Run Forest! Run! 

Not Forest Gump but Forest Whitaker. The actor is moving fast on his way to an Oscar, he has already won SAG (Screen actors Guild) and a Golden Globe award and every best actor who has won those two in the same year has taken home the Oscar. Whitaker also received the BAFTA Award, for best actor in addition to awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and many other critics’ awards.

There are a “record” five Black Actors up for 20 of the 2007 Oscars. Unfortunately two of them are going head to head. Favorites are Jennifer Hudson (Supporting role) from Dreamgirls. Also nominated in a supporting role is favorite are Eddie Murphy, at the possible expense of Djimon Hounsou. However, the most coveted individual award is best Actor and Actress.

In this category Will Smith has been nominated for The Pursuit of Happyness and Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. Other nominees include Leonardo Di Caprio, Ryan Gosling and Peter O’Toole. The last two are in films very much under the radar thus my opinion is “don’t look for those two even in an upset”.

As fate would have it Whitaker was the only person ever considered for the role of Idi Amin and in this role he is spectacular. He arrived in Uganda weeks before everybody else and only ate Ugandan food and even learned to play the accordion which was Amin’s favorite instrument. According to Jet Magazine he also learned the language so he could speak it for the film earning praise from Ugandan set expert Charles Mulekwa. But the reason he will win has nothing to do with those things mentioned, but everything to do with who he is playing. If Whitaker would have been playing Kwame Nkrumah or Patrice Lumumba, we would not even be talking about how excellent he played that part. Those historical portrayals are way too dignified for Oscar voters and Hollywood. Denzel was Oscar winner material with his roles in The Hurricane and Malcolm X but no nod, yet he received it for his character in “Training Day ”. Idi Amin was not a dignified figure thou some may beg to differ, so Forest will have no voter conflict in who he played.

Idi Amin was responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Africans and despite all his anti-White colonialist rhetoric his treachery was mostly reserved for black people. Whitaker was surprised to meet many Ugandan people who still support Amin during filming. Even after he fled the country with millions of their money before dying in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

No surprise since Amin had support even in many Black Nationalist circles in the United States. This was probably helped in large part by the fact that he was a good talker and had shown signs of greatness. You would be surprised if I mentioned some of the people who were pro Amin. Amin had read the works of many African American Scholars held in high esteem like Yosef Ben Jochanan, and books like "Stolen Legacy" by G.M. James, and thus he was able to drop gems of information that Ugandans had never heard before and that African Americans associated with leaders serious about liberating. He portrayed himself as taking on Western colonizers which was admired. Some also gravitated to Amin also because he stood up to Israel which supported Apartheid South Africa and in 1972; Amin severed diplomatic relations with Israel, while turning to Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, as well as the Soviet Union, for support. Amin was a big Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) supporter. Despite these independent actions his overall deeds paled in the face of the tyrannical behavior and murder he brought to his opposition. Amin is not a figure that anybody can hold on to now as a liberator with the passage of history. As with historical figures, one person’s villain may well be another person's hero.

Whitaker brilliantly shows Amin as a paranoid psychopath who is still compelling due to his intelligence, preference for the finer things in life, vanity, and controlling and charming personality. Whitaker's Amin portrayal was not  a simple one dimensional bellowing, bloodthirsty dictator.

Amin's family threatened to sue over The Last King of Scotland film due to its negative portrayal of Amin but it’s actually the best Amin has been portrayed and in other films it has been totally one sided. Consider there was once a time that his name was associated with cannibalism although there was never any evidence of such acts. In this case Amin’s reputation as a historical figure was cheapened by rumors spread by Westerners who did not like him because he was known to verbally insult Whites. 

Whitaker's depiction of Amin is right for an era fascinated with gangsters and gangsta' rap. Amin even had a Hip-hop style nickname back in 70’s, “Big Daddy” given to him by Western reporters. He even gave himself A few titles "His Excellency President for Life, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea", and "Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", "King of Scotland" (which happens to be the movie title). Amin was known to be quite a womanizer before his marriage to three different one (polygamy was legal in Uganda). In 1954, Amin had the highest rank possible for a Black African in the colonial British army. Several times he was caught with a woman in his tent, he pleaded that she was his "dada" (Swahili for sister), in order to be let off the hook by his commanders. He was rumored to be quite promiscuous and Deborah Hayden makes the case for his dying of syphilis like Al Capone as part of her hypothesis in "Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis". Like President Bush Amin claimed God spoke directly to him and in 1972 Amin gave Uganda's 50,000 Asians (mostly Indians ) 90 days to leave the country, due to a dream in which, he claimed, God told him to expel them.

The rap group Outlawz, inspired by Tupac Shakur, had a member with the stage name "E.D.I.min". Nas mentioned Amin in "Suicide Bounce" (feat. Busta Rhymes) on his album: "Street's Disciple", 2004. Amin if you recall he had numerous effects on the pop culture infrastructure, being lampooned by Richard Pryor and "Saturday Night Live" constantly just for starters.

Hollywood did a decent job with the subject matter but Whitaker was the key to the film which is probably one of the few films better than the book. There are significant differences but it should be noted that neither is factual. There is confusion on this because of real life parallels and how authentic the film feels, for example Dr. Nicholas Garrigan character is very loosely based on events in the life of Amin's English-born associate Bob Astles. This confuses since the first in-depth and from-the-inside exposé of how murderous Amin's rule actually was became known from Henry Kyemba, Amin's Health Minister and a former official of the first Obote regime, who had used travel for a World Health Organization conference as a means of defecting after coming to fear for his own safety in Uganda. As Garrigan did in the film before resettling in Britain, Amin’s Health Minister wrote and published "A State of Blood", an account of Amin and his rule that destroyed any lingering comic or eccentric image still harbored about Amin.

In closing look for Whitaker to join Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poiter, Lou Gosset Jr. Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman as Oscar winners of African descent.

In 78 years there have only been 9 Black Oscar winners but the guarantee of the list growing is also fueled by the snub of Dreamgirls. The snub means that the Oscars has a closeted “we owe them (A-A) sentiment”. 'Dreamgirls,' which features an ensemble of talented Black actors is the story of an 60’s African-American singing group and payola, which moved crowds of all races and failed to earn an expected best film. Shocking Black bloggers, the fact that Dreamgirls failed to land in the best film category despite gaining eight nominations overall, more than any other movie seems race based. Whatever the case it may help land Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy and assuredly Forrest Whitaker all Oscars as a compromise.

However race bias is far from over in Oscar politics, we will see some notable progress when you get a black person named best director. Individual accomplishments and recognition in entertainment are for individuals and don’t translate to the profession as a whole. The process of race in America is so warped that we still highlight it often such as two African-American coaches in the super bowl. It’s simply because racial bias has kept African Americans from competing and being allowed into so many areas in society. When African Americans make, distribute and green light films that reflects what they say, it's going to be cause to celebrate but for now it’s just another night.

Released: February 22nd, 2007

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.