In Celebration of Chaotic Black Characters of Pop Culture Day 2: Lando Calrissian
Smooth like Colt 45. Fine like wine. Sold his buddy out for power. Was really sorry about it.
The sexiest action figure ever molded and it’s not even close.
Writer’s note: The reason I’m celebrating these characters is that they were allowed their chaos, their complexities and their messiness, in a way that Black characters aren’t always. I love them even when they suck.
The first thing that struck me about Lando Calrissian from the big screen on May 21, 1980, the opening day of ‘The Empire Strikes Back,” was that he looked like Billy Dee Williams. (I am focusing on OG Lando, not the very fine Donald Glover in the “Solo” movie. Just so you know.) And for a little girl raised in the 70s/80s whose mother was very, very pro-Billy Dee, this was enough to make him interesting.
I also noticed that he was Black, which even at 9 I recognized as a big deal in the burgeoning “Star Wars” franchise, and that, at least on the surface, he was doing things that, it seemed, the real Billy Dee might do. He was a flirt. His hair was impeccable, alerting me to the fact that somewhere in the Empire there was a Black hair salon. Maybe in somebody’s mama’s basement. He had good products from somewhere. Also, he looked absolutely devastating in a cape.
You would trust that face, even though you know you shouldn’t. Stache game on point.
But then Lando, a smuggler, gambler, and maybe even a smoker, joker and midnight toker, did something that seemed way un-Billy Dee-like: He gave up his friend, fellow sexy smuggling rogue Han Solo, to the PoPo…umm, to Darth Vadar. When I was a kid, I saw things pretty black-and-white in terms of ethics - you were a good guy or a bad guy, and narcing on your friends so they become a Carbonite popsicle is bad. (Chewbacca was not happy.) Also, I was from Baltimore, raised by 70s’ people from D.C., which means I was very anti-The Man. And nobody was more The Man than Darth Vadar. Of course, I learned that Lando had been forced into this deal to protect the people of Cloud City, and then tried to help rescue Han.
To me, Lando’s chaotic nature is two-fold: He’s a smooth criminal by nature, and super charismatic - look at his face - so people trust him even when they shouldn’t. He’s also a nice guy trying to go straight who betrays a friend for what he thinks is the greater good, but it’s hard to believe him at first because he earned his reputation as a player with a loose relationship to ethical boundaries. By “Return Of The Jedi,” he was back on the right side of things, and his hair still looked good. As it should be.
I loved him. SO smooth!
This was an awesome post