I want to thank Sean “Puffy” Combs for introducing a new generation to “A Raisin in the Sun.”
I liked the new school version of the play/movie on ABC last week and I am not one to easily pass the baton to the next generation particularly when it is handling an Old School original.
Now I am not about to pronounce that this latest version of Raisin is better than the one with Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee but the play written by Lorraine Hansbury is so important, so vital, that it is something that should not be lost in time.
There is a 1989 television version of Raisin in which Esther Rolle (Pompano Beach’s own) plays the matrirach role and Danny Glover plays the role of walter Lee Younger.
Phylicia Rashad should get her long overdue Emmy for playing the role of the family matriarch. She never won one as Clair Huxtable on the Cosby Show and that is a doggone shame. How could she be overlooked?
The Beneatha Younger role, played by Diana Sands in the 1961 movie has always been a favorite of mine. Sanaa Lathan brings a vibrancy to that role. It is a precursor to the Black Pride movement that connected Afro-Americans to African. That showed Hansbury’s brilliance and foresight.
But Sean Combs or P. Diddy or whatever name he is using these days, has cred as Walter Lee Younger. It is not easy to follow in the footsteps of icon Sidney Poitier. Combs holds up his end among the outstanding cast.
I had an interesting conversation with a woman who is a little younger than Combs, who had a problem with him acting in the role. She said she didn’t think he was believable. It was hard to see a rich mogul as a down and out young man, she said.
So, Raisin has been raised to a new generation. This generation, that samples my generation’s music, has now gone to our movies. That’s okay but I want them to expand on the culture and produce more of their own.
Holler back.
photo: P. Diddy, Phylicia Rashad / AP
.Flack History Fact February 27: Marion Anderson, singer, was born in Philadelphia in 1897.
OLD SCHOOL MOVIE: Stormy Weather
NEW SCHOOL MOVIE: Ray
