Many years ago, when Rolling Stone was a real magazine and not crap-o-la, I read an article about the lack of recognition of African-Americans at the Oscars. I hadn't watched the Oscars that year so I didn't know that Spike Lee's Malcolm X had lost out for best actor and best film to Al Pacino and The Scent of a Woman. I was shocked--shocked!--as I sat in my chair at the Dorval library. The Oscars always give prizes to *epics* and Malcolm X fell firmly in the epic tradition.I can't say I was a big Oscar fan before reading that article, but I became even less of one after. Cinematic Hollywood must be the most out of date, out of the loop, backwards entertainment industry in the US. Ridiculously so. Ridiculously behind its own public.
And I guess, according to this article, very little has changed since I read the article 14 years ago: [this is in re. Mo'Nique's acceptance speech]
In the 70 years between McDaniel's and Mo'Nique's wins, only three other black actresses -- Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry and Jennifer Hudson -- have taken home Oscars. Just one of those was for a leading role, and if you guessed that went to the only thin, light-skinned, button-nosed, biracial one of the bunch, you get a gold star. Four black men have won best actor -- three of those in the last 10 years -- and four have won best supporting. So that's 13 acting awards out of 328. In 82 years. This year also saw the second African-American to be nominated for best director and the first ever African-American screenwriter to win. In 82 years. Welcome to post-racial America.
...
Consider the shocked reaction of umpteen reporters upon learning that the movie's star, Gabourey Sidibe, is nothing like Precious -- that she was, in fact, acting. Consider the clip they chose to show last night that featured Sidibe stealing a bucket of fried chicken, for crying out loud. Consider that four of the best picture nominees were widely criticized for their treatment of race -- "Precious" for all of the above; "District 9" for its arguably sketchy handling of an apartheid allegory and undeniably degrading depiction of human black Africans; "The Blind Side" and "Avatar" for being yet more iterations of a tired and condescending "white savior" narrative. That's not to say those films were wholly without merit or even necessarily undeserving of the praise, but when four of the year's most beloved movies contain problematic racial tropes, it's a bit premature to congratulate the Academy or ourselves for having come so far in the last 82 years. [from Salon]
1 comment:
The only one of those four that I've seen is "District 9," though I've read enough about the others to know that they're, um, problematic.
Funny thing. I was in various parts of the Northeast when all four of these movies were released. None of the local coverage in Connecticut or Pennsylvania--and none of what I read in "Entertainment Weekly" and "Rolling Stone"--really understood the problems with any of the films. "District 9" was hailed as a progressive allegory despite the fact that it portrays Nigerians as cannibals and casts apartheid-era Black South Africans as disgusting prawn-like creatures. I never saw any critiques of "Precious" or "Avatar" (even though the premise as depicted in the *trailer* alone suggests that it's "Dances with Wolves" with aliens). I heard critiques of "The Blide Side" for being overly sentimental and Hallmark-ish, but nothing about the racism.
When I got back to North Carolina, I found all sorts of intelligent local criticism. Even in the mainstream, slightly liberal local paper. I hadn't heard anything at all about the light skin-ism in "Precious" until I read the reviews around here.
For all of the problems with racism that we have here in the South, we have--for better or worse--developed a vocabulary with which to discuss and analyze it. And the South today is not what it was 50 years ago, at minimum. I never heard the "n-word" growing up or with any of my peers, but I heard it about once a week in regular conversation in Pennsylvania.
Post a Comment