When writer/director Rapman's new superpowered Netflix series Supacell opens, we see a Black woman frantically running down darkened corridors, dressed in a medical gown with surveillance watching her every move. She’s seen as helpless and terrified, but amongst the chaos, her eyes suddenly glow a golden yellow, activating her power. Briefly she witnesses freedom until she is shot and killed by shadowy armed guards. As if to deter others from thinking about their own escapist freedoms, her body is dragged past other Black prisoners locked in their respective cells.
Such a metaphor is one of the many commentaries running through Supacell. From an industry perspective, the idea of Blackness has always been trapped in a cage. Stereotypes such as 'The Angry Black Woman', 'The Absent Father', 'The Gang Leader', 'The Drug Dealer', 'The Jezebel', and many more have frustratingly come to define Black lives. It’s a caricature mentality often seen through the prism of white perspectives and comfortability that removes agency and identity to keep these myths alive. For the show's powerful intro, that myth is channelled into Black female trauma, where the prisoner is murdered without pause as if she isn’t human. No doubt the moment will stir up memories of the likes of Breonna Taylor in the US or Sarah Reed in the UK. But what happens when you take creative ownership of the narrative? Through an unapologetic Black lens, Rapman dares to break the cycle.
