I started binging Brooklyn 99 in the background while I was doing some coding.
Now, I’m not really the type of person to idolize people or celebrities. I appreciate them and I understand how hard the work of celebrity and acting can be. I just don’t worship them. Or anyone.
But there are some people that perform who capture my admiration for the way they portray a character, emotion, or concept. Sometimes it’s a singer or author, sometimes it’s an actor.
Gay black male characters on screen have a controversial history
The start of a toxic trope: The character Belize from Angels in America served as a character template for nearly all gay black men protrayed on stage, in film, and on TV for decades.
Andre Braugher played Captain Holt in Brooklyn 99, and he played Captain Holt so friggin’ well. Holt, as a character, was an openly gay black police officer through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Braugher was, as far as I know, a cishet male in real life. His casting made me nervous at first.
I wasn’t nervous because of Braugher, but because of Hollywood’s tendency to portray gayness itself as a comedic premise in the writing. And when a gay character is also black, it definitely strays into an intersection of homophobia and racism and even transphobia.
Black men have often been emasculated in TV and film to make them less threatening to white audiences. There’s so much controversy in the black community concerning the portrayal of black men in Hollywood because of this.
Taking on a gay black male character could not have been an easy decision for Braugher. Or maybe it was. Actors who take on these roles can find themselves criticized deeply, loudly, and often by the people they care about most. Perhaps Braugher knew from the script that Holt was defying enough stereotypes that it would ultimately be okay.
What I deeply appreciate about Braugher’s portrayal of a gay black man is that he stayed true to reality and refused to make gayness or blackness (or too much “whiteness”) the joke.
Holt’s character was treated beautifully by writers and Braugher
CAPTAIN HOLT: Not a one-dimensional Token Twofer character
I was delighted to find that Holt’s gayness was not the butt of the joke. Instead, it was the basis for poking fun at a lot of weird non-queer behavior and assumptions about queerness and queer relationships.
Most of the humor around Holt comes down to his high intellect, deadpan affect, and seriousness as a person. Even the romance between Holt and his husband Kevin isn’t treated as a premise for absurdity. It’s real, and despite their formal appearances, loving and passionate.
There’s an incredible scene in the final season where Holt and his husband share a kiss in the rain after struggling with a separation and possible divorce. It’s never played as comedy, it’s played as romance. Specifically, Nora Effron-esque romance.
As a queer person, seeing Holt portrayed with so much care in the writing was incredible. He exudes masculinity without misogyny.
The whole series was great but Braugher’s performances stole the show
The Pinapple Slut Shirt: What made this moment so iconic and absurd is that Holt’s character would normally never be caught dead in a shirt like this
Brooklyn 99 in general was an incredibly surprising show because of the way it handled a lot of issues like systemic racism, bad policing policies, rehabilitation, addiction, prison, and homophobia.
The first two seasons are the roughest. There’s some insensitivity you’d expect from the way criminals are generally treated in cop shows and some weird fat phobia. Yet once the show got on its feet, it began to subvert a lot of typical tropes and have all of its characters get out of a judgy space.
Braugher died last year from lung cancer. While I can’t say Braugher the man and actor was a personal inspiration to me, I can say that his portrayal of Captain Holt was a huge inspiration to me.
I had hoped to see Braugher in more roles after Brooklyn 99. I was surprised to hear of his passing just two years after the show wrapped.
About the piece
I wanted to practice portraits and color layering. Since I was seeing him on screen constantly, I decided to use Braugher as my first subject. I’m fairly happy with the way he turned out. If I could go back and fix something, it would be his nose. I mean, yes, I can definitely go back and fix it and I absolutely plan to.
What I am extremely happy with is the way I was able to layer and build colors to create the effects I was going for. I never used a single brown. I used purple and orange the most, but there are plenty of other ROYGBIV colors in there, as well as some magenta.
I can’t wait to start working on some more portraits.
