Because of his obvious intelligence, classic handsomeness, and natural respectability, Brown reminds me of Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington—great movie actors who in their prime mostly played versions of themselves, and also, role by role, implicitly represented society’s rapid revisions of the Black male archetype. Poitier slapped white men onscreen and fell defiantly in love with their daughters, illustrating how his kind of masculine dignity had to be won in a series of direct clashes with white power. Washington’s reign, from the nineties through the turn of the century, was, on some level, a confirmation of the victories of Poitier’s generation. Now Black cool could be a personal tool, not just a weapon in a wider racial conflagration. Washington’s charisma and omnipresent equipoise were agents of a kind of stylized self-care, allowing his characters to walk a tightrope over so many complexities. Even when he played Malcolm X, the ultimate Black artist of public confrontation, he saved his most affecting acting for the film’s more private moments, when it was essential for Malcolm to keep calm.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter