In Which She Bitches About The Help
Jan. 31st, 2012 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinema_babeThis is a blog post worth everyone of every race and ethnicity reading.
As a black woman and self labeling movie-a-holic I''m not saying that every representation of African-Americans (or other minorities for that matter) has to be "the noble negro" role that Sydney Portier was locked into for so long (and that Denzel Washington fought so hard to get out of). Hell, I think that stereotypes can be damn funny at times (have you ever seen, "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka"?)
However, it is sad to me that when you look at the actresses that have been nominated for Academy Awards so many of them are for playing some common black stereotype: a maid/slave or Aunt Jemima type, a sex object, a welfare mother, you get the drift.
And now you have a film, from a book written by a white woman, about how "Not Everyone in the Good Ole' South Was So Bad" (and if I see the term "Sassy" used to characterize a black woman one more time, I'm going to punch someone). Why not Angela Basset in X? Or Lonette McKee in Jungle Fever? Or Ruby Dee for Rasin in the sun.
For all it's liberalism, Hollywood just ain't happy with our dark brown skin and nappy hair unless we're whoring it, collecting welefare or scrubbing their floors.
As a black woman and self labeling movie-a-holic I''m not saying that every representation of African-Americans (or other minorities for that matter) has to be "the noble negro" role that Sydney Portier was locked into for so long (and that Denzel Washington fought so hard to get out of). Hell, I think that stereotypes can be damn funny at times (have you ever seen, "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka"?)
However, it is sad to me that when you look at the actresses that have been nominated for Academy Awards so many of them are for playing some common black stereotype: a maid/slave or Aunt Jemima type, a sex object, a welfare mother, you get the drift.
And now you have a film, from a book written by a white woman, about how "Not Everyone in the Good Ole' South Was So Bad" (and if I see the term "Sassy" used to characterize a black woman one more time, I'm going to punch someone). Why not Angela Basset in X? Or Lonette McKee in Jungle Fever? Or Ruby Dee for Rasin in the sun.
For all it's liberalism, Hollywood just ain't happy with our dark brown skin and nappy hair unless we're whoring it, collecting welefare or scrubbing their floors.
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Date: 2012-01-31 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 10:45 pm (UTC)Your link was a powerful one, as are your own words.
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Date: 2012-02-01 06:21 am (UTC)If you want fiction with stronger roles for black women - or for women in general - it's going to have to be science fiction for now :-(
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Date: 2012-02-01 01:15 pm (UTC)They could make a movie about Madam CJ Walker, they could make an *accurate* family movie about the great migration of slaves to west, (Oklahoma Territory, Arizona and New Mexico). Historically, there were black women who were professors, doctors, pilots, pioneers of all types.
Hell, where's Lena Horne's biography? How many people know that she was the #2 WWII pinup right behind Betty Grable?
The point is that this isn't about Black History" this is about American History and the story of black women as embodied in popular media.
Yes, the majority of black women were in menial positions, both of my grandmothers scrubbed floors for a living in the Depression. But think of it this way, the majority of white people aren't policemen, doctors or athletes yet if you were to watch the movies you'd never know that most of white American is closer to Dan Conner than James Bond.
All I'm mourning is a complete lack of parity, still.
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Date: 2012-02-01 06:53 pm (UTC)I hate to say it, but I think that a big part of Lena Horne's popularity as a pin-up had to do with the fact that she looked like a white woman with a tan. (Incidentally, I always thought that Michael Jackson was trying to turn himself into Lena Horne.) At least today's images of beautiful women include some degree of appropriate "ethnicity" - even if all of them look as if they need a cheeseburger :-(
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Date: 2012-02-01 07:39 pm (UTC)Lonette McKee was in Jungle Fever playing a wife whose husband leaves her for his white mistress. She takes him back and her last scene is a a mirror image of the scene that opens the movie and it's one of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema history. Her chaster was a college educated professional, no dark secrets or bad behaviors. But she also didn't fit the comfortable pigeonhole that Hollywood has for women of color (because Hispanic women don't fare much better).
When it comes to being reward for being an artist it's only if we are firmly on one end of the spectrum or the other; Madonna or Whore. There is no middle ground or just a chance to be rewarded for playing a woman.
In the game of social politics we lose twice, once as women and again because of the color of our skin.
Lena Horne became a big pinup because she was first and only black ingenue in mainstream movies. Just about every black soldier had her picture in their barracks (or wherever they kept pinups). I had 2 uncles who fought in WWII (they were a lot older than my mother and when they passed away among their stuff? Both had pictures of Lena Horne.
She was the girl black soldiers fought for, lol.
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Date: 2012-02-02 09:17 am (UTC)You're right, though - why aren't there any movies about Historical Women Of Color? (Well, there was "Lady Sings The Blues", but the movie paid far more attention to her being a junkie whore than to her singing career...)