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Angela Bassett knows her angles.
Memes can act as celebration, visual shorthand, a straight shot of emotional communication.
But they can flatten the more prickly dynamics of the work from which they were born.
Bassett does not stand from her seat or clap heartily.
She does not perform gratitude in the face of obvious disappointment.
She remains a woman self-possessed as she has been called to be onscreen so many times.
Bassetts skills have often been construed on lines of strength and intellect.
But to acknowledge Bassett for simply excelling at portraying strong Black women is a disservice.
Strength is often a bind for Black women.
Its an expectation thrust upon us.
It all begins with that 1993 Oscar-nominated performance inWhats Love Got to Do With It.
The film is rote in the way biopics far too often are.
Its visually flat with all of the panache of a TV movie from that era.
What gives it life are Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, who plays Ike Turner as a malevolent wrecking ball.
Here, Tina is a woman defined almost entirely by her talent and victimhood.
Bassett seethes with tense understanding immediately.
You thought a nigga like me was gonna let you get away from me?
But shes not afraid not even when he brings out a gun.
Instead, she simmers with the kind of rage that accumulates over years of neglect and abuse.
Thats supposed to scare me?
… Do what you want to do, Ike.
Its that bitch who keeps your books, isnt it?
Im leaving you for her, he admits.
Bassetts composition changes in a tight close-up.
With minute twinges, its clear what she has building to.
Theres an urgency to her anger down to the moment she insults her husbands Blackness.
The way she spitsfuckingat him.
(All white people, for the record.)
Her heels click against the floor with rhythmic intensity.
Hell, Im not worried.
Theres a flutter in her voice.
Shes winding us up for the threat of the final line.
You, on the other hand, should be.
It isnt just the bottomlessness of her gaze or her controlled physicality that makes this line reading moving.
Theres a cadence of grace to Bassetts voice whether shes hot with malice or cooled toward frustration.
When she says those two lines Hell, Im not worried.
You, on the other hand, should be, the threat isnt on the surface.
Its in all of that hurt underneath and what it can transform into.
But Bernadine wasnt even Bassetts best performance that year.
Here, 1999 L.A. is a war zone of grime and glitter.
Shut up, Lenny.
Park your mouth and listen, Bassett says.
You gonna get yourself killed for this?
She grabs his stash of SQUID memories featuring an ex who has long stopped loving him.
Maces anger is building.
First it was irritation, but now it has gained energy.
She throws the recordings against a wall and rushes to stomp on them with well-healed force.
When Lenny tries to recover them from under her boot, she pushes him against the wall.
A roiling boil becomes a crescendo of emotion: This is your life!
Right here, right now.
These are used emotions.
Memories were meant to fade, Lenny.
Theyre designed that way for a reason.
With that last line, her voice becomes a wisp of dialogue.
Her eyebrows are furrowed, eyes pleading.
You ever been in love with someone who didnt return that love?
Her voice drops even deeper into a resentful whisper: Yeah, Lenny.
In the hands of other artists, however, Black womens anger is nullified through caricature and emotional distance.
I have given everything, Okoye says with tears welling in her eyes.
Let me die serving this country.
I dont know if my daughter is alive or dead.
Where is her treacherous husband now but in a place where she can visit if she wished?
Mine is with the ancestors.
I am queen of the most powerful nation in the world, and my entire family is gone!
Have I not given everything?
Bassetts voice raises from its balanced tone into a full-blown bellow as she rises from her seat.
What was once held back now radiates in the flinging of her arms.
