My basic reaction was similar to JarBaby’s, and it comes down to the comparison with someone like Jackie Robinson.
Jackie Robinson was the first black person to break into a previously all white occupation. Before Jackie, was it realistic for a young black boy to dream of being a professional baseball player (outside of the negro leagues)? No.
After Jackie, it was.
Before Halle Berry’s win, was it a realistic for a young black girl to dream of being a movie star? Yes. Was it even realistic for a young balck girl to dream of winning the best picture oscar? Honestly, yes.
To me, that’s the difference, and that’s why I found Halle’s quote “It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened” to be more than a tad overly self-congratulatory.
Suppose that this year there had been a movie in which a white actress (say, Jodie Foster) had given a super-phenomenal performance, one instantly recognized by all as one of the greatest ever put on film, and had won the oscar, leaving Halle as merely a nominee. Would that mean that all the nameless, faceless, women of color had no chance, since the door was still closed?
I’m not sure if there is a clearcut “first black woman ever to have a leading role in a major studio hollywood feature film intended for the entire national audience”, but if there is, then that woman opened the door a lot more than Halle Berry did. Halle Berry may have symbolically pushed the door the final inch so that it firmly latches onto that little hook dealy in the wall, but the door has been open for quite some time.
Well, unfortunately Egyptians=Blacks is an idea firmly lodged in the minds of many.
Not that this lacks some degree of truth, depending on what one means by black.
Now in re Cleopatra, to be clear she was an Nth generation Ptolemy, that is descendants of Alexander the Great’s general, Ptoleny who set himself up in Egypt and region as Emperor/Pharoan.
While Ptolemies seem to have at some point become highly Egyptianized to the point of, IIRC, adopting Pharoanic incestual marriages, I believe there is some obscurity in regards to the origins of early marriages.
Thus one could make the argument that Cleapatra had some color via the native Egyptian population. And quite reasonably, given the natural mixing up and down the Nile, a natural route. Halle might not be a really poor choice in some ways. However, Egyptians of the time ARE NOT SEMITES. Old Egyptian is not a Semetic language, although it does belong to the same language family, Afro-Asiatic and is a relative to the Semetic branch.
An interesting question in light of the fact that many people have mentioned Dorothy Dandridge not winning for Carmen Jones. Not only was her role in a musical, the other nominees were winner Grace Kelly The Country Girl, Audrey Hepburn Sabrina, Jane Wyman Magnificent Obsession and Judy Garland A Star is Born. Pretty hot competition.
Besides Black actresses, one group that has it very tough is Arab actresses. So much so that they don’t apparently exist.
When Paramount was casting for DS9’s episode “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” they ran across a snag in that they could not find an Arab actress to play the part of Dr. Bashir’s mother. There just weren’t any to be found.
They eventually tripped over a professor of women’s studies, Fadwa El Guindi, who had some community theatre experience, and cast her. (She turned in an excellent performance.)
The thing that led me to cynically believe Halle’s reaction was just a smidge contrived was she did the “hold your palm flat about a half-inch in front of your mouth, and tremble your hand, but don’t actually touch your face because you’ll mess up your makeup.”
A friend of mine once told me to watch for that maneuver at beauty pageants. Try it sometime. It’ll crack you up.
I feel really silly talking about this, but perhaps that isn’t quite so contrived. Maybe she learned to do it that way a long time ago (so as not to smudge her makeup) and is just so used to it that it’s a natural gesture for her. Force of habit, you know.
(god, why am I discussing a fraction of an inch in front of Halle Berry’s face?)
An interesting aside: in the novel, Gray Grantham (the reporter) and Darby Shaw (the law student) become lovers. But in the movie, their relationship is much more platonic friendship, cemented by mutual risking of lives. Why is this? The age gap (Darby being 25, Gray much older)? The time constraints of the movie making it impossible to establish a believable relationship? Or… the casting?
Not that I’m saying any racism was involved, but I have to sort of wonder if the romance would’ve been kept in had they cast, say, Harrison Ford…
I’m not saying that Matt’s anecdote is incorrect, but what does an actress, or actor, for that matter, with an Arab ancestry look like? As far as I know there is a fairly wide distribution of features in the Arab world. My bet is that you could turn the entire population of the Arabian pennisula loose in Southern California and no one would notice a thing, at least as far as looks go, anyway.
There are any number of second or third generation “Arabs” who pursue entertainment careers. Like lots of people in the business, they change their names. Off hand, I can think of Casey Kasem, Paula Abdul, Salma Hayek (who may not have even changed her name) and Vic Tayback. Jamie Farr (Klinger on MASH) was a person of Arab descent actually playing a person of Arab descent. A bit of research turns up the fact that Kristy McNichol and, wait for it, Marlo Thomas are of Arab descent.
Now, its true that I can’t really picture Salma Hayek playing Dr. Bashir’s mother on DS9. Nonetheless, there are plenty of successful “Arabs” in the entertainment industry. It’s just that nobody cares.
Hillary Swank. Relatively restrained reaction to award. Statistical anomaly.
Julia Robert. Even more profuse tears and over the top thanks to the world.
Halle Berry. A flood gate of tears. Stammering. Shaking. Refusal to leave the stage. Claims to have broken through some racial barrier, on behalf of actresses of color. Strangely, only names strikingly attractive, light-skinned African-American actresses.
In keeping with this trend, by 2005, some best actress award recipient will have head explode or suffer complete and irreversible mental breakdown, live and on camera.
I’m putting this one up against John Water’s prediction about mainstream Hollywood star doing hard-core in a mainstream picture by 2010.
And this white Canuck girl thinks it’s way past due and good on her! Apart from her well deserved win for her performance, I believe the Oscar was important as a symbol of one more level of acceptance for women of colour. I’m amazed it took from 1939 until 2002 to crack that final plateau.
No, I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that the lack of a role for a black woman as Juliet is not due to the fact that directors think to themselves ‘she can’t do it because she’s black’. I’m suggesting that casting people with no regard to their race or even their racial appearance is confusing to audiences and will certainly change the flavor of the performance.
Secondly, I realize that not all actresses that play Juliet are Italian. Surely you realize, however, that it is a lot easier to pass off a white female as Italian or at least generic “European” (most Shakespearean interpretations today are more along the latter – everyone has real or faux English accents) than it is to pass off a black female. That is what I was referring to.
There’s nothing wrong with playing with issues of race and society and culture. It’s simply that I object to the assumption that because a black – or Latino, or Asian, or Arab – woman has not played a particular famous role that such an absence implies racism in the industry. I suspect it is due more today to the relatively smaller numbers of minorities and due to the fact that people notice race differences very easily. Could you have made a film where Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry have a sexual relationship and not acknowledge at all the race difference? Sadly, no. Audiences simply expect such things to be explained and explored because race is still an issue. This does not equal rampant racism and oppression, and I resent it when modern, privileged minorities cry out again and again over persecution in inappropriate areas (like the relatively tolerant film industry). Heck, I get angry when minorities (like Christians) cry foul about persecution, too. It’s not that there aren’t people out there that don’t like black people or Christians – it’s that people seem to jump to conclusions.
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I agree. However, there are certain configurations which, at this point in time, do tweak interest. Black people in historically ‘white’ roles (like Shakespeare – save Othello of course) get noticed because we are not used to it. Interracial couples also attract interest, for example. Attention is paid to these things. Black leading women in the kind of films that win Oscars are relatively rare and I imagine there are lots of reasons for this. I doubt the main one is racism.
The fact is that leading women in general are given short shrift. Every year, competition is always so much more steep for men and their roles are better known. We have all of these legends, roles, and archetypes in our culture that we’re unwilling to discard. They are comforting and so we watch films that embrace them. This is a tad different from white folks wanting to stuff black people in toadying “darky” roles as mammies and maids. I suspect that the real way to have more leading black women is to minimize the racial divide, rather than emphasizing it as Ms. Berry did. I saw Monster’s Ball about a week ago and I know I sympathized a great deal with her character and was immersed in the story. After last night, I know I would be less so if I saw it again. Nobody likes being the “other” and feeling left out. Issues of race don’t have to be examined with an us vs. them mentality, as Monster’s Ball proved, and Ms. Berry unfortunately seemed to undermine this.