Beyoncé has appeared on the big screen before. (See: Dreamgirls. See: Austin Powers film Goldmember.) But now, according to The Sun, she is keen to be taken seriously as an actor. Bey is reportedly writing — and planning to star in — a biopic about Saartjie Baartman, a South African woman who was enslaved and put on display in a London side show during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Due to her unfamiliar Khoisan figure and large buttocks, she was known as the “Hottentot Venus.”
A “Hollywood source” told The Sun that, “Even though she’s had a string of well-received movies, [Beyoncé] still feels her breakthrough role is yet to come. She now wants to write a screenplay that gains her respect — and hopefully awards — from the film industry, and thinks Saartjie’s story could be her ticket.”
Saartjie Baartman was working as the slave of a Dutch farmer near Cape Town when the farmer’s brother and a military surgeon — who had a sideline in supplying showmen with animals — took her to London in 1810 to be displayed in the Egyptian Hall of Piccadilly Circus, a freak show. Since her death, activists have successfully campaigned to have her remains removed from display in a Paris museum and buried in South Africa — though it took until 2002.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Photography Matt Jones
Styling Marina Burini
[The Health Issue, No. 268, August 06]