Mekhi Phifer vs. Omar Epps
Battle of the African-American Adolescents

We know that's an oddly generic title for this particular battle. But that is, in fact, our point. Omar Epps and Mekhi Phifer each have a career because they are young and black. We're not saying they aren't talented, or that they don't deserve to have careers. We're saying that white actors in the same age range can be Bankable Jailbait or Gawky Dorks or Petulant Pouters or '70s-Flavoured Teen Love Hunks or Perky Co-Eds or Tweaked-Out Teen Troublemakers -- a white actor gets to have a hook, in other words, that allows casting directors to determine whether he or she is right for a given part. Black actors, for the most part, just have to be black, because the part the casting director is generally casting is "the black guy." Thus, for Phifer and Epps, being black is their common hook. We wish this weren't the case. We look forward to a time when actors of all races can be cast, colour-blind, based on their unique talents and abilities. But when we examine the evidence, we must conclude that we do not live in that time.

What evidence, you ask? Get comfortable. Phifer's first role is in The Tuskegee Airmen, a movie about African-American WWII fighter pilots. Epps's first role is in Juice, about three African-American youth from "the inner city" who get involved in a murder. Phifer goes on to star in Spike Lee's Clockers, as a drug dealer getting schooled by Delroy Lindo. Then he goes on to First-Time Felon, to be rehabilitated in prison by Delroy Lindo...no, wait -- that's not Phifer; that's Omar Epps. Epps plays an earnest college freshman in Higher Learning, just as Phifer plays an earnest high-school senior in O. Phifer's eponymous O is a basketball star, just like the one Epps plays in Love & Basketball. Epps turns up as the African-American afterthought in the sequel to the hugely popular and lily-white Scream, much as Phifer is the African-American afterthought in the sequel to the somewhat less popular yet equally lily-white I Know What You Did Last Summer. Phifer does a postmodern wink at '70s blaxploitation in Shaft, much as Epps spoofed '90s blaxploitation in Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. Epps is in the ensemble cast of the feel-good buppie drama The Wood. Phifer is in the ensemble cast of the feel-good buppie drama Soul Food. Phifer is the black guy in the remake of Brian's Song. Epps is the black guy in the remake of The Mod Squad.

Even we -- seasoned pop-cultural observers and commentators -- spent months under the misapprehension that the star of the controversial and long-awaited O, which finally opens this week, starred O...mar Epps. And we were surprised that he would want to follow up Love & Basketball with another love story revolving around a basketball-playing high-school senior. But it's not Epps -- it's Phifer. O is (touch wood) the last of the classic-work-of-drama- in-a-high-school genre (though it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? Remember Crime and Punishment in Suburbia? Whatever It Takes, the Cyrano update? Romeo + Juliet, with that totally subversive plus sign in place of an ampersand?), and the third L'il Archie Shakespearean adaptation to star Julia Stiles as the female lead (the other two being Ethan Hawke's Hamlet and 10 Things I Hate About You). Those three Stiles starrers combined feature a total of four African-American actors in speaking roles. Was Phifer considered for the Patrick Verona role in 10 Things, which went to Heath Ledger? Probably not, because then Patrick's race would have been the point of the character. Was Ledger ever considered for the lead in O? Probably not, because in O, the title character's race is the point. O requires that someone play "the black guy," and that's why we get Mekhi Phifer. (If he couldn't do it, that's why we would have probably got Omar Epps.)

Advantage: This week? Phifer.