Zola is a reminder of how Hollywood should treat Black women

And in many of those films, despite their vast differences, how are Black women treated?

It has become a cinematic staple that Black women in cinema are either overly sassy, unnecessarily funny, used for comic relief; traumatised, broken and struggling; or, in many cases, barely present at all.

Janicza Bravo’s 2021 genre-bending Zola is a piece of Black cinema that actually allows a Black woman to be – for lack of another word – human.

When I first heard about the film, which is based on a viral Twitter thread nicknamed "The Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted", I didn’t know quite what to expect, but after reading the thread, which opens with the iconic line, "Y’all wanna hear a story about why me and this b***h here fell out? It’s kinda long, but it’s full of suspense," a masterpiece of a sentence that I now quote almost on the daily, I was immediately invested in wanting to see how Bravo would reimagine such a wild tale.

Safe to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Zola follows a few days in the life of the titular character (Taylour Paige), a young, Black part-time stripper.

When she is convinced by her new friend, the secretly shady Stefani (Riley Keough), to go on a cross-country road trip to Florida and earn some extra cash, a whole load of chaos ensues.

There is no doubt that Zola could have fallen into the wrong hands. Before Bravo took over, James Franco was set to direct the film, and I can only imagine the horrors that may have made it to the big screen if that version of the project went ahead.

So easily, Zola could have been a dark and gritty crime drama – an exploitative 90 minutes about sex work that over-sexualises a Black stripper and is constructed solely for the male gaze.

Bravo, of course, doesn’t fall into that trap. Instead, she presents us with a bright, feminine, extremely entertaining black comedy that is not only refreshing but also battles so many stereotypes of Black women.

The character of Zola is so many things. She’s savvy, honest, level-headed and empowered. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, but is also collected enough to know when she needs to shut up and stay safe, even when she enters violent spaces.

Zola isn’t just around to be a comedian in the way her Hollywood predecessors may suggest.

This isn’t to say that Paige’s depiction of the titular character isn’t funny, though. In fact, Zola is undoubtedly hilarious. There are barely 10 minutes that go by when Zola isn’t doing something worth a laugh.

Even in moments of fear, like when Zola tries to abandon ship and Colman Domingo’s mysterious character X threatens her in a very sudden (and very weird) change of accent, Zola’s comedic delivery remains priceless and impeccable, all without falling victim to the deep-rooted stereotype of the Sassy Black Woman that we’ve seen too many times.

Zola is not reduced to only making an audience laugh, because she has so many other layers to her personality.

She is also fiercely intelligent. A scene that perfectly illustrates this comes just after we find out that Stefani isn’t quite who she’s pretending to be, revealing to Zola that she is a prostitute and that X, who Stefani previously claimed to be her "roommate", is actually her pimp.

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Zola is surprised when she finds out how little Stefani charges for her services (a measly $150), and within a matter of minutes, flips the Backpage website (the film's answer to Craigslist) on its head to get Stefani earning over $8,000 a night. Talk about good business skills.

Although Zola and Stefani are both sex workers, there is no female nudity in the film. Zola is hyper-feminine, but she is not over-sexualised by her creators. She is simply allowed to be a Black woman who is comfortable in her body – she is beautiful and empowered and unapologetic because that is what she wants to be.

Zola is in complete control of her body and her story, even when those around her want to take that autonomy away: "I am not here for that," she says when Stefani suggests she join her in "trapping".

But Zola’s ability to flatten expectations isn’t just from the character of Zola herself. It also comes from the surrounding decoration of the film.

Despite its complex narrative themes, Zola’s cinematography conjures anything but grit. The palette of the film is passionately colourful and perfectly symmetrical, filled with bright stage lights and bursts of cherry red and baby pink that lend it a feminine glamour that is an unexpected contrast against the nature of the story.

At times, specifically in solo scenes with Zola and Stefani, the film is also layered with delicate piano music that matches Bravo’s delicate treatment of her themes.

Sex, female friendship, racial dynamics – they are all considered with as much kindness as Bravo lends her Black protagonist, because it’s not just Zola who is important to the story, it’s everything around her, everything that shapes her into the multifaceted woman that she is.

By the end of the film, Zola becomes so much more than just a day in the life of a stripper. It's a story about a Black woman that is told from her perspective.

It's a compelling, humanising adventure that doesn’t rely on just the colour of Zola’s skin to get its point across, yet at the same time doesn’t erase her Blackness. Zola is Black and she’s a person – and while that might sound like an easy concept to grasp in theory, it’s one that Hollywood seems to find almost impossible to get right.

As a woman who is half Black, it has been hard to admit that I have never really connected with the majority of Black cinema.

It has always felt like an expectation to laugh at the sassy Black woman, or to empathise with the suffering Black female slave when yet another variation of 12 Years a Slave is released in cinemas, or to grin and bare it when a Black woman is overly sexualised when her white counterpart isn’t.

None of those categories have ever made me feel connected. None have ever made me feel quite... right.

Somehow, Zola did.

Zola is available to rent or buy on Prime Video – sign up for a 30-day free trial. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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