Although it has yet to screen for critics, Clint Eastwood’s new drama Invictus already has my spidey-sense tingling in an unfortunate way. Based on a true story, the pic takes a look at Nelson Mandela after the fall of apartheid, detailing his release from prison, election as president, and subsequent effort to unite a divided South Africa behind its national rugby team. To this end he enlists the help of team captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), who successfully leads the squad to a World Cup victory over New Zealand. It’s inspirational stuff, I’m sure, and many are speculating that the film will be an easy frontrunner in several top Oscar categories for 2009. What galls me is that it looks, at least from a prima facie perspective, like yet another film in which filmmakers feel obliged to counterpoise an historical black protagonist with a lesser known (or in some cases fictional) white one.

Cry Freedom paired Steve Biko (Denzel Washington), the charismatic leader of the South African Black Consciousness Movement, with Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), the liberal white editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper. The Last King of Scotland teamed up Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) with fictional Scottish physician Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). Now Invictus presents us with the story of Nelson Mandela and a white rugby player. It’s an ongoing trend predicated on the perceived limits of white filmgoers’ appetites. If you need proof, check out the Invictus poster: Morgan’s Mandela appears as a looming figure with his body turned ¾ away from us, while Damon’s Pienaar is face-forward and beaming. You needn’t have studied semiotics to discern which figure is made to seem the more identifiable, appealing, and heroic here. Check out the trailer as well.