to add anything else from this article to your watchlist, please please PLEASE let it be Jurnee Smollet’s performance in “Lovecraft Country” (2020). Watching her smash the windows of cars belonging to white supremacists a la Beyonce somehow simultaneously effectively communicates the dynamic nature of black female rage and makes me swoon. She is beyond amazing in the show (she was even nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for it), and everyone needs to know about it.
When Smollet isn’t busy smashing both car windows and her way into my heart, she’s also been credited for appearing in “Full House” (1987) (where she played Michelle’s friend Denise, the OG little black girl representation), “True Blood” (2013) and “The Great Debaters” (2007) — just to name a few.
Odley Jean
Let’s round out this list by celebrating some up and coming black talent! Odley Jean may currently only have one released project credit on IMDb, but her show stealing performance as the determined Dom Pierre (who is excellent representation for all of my Haitian baddies) in the short lived Netflix hit “Grand Army” (2020) charmed Netflix fans. Jean stole the show, captivating audiences and accruing a hefty amount of TikTok edits and fancams. Speaking of TikTok, if you want to see more of Jean in between the release of her new projects, you can follow her TikTok here (it’s very fun and very real). Make sure to check her out in “Gentle Boy” (2022), which comes out on December 22nd, 2022.