Viola Davis opens up about her work on groundbreaking black film ‘Ma Rainey’

Cinematographic drama Ma Rainey’s black background may be set in the racially divided United States of the 1920s and was written almost 40 years ago, but it comes with a lot to say about today.

Starring Viola Davis as Black blues singer Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Boseman as a hot-headed trumpeter, the film hits Netflix on Friday as Hollywood and the United States grapple with systemic racism.

“The reason (the film) resonates today is that racism has not been destroyed. It just evolved, ”Davis said.

“You can’t go through 400 years of systemic racism, policies and practices without it resonating today in education, in how women are paid and how black people are paid, and how good we are. worthy, ”she added.

Ma Rainey’s black background takes place on a hot Chicago day in 1927 during a tense recording session where the diva-like singer engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and her band for money and control of his music.

Davis, who won an Oscar for Supporting Actress in 2017 and is expected to be nominated next year, said she considered Ma a liberated woman “which meant she was not a woman of his. time because she was a woman who knew her worth shamelessly. – Reuters