Why Black women playing villains on screen still feels controversial

In the wake of discourse surrounding Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia in One Battle After Another, a familiar debate has resurfaced about what happens when Black women play morally ambiguous characters on screen In one scene in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, Teyana Taylor’s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, is more focused on seducing Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson (then still known as “Ghetto Pat”) than on the bomb exploding just feet away from them. In another scene, she holds ...

By Precious Fondren