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February 06, 2005
RIP: Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was the man a lot of people think Morgan Freeman is. Ossie Davis is the old man of black acting and activism, a man with a soul two miles deep. A couple weeks ago I was helping Moms with one of her many computer problems, and so being in her bedroom I had to bear up under the weight of the Gospel Channel, whichever one that is. As part and parcel of this was a family drama about a middle aged woman who began to lose her mind from Alzheimers. It had the distinct feel of an episode of 'Touched by an Angel' except for the fact that it ran feature length. As hokey and soapy as it was, there were many truly tender moments in dramatization of things we think we see on television but actually don't. What happens when mom gets Alzheimers. In this drama, which I'm pretty sure was funded by Dobson's group. Davis played the magic negro. He came with the appropriate bibical hardline in a soft reassuring drawl, every time the husband in the story felt as though it were time to give up some virtue.
I've never been a huge fan nor a great critic of Ossie Davis. He and Ruby Dee have always represented a pedestrian kind of morality which became intimately familiar over the years. Together, the were like soft pokes in the shoulder, never too bossy but always in the same spot. Whenever you thought of a role for Ossie Davis, you knew exactly what you were going to get. A wise old black man coming out of a tradition of love and respect who was going to show you, one way or another, the right thing to do.
This familiarity was something our generation rebelled against. Davis aptly represented everything dusty about the Old School. Twice in Spike Lee's films, Davis represented an old authority being challenged by youth's vision. As 'Da Mayor' in 'Do the Right Thing', he was called a drunk and ridiculed. That very black tradition of having 'an elder' in every neighborhood was called into question. I believe that to me, and to many others Davis himself became permanently associated with a powerless generation of African Americans whose moral vision was more appropriate to 'Negroes' rather than contemporary blacks dealing with new social issues. On the other hand, in 'Get on the Bus', Lee's film about the Million Man March, Davis represented the disgust an older generation with its well-wrapped universe of culture and respect had for a younger generation often confused and adrift in a world of freedoms they never sacrificed to earn. In either aspect, Lee perceptively cast Ossie Davis, a man you can hardly look at without calling 'Pops'.
Davis and Dee were producers for a long time in their careers and I will be setting the Tivo to absorb more of them. Ruby Dee must be crying relentlessly now. That they could be apart is a greater tragedy than his death.
The passing of such actors, pioneers breaking barriers, will be a long season. We will be looking at Poitier and others one day. Buy their DVDs now, if you can get 'em.
Posted by mbowen at February 6, 2005 07:09 AM
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