Who was Chadwick Boseman? The late actor’s death at age 43 changed his public image from human or artist into an example, a political football. Almost immediately after the grave announcement, the Democratic Party media began to create a demagogic legend that used Boseman’s most impressive work as a performer to position him as a propaganda figure. Michelle Obama, in her Evita-noir way, took the lead, tweeting:
Conspicuously absent from Michelle’s praise was Boseman’s finest characterization, as soul music artist James Brown in the 2014 film Get On Up. Michelle praised obvious social-justice landmarks — breaking baseball’s color bar, Supreme Court justice, and fantasy figure — because politically independent Brown doesn’t fit today’s progressive agenda. There’s too much “git down” in Brown’s music and personality for Kalorama and Martha’s Vineyard, and too much intransigent freedom in Boseman’s wildly creative portrayal for it to work effectively as a Millennial role model. (Barack Obama had also ignored Get On Up, choosing the hipster mockumentary Boyhood as his favorite film of 2014.) Boseman’s individuality was subordinated to the usefulness of a political identity.
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