Mo’nique’s Oscar, Racial Stereotypes, A Black Man Gives Up On Hollywood
by: Dave Belden on March 12th, 2010 | 12 Comments »
Novelist and Tikkun Daily reader Gwendoline Y. Fortune wrote us these comments about a critique of Monique’s Oscar that she likes and adds her own son’s experience of trying to make a difference in Hollywood.
The following is from a college friend. The author is the president of Bennett College for Women, where I attended during my first two–and crucial–years of college. Knowing that her position will be critiqued, I am comfortable with the values, training and attitudes I was taught that are congruent with Dr. Malveaux’s, and not with less.
Mo’nique’s Oscar — Victory and Setback By Julianne Malveaux
The comedienne, talk show host and actress Mo’nique became just the fifth African American woman to win an Oscar last week. Her portrayal of Mary Jones, the revolting and depraved mother of Precious, was arguably masterful, and she now joins Hattie McDaniel (who played a maid), Halle Berry (who played a sex-starved fool), Whoppi Goldberg (who played a medium in Ghost), and Jennifer Hudson (who played a singer).
I mention the roles that African American women played to win their Oscars because the roles African American women get in Hollywood are too frequently stereotypical, and it is these stereotypical performances that are often lifted up. While I am glad for Mo’nique’s victory, I did not relish the Precious story of welfare pathology making it to the screen. Why not more positive roles for African American women?
The whole piece is worth reading, here. She finishes with this:
I don’t begrudge Mo’nique her Oscar.
She took the material she was given and she worked it. She made Mary Jones a repulsive character with absolutely no redeeming social value. I am simply frustrated that these are the only kinds of roles that Hollywood offers African-American women, the only kinds of roles that Oscar chooses to lift up. I am frustrated that some may consider Mary Jones’ bestiality as typical, not atypical of African-American women.
When African-American women’s characters in film are more reflective of our reality, and when these characters’ performances are lifted up by Oscar, then we will have come a long way, baby. Until then, Mo’nique’s victory is her laudable personal success. It is a Black community setback.
I could not agree with Dr. Malveaux more. This strikes home for me. My son became a Production Designer in Hollywood. He is an architect, graduate of Carneigie Mellon. Having an interest in film since childhood, he was hired by Universal, and rose from set designer to the “top” position in that area–a “film architect,” responsible for the look of the film.”
His goal was to be involved in broader, more accurate portrayals of black people. He left Hollywood after eleven years, when he recognized that he would not be able to do that. He was assigned “All About Bob,” a “white” film, because upper-management did not know he was black. They hired him on the quality of his work in TV, with “Murder She Wrote,” “Quantum Leap,” and many non-racial shows. Once identified, he was given only black focused movies, “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Love Jones,” “Barbershop” (the first one). Even though his agent wanted him to stay, saying she could always get jobs for him, he refused. In fact, Barbershop was filmed while he was at “Columbia” working on the MBA.
He asked me to write a script on a fire set by the KKK at the college where his great grandfather was president. He critiqued it, submitted it, and it was “passed” by a young white male. He returned to school, otained his MBA and is now a Vice President with a top firm in New York City. Doing well financially, but unable to make the kind of contribution he had hoped.
This is the fate of being competent and being at the mercy of a marketing economy that will only allow the production of movies as Dr. Malveaux notes.
I feel the same about my novels of educated people of color, e.g., “Bennett Belles.” In the search for a publisher for my first (a twelve year foray) my agent received rejections with comments such as “She doesn’t write the black experience.”
There are times when I wish Marcus Garvey had been successful. This culture will not move beyond its racist limitations.
Dave and Gwendoline and Julianne–
I watched the Oscars this year and noticed, as you three did, that once again the “Academy” was awarding an Oscar to a stereotypical role. I would add that it’s not just a racial stereotype, but also a feminine stereotype, i.e. a double whammy (unconsioucsly, I believe) aimed at keeping good African-American women down. I applaud Julianne and her son for trying to change the system. And, although it was disheartening, I’m glad to have a recounting of all the African-American stereotypes that have been given this same award: maid, sex-starved fool, medium, singer, and now “welfare queen.” It could be argued that this last is the worst, since it reinforces in the minds of many white Americans that black women are just out to work the system.
What fools these people are…If you want to make movies with a social agenda, raise the money and make your own movies. The technology is there now to do it in your bedroom, just like the music business. The problem idiots like these see are colored (like everything else they see) with their own victim-hood. Hollywood is about movies that make money…period. The reason Precious made it to the screen is because someone thought they could make a buck from it. That’s all. Tyler Perry makes his own movies with his own social agenda…he does pretty well, I think. People who come to Hollywood (and they get off the bus thousands of times a day) with an agenda don’t last long. Spike Lee, who made “socially conscious” movies for years until people started to realize that his movies lost money, finds it very hard to get a movie going now because people believe that he will cost them money…not make them money. Anyone who has every hired an employee in any business has the same dilemma…”Will this person I am paying be worth more in return than I’m paying him?” When the answer is “No.”, why should anyone bother? If anything, there is reverse racism in Hollywood…people bend over backwards and twist themselves sideways to hire minorities. The real problem is that many of them do not understand the system…which is about making movies that make money. When they get it, they succeed…just like anyone else. The fact that movies can be personal, dramatic, humanitarian, uplifting, socially conscious, and inspiring is all beside the point. The point is that people will shell out to see all of those things if they are packaged correctly and done well. If you want to point to the real problem in Tinsletown, it’s Ageism…once you’re over 40, say goodbye…and they don’t make movies for the very audience that has the most disposable income in history…Now not only is that prejudice, it’s stupidity.
We understand “the system.” We find it unfair, demoralizing, and a cultural–as in beneficial to the society–wasteland.
Those whose only measure of worth is the medium of exchange. i.e. money, do not understand the real exchange, human values.
Wasn’t this a film directed by a Black (gay) man, with a screenplay written by a Black man based on a book by a Black lesbian, with a largely Black cast, and isn’t the film’s namesake, Precious, an incredibly strong and heroic young woman who rises up over incredible odds? And wasn’t the teacher who inspired Precious also Black and a very positive character? I really liked the movie (which I almost didn’t see because I was afraid it would be too depressing, but I actually found it uplifting). I’m white (but also disabled and lesbian, so I have some personal experience with being stereotyped and excluded by mainstream culture). I fully agree that Hollywood still has plenty of racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, and obsession with a certain limited kind of physical beauty (which Gabourey Sidibe certainly doesn’t fit into), and I, too, would love to see more diversity and breaking down of stereotypes in movies. And I fully understand how painful it is to see a group one belongs to being portrayed in ways that feel negative and stereotypical — but I also think it would be a very sad thing if every Black, or gay, or female, or disabled character had to be heroic, intelligent, glamorous, successful, and morally upstanding. I taught at a city college for awhile where many of my students were young people like Precious, and to me, the story was very moving. I thought it dared to touch some taboo topics, and I’m glad it got several well-deserved Oscars. I certainly don’t think it was “aimed at keeping good African-American women down.” That seems a bit absurd to me. Maybe I’m really off base here, but that’s my two cents.
Becasue you have strikes against you, you might be more understanding of the dislike of the film and what it portrayed if you were the inheritor of generations of disenfranchisement, because of your “difference.”
From my understanding of biology being of a different gender does not “run-in-families,” is not a genetically determined reality for everyone in a family, and over every generation.
If your read Dr. Malveaux, carefully, many do think the film was a blow, a set-back to old stereotypes.
Blacks have this, almost in our genes, at least in our experience from birth forward. It is not political, but human. “We” have had these sterotypes used against “us,” as Dr. Malveaux states, and we merely ask to be shown in all our dimensions, just as European-Americans are, just as would any GLBT person want. Not only the image of up-from-the bottom without bootstraps to pull on. We’re tired of being depicted ONE way, only. We are multi-dimensional
PS — I realize my previous comment was more a defense of the movie as a whole than of Mo’nique’s Oscar, and that it was specifically the Academy’s choice that Nancy Vedder-Shults seems to suggest was “aimed (unconsciously) at keeping good African-American women down,” and not the movie as a whole. So, I’d just like to add that I thought the Oscar was for the performance, not the character, and the performance certainly deserved the award. The character, Mary Jones, was more than just someone engaged in welfare fraud. She was a deeply disturbed and twisted human being — Mo’nique described the character as mentally ill, which is how I would describe her, although George Bush would probably prefer the word “evil” — but the hero of the movie is Precious, not Mary Jones. Actors often win Oscars for portraying “evil” characters — think of Charlize Theron in Monster as a (lesbian) prostitute turned serial killer, or Javier Bardem as the sociopath killer in No Country for Old Men, or Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, and so on. Anyway, I’m all for less racism in Hollywood, but I did like this movie, and I think Mo’nique deserved the award for a great performance.
I am always amazed by the replies to an issue. Every person has interpretations rooted in personal ;perceptions. I do not disagree with perceptions; I am despaired that Dr. Malveaux’s and my efforts to communicate a valid perspective on a vital issue are not comprehended as they might be.
First: Consider the single. overarching and consuming goal of our world–money. Second: consider the way to make that money is more and more overwhelmingly entertainment. My vantage-perception, as does Dr. Malveaux’s and most people I know says that a socio-economic-culture so focused has serious–even survival problems. Like the fall of all empires, loss and ignorance of high quality principles and desire to achieve them is the malignancy. Cancers begin tiny. this one is huge.
Finally, as an Indigenous seer told the world, you cannot understand a person until you have traveled seven moons in his/her moccasins. Scary.
Well, we certainly do seem to be living in a dying imperialist empire in a world dominated by global corporate madness replete with racism, sexism and heterosexism — and the American entertainment industry is certainly as mad as in the dying Roman Empire, and I certainly don’t agree with Overviper that “reverse racism” is the problem in Hollywood. I am no fan of Ronald Reagan or the demonization of people on welfare. No one can walk in anyone else’s shoes, this is true. But I personally suspect that most people who see this movie won’t take away from it the message that Black people are welfare cheats, but instead, I think they will see someone like Precious in a whole new light, with new compassion and respect — and that might include thinking that she more than deserves all the help society can possibly give her. But I fully agree it would be great to see Black women in every kind of role, not just those that have won Oscars so far, and yes, we do still live in a world where most of the Hollywood heroes are white men and where many of us are mostly still entirely invisible in mainstream culture. Change comes slowly, but it does come, and I’m still not convinced that giving Mo’nique an Oscar was lifting up the character she portrayed, or that this movie was a blow to African-Americans. I might be wrong. I often am.
The people making these comments obviously are not in “Hollywood”, nor do they know anyone in town. Otherwise they would not be saying the things they’re saying. Unfortunately, I have spent many years in this city, and can speak from personal knowledge, not something I read in a book, or heard someone else say on TV. The reason they call it “Show Business” is because it HAS to be a business. Studios have gone from making 35 movies a year to making 12. TV has embraced the reality show, which is absurdly cheap to make compared to a sit-com or TV drama, or even a TV movie. The entire system is under tremendous stress right now and what you’re seeing on TV looks more and more like a 3rd world country every day. Advertising revenues are down…don’t you see the big picture here? Who pays for the “Socially Conscious” movies you think Hollywood should be making? If they don’t generate box office, they have a long, tough struggle to get funded. There is also the problem of the history of these movies…which is that many movies with a social agenda wind up being bad entertainment. That’s just the nature of the beast…so they have a small audience, so they’re harder to get made. Hollywood is no longer the town it was under the studio system which churned out 35-50 movies a WEEK. Preston Sturgis, Frank Capra, etc, could do anything they wanted in terms of “Awareness Raising”…but remember…they also had plenty of chances to fail. Today, those chances don’t exist. Make a bad movie (ie. one that doesn’t make money…you’re gone)…
Now the good news…The technology today allows you to make those movies very cheaply, and bring them to the marketplace. You can put any message into them, say whatever you want, uplift people to your heart’s content. If the movie is any good, it will get noticed. If it gets noticed, it will get distributed. If it gets distributed, you’ll make some money. So stop whining and start doing. A movie like “Paranormal Activity” cost $15.000 to make and made 150 million at the box office…who’s to say that a movie with a conscience couldn’t do as well, or even half as well, if it was well done…it all depends on you, so stop blaming people for the things that you can fix.
And Mo’nique won her Oscar because she gave a great performance…not for any political reasons. Other actors voted for her because they recognized what she did. Get over yourselves already…you don’t know anything.
Over Viper, Tyler Perry makes socially conscious movies, and he earns a lot of money…so, I disagree.
Excellent article. I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research. He actually bought me lunch because I found it for him!
Belated comment. I’ve not visited for some time.
As to “knowing Hollywood,” my son achieved from junior set designer to production designer in Hollywood. I talked with him, visited sets in Hollywood and new York, the Cosby Mystery. I am not a novice. My concern, as a historian and social scientist, is how thought and action operate in society, within historical trends and consequences.
My son left Hollywood because he was unable to work in more than gross entertainment.Too often it seems that readers are scanning, not “getting” the meaning of a communique.
The US, in particular, is experiencing a downturn in attention to and respect for a broad range of social and individual components. Some call this”dumbing down.” All great (large) societies have “fallen” due to internal loss of values and standards.
The concern by key scholars today, is that the US is on a slippery road via reductivism–”an ethics that reduces itself to rules renders life false to itself from within.” (Luigi Zoja Violence in History, Culture, and the Psyche)