www.theroot.com: If you’ve seen The Woman King, you know how badass it was to see all those Black women warriors dominating the big screen. It’s not something we get to see very often, and one of the reasons is that there aren’t a lot of Black women stunt performers in the business. Jénel Stevens, Viola Davis’ fight choreographer and stunt double in the film, spoke with The Root about creating more opportunities for Black women in the stunt world and passing the torch to the next generation.
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Just like with anything, it is important to have diversity because if you have Black actors, you will need black stunt people for them. A former student from my undergrad was the stunt woman for Zendaya on The Greatest Showman, but as in another article, colorism does exist strongly in Hollywood and this is an example of that. The question remains, how do we get a new generation of Black stunt women to come into the industry? The trouble is that this responsibility then falls to Black women which should be avoided because the responsibility to solve problems of institutional racism should not fall solely on those who are directly affected. Perhaps there could be a program specifically designed for young women of color to up their interest in stunt work, similar to certain math and science programs that exist to encourage young people to join STEM fields. The arts often do not do as good of a job at those types of things as they should.
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