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.
