I loved Jamal Lyon from the moment I watched his father drag him out of the back door of their home into an alley and forced his tiny body into a garbage can for wearing his mother’s high-heeled shoes.
I was stunned, with a lump in my throat and tears burning my eyes, watching this scene play out in front of me. It hit close to home.
Although my own father didn’t exactly throw me away, here was definitely homophobia and domestic abuse in my childhood home. My dad was the pastor of a small Baptist church in a small conservative town just south of Nashville, Tennessee. We lived in the buckle of the Bible Belt. On many Sundays, my dad delivered sermons referring to queer people as abominations hated by God. There was also a the time when I was about ten, that seeing me with my hand on my hip caused my father to loudly call me a sissy at a church picnic and then erupt into a fit of violence later that evening that.
That time still haunts me.
And so, during the pilot episode of Fox’s Empire, when – in flashback scene based on the real-life experience of writer/director Lee Daniels – when Lucious Lyon (played by Terrence Howard) angrily stuffs young Jamal into the trash for playing in his mother’s clothes, I felt it.
It was as if a painful aspect of my childhood that no one else could comprehend, was truly understood. I felt seen. I felt compassion and love for the little boy crying on my television screen. I felt those things for myself.
I felt represented. And I wasn’t the only one.
Nearly 9.8 million people watched the premiere episode of Empire back in January of 2015. For many, the scene I described was a standout moment, prompting days’ worth of discussions on social media about child abuse and the vulnerability of queer kids of color to violence in their homes. Critics all over the country applauded the show for representing the ugliness of homophobia in such a direct, unflinching way.
In retrospect, this scene positioned the character of Jamal Lyon (played by Jussie Smollett) as the moral and sympathetic center of a show filled with corrupt, violent, dishonest, and ruthless characters. Blurring the line between art and life a bit, Smollett, who’d historically been tight-lipped about his sexuality for much of his acting career, confirmed that he is gay on the daytime talk show, Ellen, shortly after Jamal Lyon came out to his fans on Empire. In interviews during that first season, Smollett often discussed the importance of representing the gay-Black experience and his need to be proudly, openly gay. At least one of the inspirations for this openness was in reaction to what Smollett then described as numerous hateful messages he was receiving for his portrayal of Jamal Lyon as a gay man.
Almost exactly four years after the first episode of Empireaired, Jussie Smollett reported to police in Chicago that he’d been the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime, after receiving alarming death threats in the mail. Chicago Police determined that Smollett lied about the attack for publicity and arrested him for making
Well before police arrested him, many people questioned the veracity of Smollett’s claim that he was attacked by two white men who called him homophobic and racist slurs, and referenced Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, MAGA, as they assaulted him.
Among the most critical, if not openly hostile, in their reactions to the news of Smollett’s attack were Black, gay men. In fact, some of the most problematic theories – that Smollett was assaulted while trying to hook up with a guy/guys he met on a gay dating app such as Grindr, or was the victim of a drug transaction gone wrong – were created, believed, and shared by Black, gay men before there was any evidence that Smollett was lying.
Just as the moment from Jamal Lyon’s childhood resonated with me, so did Jussie Smollett’s account of being the victim of a hate crime. On more occasions than I can count, my physical safety has been threatened because of my race and sexuality. In the four years since Empirehas been on the air, the landscape of our country’s cultural politics have changed dramatically. LGBT civil rights are being rolled back in ways that were inconceivable in 2015. Hate crime rates have risen. White nationalism has exploded.
Ten days prior to Jussie Smollett’s report to police, the country was captivated by a media story alleging that white, male, MAGA-hat wearing teens surrounded and taunted an older, Native American Veteran in Washington D. C. after the Indigenous Peoples March. That story was merely the latest in a long line of incidents where white Trump supporters were caught on camera harassing, assaulting, or killing people representing groups they oppose. In the wake of that moment, Smollett’s story of being targeted by Trump supporters hit home, especially among those of us who identify as members of groups vulnerable to such an attack.
When discussing support of Jussie Smollett, I really can’t underscore the degree to which I think most people, myself included, could not fathom the idea that a person would manufacture a hate crime. It’s simply cruel beyond reason.
Also at work, I think, is this phenomenon that happens when an actor/entertainer represents a group or an experience that rarely gets representation in media. He becomes a symbol of the people or experience he is representing.
Even in 2019, Black and gay people lack nuanced media representation. Jussie Smollett’s role as Jamal Lyon filled, at least partially, a void. Fed a hunger. And some of the immediate support he received in the initial days after reporting his attack was support of what he symbolizes.
I admit that much of my own support stems from my own failure to recognize that though I know his work – though I know the dramatized, exaggerated, and romanticized fictional (but sympathetic and moral) gay, Black experience of Jamal Lyon – I know far less about Jussie Smollett.
Even if it feels like I do.
I was hurt and extremely disappointed when evidence emerged that Smollett may be lying about the attack. I remain disheartened by the stereotypes that caused people to reduce his story to hypersexual antics of “horny gay Black men,” but there are too many unanswered questions for me to not at least wonder if Smollett is lying. In fact, months after Smollett resolved his criminal case with a deal that resulted in all charges being dismissed in exchange for community service and a fine, it is almost impossible to believe that he wasn’t deceitful.
Perhaps because the truth remains elusive, the media circus around Smollett rages on. Recent reports indicate that the FBI is investigating how and why a deal to drop charges against him happened in the first place. Saturday Night Live parodied Smollett a few weeks ago. The City of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the actor/singer to recoup money spent investigating his alleged hate crime. Fox announced that next season will be the final season of Empire, and that there are no plans to have Smollett appear on the show. And, just this week, a Chicago judge unsealed Jussie Smollett’s court records after media organizations requested that documents related to the criminal matter be made public. These documents had been sealed at the request of Smollett’s attorneys when the case was dismissed back in March.
As an early defender of Smollett and someone deeply appreciative of seeing a gay character of color on a successful prime-time show, I am preparing myself to be further troubled and disappointed by facts that may emerge from the documents released on Thursday.
It is painful to watch Jussie Smollett’s career crash and burn. He has quite possibly become the latest celebrity example of the pitfalls inherent in confusing an artist with his art.
