How is it racist that the Academy didn't award Viola Davis her first Oscar for Best Actress when clearly the better performance won? Streep stole the show with her Thatcher, and Davis was never going to win for what was clearly a Supporting Role. If anyone else would have won, surely it would have been Michelle Williams. I just don't get how this is perceived as 'deep-seated racism,' so-called by various critics. Octavia Spencer was deservedly awarded Best Supporting Actress for The Help.. The better leading actress won. If Davis was a white woman, there would be no noise made about this.
Loved Davis's performance. Any one of those women arguably gave an oscarworthy performance - the same can be said of several other women, of various colors, who were not nominated this year - and don't believe Streep's oscar is at all racist. Who is saying it is?
Awesome. I overheard some guy say something the other night in a bar that really ground my gears. If I can remember what it was, I'll start a thread right away.
Not to comment on the racism question or anything, but of course Streep stole the show with her Thatcher- the entire movie was about her! It's pretty easy to steal the show when you, ya know, are the show.
"Oh, you GUYS. I just honestly don't KNOW. I mean... I'm just not THAT good. Well... OKAY... if you SAY so, but -- Oh, I'm just SO embarrassed! You all must HATE me by now! Well... THANK you. Oh, my WORD."
Every year "they" make predictions on who will win. This year "Everyone" predicted Viola Davis would win and when she didn't, "they" have to point to some reason why.
Meanwhile Streep won because more people preferred her. And "they" have no idea why.
I fully agree with the OP. When a black actor or actress is nominated for an award the simple fact is that they deserve to win it. When a honkey hack like Meryl F-in Streep takes it home (and seriously who the hell is she to take anything MORE from the black community than she's taken already) it shows that the nomination was a "pity" nomination just to show that the academy isn't really racist but deeply cares about the "colored folk" and then SURPRISE SURPRISE - White Devil (or should I say White "She-Devil") gets the statue. The deep hatred of anyone of color in these awards is appalling and has been ever since they gave an award to a Mammy back in the 30s and we ALL know that when these white folks deem it appropriate to give an award to a black person it's only out of the sense of guilt they feel for having done what they did when they did those things they did all those years ago and this is retribution and a more public form of reparation to ease their black hearts (black as in evil, not black is in Viola Davis who will always be the true winner of the Academy Award for Best Leading BLACK OR WHITE Actress!)
not to be a buzz-kill, but the LA Times released a study last week indicating that the Academy voters do not "look like America" (to resurrect a phrase). now i'll agree it's a quantum leap to go from (badly) skewed demographics to charges of racism, but the lack of diversity amongst the voters does in fact give one pause ...
However, it should be noted that ignorance and indignation from white people--such as many of those that frequent this message board, dismissing or scoffing at any legitimate concerns of performers of color--is just as big an obstacle to tackling this subject meaningfully as black overzealousness.
The beef that black performers have is that there is a scarcity of quality roles for us. After there were NO black nominees last year--which wasn't a surprise, seeing as how very few of us were in any major movies in substantial roles--this year feels like a slap in the face to many black people, as the only actresses nominated this year were playing maids--shades of Hattie McDaniel. I think anyone with a modicum of sensitivity and knowledge of American history would see why Black people might have a problem with this, despite the fact that the story is an intriguing one and that the film moved many people (I personally hated it, for various reasons, but it's not necessarily a terrible movie). On a side note, adding further fuel to the fire surrounding this film is the fact that a white woman wrote the original novel--a topic that had many tongues in the black community wagging. But that is beside the point.
The indignation propelling Jordan's rant seem to stem from white people's belief that black people are looking for handouts, irritation that black people seem to feel they are owed something, and exasperation that black people can't just "get over" racism or this country's racist past.
Jordan asserts that blacks who are nominated for and win awards receive those accolades based solely on merit, which ignores the political aspect of the awards, the overwhelming lack of minority membership in the academy (which was recently exposed by the LA Times), the scarcity of opportunities available for blacks in the industry in front of or behind the camera (in an industry heavily reliant on relationships, you can see how devastating that can be), and general discrimination in Hollywood--see George Lucas on "The Daily Show" openly explaining that studios wouldn't back "Red Tails", for no other reason than the film had Black leads.
The George Lucas example is interesting, because days later Spike Lee was chastised at a movie premiere when he spoke briefly about Hollywood refusing to back a sequel to his film "Inside Man", which was a critical and box office success. These are two successful and influential American filmmakers, yet George Lucas received no criticism for his claims of industry racism, and Spike is always condemned when he highlights the same problems.
Similarly, when blacks anywhere raise issues of inequality they are often dismissed and ridiculed (by the very people least likely to experience oppressive racial discrimination), and accused of wanting favors and told to "get over it".
Bringing the topic back to theatre--where many of these same issues persist--myself and all of the talented black professionals that I know need no favors, our talent speaks for itself--but there are far fewer avenues for us to express that talent on the mainstream level. We want a more level playing field, but honestly I think in this environment that will never happen.
Leave it to Broadwayworlds resident cry baby racist, Blactor, to chime in. I'm sure he'll whine to the mods to have most of this thread deleted like he usually does.
Oh and as usual, in your "reverse racist" fog of blind hatred, you completely missed the point of what I wrote. You, blactor, are a blidiot.
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joined:3/18/10
Posted: 2/29/12 at 09:50am