Views On Mo'Nique's Oscar Win

Actress Mo'Nique's Oscar-Victory & Setback

Nikeema Kadary /Contributing writer

Issue date: 3/28/10 Section: Arts and Entertainment


Media Credit: allmoviephoto.com

NNPA columnist Julianne Malveaux doesn't begrudge comedienne, talk show host and actress Mo'Nique's victory at the 82nd Oscars this month. But Mo'Nique and other African-American women's characters in films rile her. She writes in her current column that "Mo'Nique's victory is her laudable personal success, but a Black community setback."

The 44-year-old Mo'Nique grabbed the Best Supporting Actress Award, for her portrayal of Mary Jones whom Malveaux describes as "a revolting and depraved mother" in the movie "Precious."

"She took the material she was given and she worked it," Malveaux writes. "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."

Malveaux ticks off the negative roles other African-American women Oscar winners played to support her concern: Hattie McDaniel won for a role as a maid; Halle Berry played a sex-starved fool; Whoopi Goldberg played a medium in "Ghost" and Jennifer Hudson was cast as an angry singer.

"I would love to see someone green light the story of Madame C.J. Walker, our nations first Black woman millionaire," she writes. "There is some glamour there, and some drama!

"In a contemporary context, why not tell the story of Cathy Liggins Hughes, the millionaire owner of Radio One who slept in her studio because she couldn't afford rent and the cost of station operations. These are dramatic stories, but they fly in the face of the stereotypes that were replete in 'Precious.'"

But Malveaux is hardly the only one angry about the roles, which have won Oscars for African- American women. "I don't think it was a movie that needed to be made," said 24-year-old Destiny Graham, a cashier at a DC-area Giant Food Store. "It made Black people look worse than we are depicted in the media and I refuse to support that."

Nicole Brown, 36, is equally disturbed that African-American women win an Oscar, one of the most coveted awards in Hollywood, only when cast in demeaning roles.

"Every role that past Black Oscar winners and now Mo'Nique have won make Black women look weak or angry; it's never a part that you are proud of," said Brown a homemaker and mother of four.

Donald Bogle, film historian and author of six books concerning African-Americans in film and on television is equally unhappy with the demeaning roles Black women play in films. "I still feel conflicted about the roles African-American actors and actresses play in the movies," said Bogle, whose books include the 1973 "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes Mammies, & Bucks."

While Malveaux is glad for Mo'Nique's victory, she said she "did not relish the "Precious" story of welfare pathology making it to the screen. "Why not more positive roles for African-American women?" she asks.

 

The same was said about Three Six Mafia's ' Hustle & Flow' Grammy, Denzel's 'Training Day' Oscar and Halle Berry's 'Monsters' Ball' Academy Award.

 

Not to hijack this thread, but Monique not shaving her legs is NASTY!!!!:smt076

 

If you don't cosign the ghetto madness you're classified as "bourgie" (always spelled wrong) so let me keep quiet on this one.

 

I'm not keeping quiet. She gave thanks to Hattie McDaniel. Movies like Precious are actually anti-BW because those characters mock what Black womanhood is. Explain why Gabby Sinabon was on the cover of Ebony looking like Godzilla while Paula Patton was on the cover of Women's Health.

Today, BM are "bourgie" for liking attractive BW. You're a sellout if you like Stacey Dash because she has class and is not a ghetto heathen or a caricature of a pancake box. The so-called establishment who caters to BW are actually mocking them. Today's generation of BW are too stupid to realize this. They want a mammy to make fun of and explain to the rest of the world..."this is how Black women act".

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to SmoothDaddy101 again.

 

Thanks for the rep. Just seems like nobody else is paying attention to the subliminal message that Hollywood is sending. They're trying to keep us stuck in 1937.

 

Gotta cosign fam. Not a Stacey Dash fan though. Here younger cousin went with me to college and she made it to campus a couple times. Very stuck up chick in my opinion. She's good looking but that's about it

 

Hollywood doesn't want to greenlight positive roles for Black women or movies directed by Black women, and when they do, good luck getting Black folks in the theater. You can't pay Black people to see artistic Black cinema, but let Tyler Perry do something......

 

What about Charlize Theron winning an Oscar for her role on Monster?
You can call that role demeaning.

I think Mo'niques acting was spectacular!

So if she didnt win - the argument would be "she was over looked" - and if she won - its a demeaning role and is a set back???

Im sorry, I dont follow.

Should only white women take these type of runpleasant roles?
Do not these type of roles deserve awards?
Or should they just not exist?


I do get what some people say on here but what about the other side of the coin?

Why is this an anti BW movie? Its not a black problem only - that could just as well been a white family having the same issues. Are there not movies out there with abusive white mothers? There acctually have been several. "Mommy dearest" comes to mind, granted rich and famous family but a true story and quite nasty.
Abusive parents comes in all colors. Should they only be portrayed in white families in movies? So if its a white family it would be ok then???

I think Mo'niques charachter is a victim of sorts herself and if a debate can be sparked from this and some white people get their blinders off, could that not be good?

Just a few thoughst I have on the subject. Im honestly confused.

 

FlyingGeek, Black people have been concerned with media image because:

1. A history of limited exposure.
2. Some think images of us might determine perception of the larger group.

Many still think along this paradigm, whether it's still important or not is not my concern.

I personally don't like seeing media that strictly focuses on Black people mired in Urban plight, or doing what's largely thought of as a negative stereotype a.k.a. "cooning".

I'm sure for some White people seeing "momma precious" and "coonery" on screen is just some form of artistry. If that's art, let me assure you that art meets life or life meets art for too many of us Black people. Some of us are tired of seeing these images, and tired of Black people who either embody these images, or who spend money on them and ignore more nuanced art depicting the Black experience.

Yeah, White people can be fucked up to, but just imagine having to filter all the collective realities of White people through the limited platform Black people were given, when you do that, what gets shown or doesn't shown takes on more relevance.

 

Said best right here! ^

 

Its the glorification of the morbidly obese BW and ghetto life - as if Black themed films aren't allowed to take place in non-hood settings.

In the past the negative images of Black man was, Sambo, Uncle Remus, Cream of Wheat, etc... Today it's the low-rent gangstas and the emasculated Black men.

As far as negative images of BW, google "mammy" and "Aunt Jemima". The haters (who run hollywood) use this image to demean BW.

 

Very well stated, FG what we see as Black men and Black people as a whole is a preponderance of negative, debasing, stereotypical roles coming out of hollywood. There are very few roles that portray us as intelligent, successful, well rounded, loving, kind, brave, ect. This is a hot button topic for intelligent Black people because this is a systematic and intentional pattern of behavior in all media forms throughout history, designed to have real life imitate art, and to promote negative stereotypes, division, and hysteria, think "Birth of a Nation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation. When this piece of filth movie was screened at the White House, President Woodrow Wilson said it was "Like writing history with lightening, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true". Now this movie was chock full of the most vile and insidious stereotypes of Black men in particular and Black people in general. Precious, Tyler Perry movies, and far too many other present day examples are just the latest version of Birth of a Nation, updated for 2010.

 

Xoxo and Loki said it best I can't really add much more to it but here's something to ponder. Could we accept anything else? Look at the last Disney movie the Prince and the Frog. That movie did horribly, way below the normal numbers a Disney movie does. Hollywood is about what sells period that's why we get the same exact lame romantic comedies month after month. So it comes down to can it be marketed to a mass audience without diving into those ridiculous stereotypes?

 

You bring up a very interesting question, one that people like Spike Lee, Bill Cosby, Sidney Potier, and others have been discussing and fighting to bring about more positive results for years. My personal take is only when we as a people demand more from hollywood and other media forms, and only support (spend our hard earned $) art forms that uplift and bolster positive representations of us as a people will present day reality change.

I was watching "Hitch" the other day, Will smith was portrayed as an intelligent, educated, successful, multi-dimensional human being with varied interests. For the most part very positive, however I remember at the time the movie came out, I read an interview he gave that said the original script called for a WW as his love interest, yet the studio was against that as they felt it would alienate certain market segments, they did not want a BW either as they felt it would make the film "too Black" (whatever that means) and that too would hurt sales, so they compromised with a Latina love interest for his character. That movie came out in 2005, and still we as Black men are dealing with a desperate kind of institutional racism and fear that we would be seen as desirable mates for women of *all* colors.

 

I notice that in sci fi and fantasy movies as well. As if black people don't exist in the future or in make believe. I wonder if twilight or Harry potter would have been as big if the male protaganist was black.

 

It would have been just as huge. Except they wouldn't have released it.



Harry Potter was at least a step forward -- before it, there were no Black characters in mainstream Fantasy at all. At least Harry Potter had some Black friends. At least Ginny dated a Black guy in one of the books.

 

I understand that.I do.

Perhaps since Im not born here , I cant fully grasp the whole effect.
There is clearly not enough black people in the Hollywood industry, writers, porducers and so on. That is painfully obvious,

But in this case, should the movie not been made then??????
Or cast w Gabrelle Unions in it? Whats your thought on that

What would the black community said if Mo'nique did not get the Oscars?

 

I appreciate the honesty.