I, Robot; I, (black) Actor

The most recent film I saw with an African American male actor with an interesting portrayal is I, Robot. Will Smith is the main character of this sci-fi movie with some modern social contexts thrown in the film for an interesting depiction.

Despite the fact that Smith's character is an agent of the law, lives in a upper middle class apartment, and drives what looks like an Audi R8 from the year 2300, Smith's character still carries some of the characteristics of a Hollywood-mainstream-African American character.

His white friends in the film are often "buttoned up" so to speak, and rarely fall into using colloquialisms or making any jokes, this is all handled by Smith. At one point he tells a foul mouthed kid played by Shia Lebouf to stop swearing, because he's bad at it. This seems to imply this sort of behavior is best left to Smith's character.

Finally, when the robots begin turning violent and revolting at the end of the film, it's Smith's character that has the best competency at blasting the droids to pieces more so than it is any other white character that stands out in the film, suggesting albeit more mildly than other films, that the African American man has the brutal know-how to bring down a lethal threat.

Typically I tend to notice sci-fi films try to depict more of an egalitarianism with African American characters a la: The Matrix, but this movie tends to have mild, latent references to the portrayals discussed by Guerrero.