Hit Or Miss: Noughts + Crosses
What would happen if Africa had colonized Europe?
In the age of overturning the subjective that white supremacy has cast among us, we couldn’t help but wonder what happens on the flip side, a world without the history and presence of colonization and slavery. Malorie Blackman’s award-winning young adult book Noughts + Crosses, now a TV series, shows us a glimpse of a world in which history is flipped. This is not the first time we get to see African culture thrives on its own in a fictional setting. Marvel’s Black Panther stirred a wave of global popularity, introducing us to Wakanda, a technologically advanced African nation isolated from the rest of the world. The world of N+C is perhaps less fantastical and closer to an extreme version of our reality, with white people (noughts) in the underclass, ruled by the dark-skinned elite (crosses).
In the capital of Aprica, the European countries colonized by Africa, a Romeo-and-Juliet love story between Sephy Hadley (Masali Baduza) and Callum McGregor (Jack Rowan) is the spine of the story. When the young lady of the house falls in love with her housekeeper’s son, the secret young love is dangerous since interracial relationships are forbidden (and reminded everywhere with signs). The spark of the story is nervously identical to the current political atmosphere when two Black police officers attacking a white boy awakens protests against the segregated society.
Blackman’s alternative universe is assiduously detailed and a potent reflection on the reality we live in today. First premiered on BBC in March, two months before the killing of George Floyd and the national protest against contemporary police services, N+C’s story was distant at its core with a dystopian aesthetic. Social unrest in the series was portrayed with some underwhelming push-and-shove among the white protestors. Compared to the reality protesters have to face today, including heavily armed police and right-wing groups, N+C remains to be rose-colored and limited by its YA romance.
First commissioned by the British Public Broadcaster and launched by BBC, the NBC streaming service Peacock is bringing N+C to the United States. Although the storyline is somewhat outdated and tone-deaf to the present racial unrest and the violence Black folks and protestors face every day, it’s still important to see Black talent front and center in a major TV series. The BIPOC creative team behind the camera includes writers like Lydia Adetunji, Nathaniel Price, and Rachel De-Lahay. The series is directed by Julian Holmes (Daredevil) and newcomer Koby Adom. N+C’s producing team includes Johann Knobel (Shameless), Preethi Mavahalli, Kibwe Tavares, Patrick Reardon, Jeff Skoll, Miura Kite, Damien Timmer, and Ben Irving.
The characters in the series are carefully created and portrayed with complexity. “It was clear from day dot, from an acting point of view, it was something that would push me and I could be very proud of because I had to hit extreme emotional beats. The character, who is oppressed but is a happy person, he doesn’t have any hate in his heart and grows after getting so many pushes and pokes and trials and tribulations that his story just goes up and down. I immediately [knew] I wanted this,” Rowan told Deadline. As a cis-gender white man, Rowan admitted during an interview with Attitude that this is the first time “in a situation where [he is] the ‘other’, or the one who is different.”
“Thinking of what my ancestors have been through before me and how they were treated, for me to be playing a character who is privileged, historically?” said Masali, a South African newcomer actress, during an Independent interview, “It’s crazy.” She was born shortly after Apartheid ended in the early Nineties, and the remnants of discriminatory rules and laws were still in effect while she was at school. As Masali worked her way through the world of Sephy, she offered up her reckoning on privilege—“If you are in a position of power and you have privilege in society, use that to help other people who are struggling or oppressed, because, why wouldn’t you? It’s not going to take away from anything in your life to help someone who has a rougher lived experience than you.”
Noughts + Crosses is streaming on Peacock starting September 4, 2020.