Be clear, the announcement that Viola Davis is now cast as Amanda “The Wall” Waller in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie is pretty exciting news. Sure, we saw Angela “Did I give you permission to speak my name?” Bassett play her in Green Lantern, but we all know Amanda doesn’t mess with Green Lantern like that in the comics, so her role wasn’t going to be major here. Yes, Amanda Waller was also portrayed on Smallville (we see you, Pam Grier), and her cold all-business demeanor (but not her likeness) has been (arguably?) most accurate under Cynthia Addai-Robinson with her portrayal in Arrow. However, what we have here is a big start. Suicide Squad is Amanda Waller’s wheelhouse. If I could be so inclined to quote from the album of Beyonce, track 11 verse 8, this movie will have Viola Davis on her …
For those of you who don’t know much about Amanda Waller from DC Comics, the woman who Shoryuken/Dragon uppercuts the glass ceiling with how hard she goes in the paint. Let me give you the rundown right quickly. This is a woman who runs a squad of villains doing suicide missions in order to get time off for their sentences or pardons (rarely happens), the way she gets sh*t done with politics, through politics or by passing politics all together would make Theodore Roosevelt get her name tattooed across the belly while shouting out, “Yaasss, Amanda! Yaaasssss.” Waller takes the big stick ideology, breaks it over here knee and says, “Let me show you how we goin’ do this.” She ain’t taken sass from anyone, Batman included.
Now, if we keeping it over 9,000 power level, we can already see hints of Amanda Waller appear in Davis’ role of Annalise Keating in How to Get Away With Murder. Keating is a lawyer who goes for the headshot kill or the jugular in the courtroom on the show. However, the main difference is we see Annalise Keating vulnerable eventually within the series. That doesn’t exist with Waller. Amanda Waller has no vulnerability, no weaknesses to exploit. There is nothing she won’t do, and nobody she won’t merk for the mission or the long game. She is a strategist, she is a straight-up general, and she is in charge.
Read more from Omar Holman at Blacknerdproblems.com