Not even one. Not a single mahogany-hued thespian will color the homogenized atmosphere at the Academy Awards this year.
You are going to need to wear sunglasses to avoid retina damage because the 2011 Academy Awards will be so melanin-challenged as to induce blindness.
Hold up … there was one black that got nominated — the movie Black Swan.
The Hollywierd establishment scanned over the vast movie landscape in 2010 and couldn’t detect a single black filmmaker, actor, producer or screenwriter worthy of consideration. After years of seeming progress, the old order has been restored to the greatest, oldest and most celebrated motion picture awards show in the world.
The 2011 Academy Awards will be the first not to feature a black actor in a decade. Asian actors were also told to fall back. People of color were able to salvage some vestige of pride as Spanish-born Javier Bardem was nominated for best actor.
Even though filmmaker Tyler Perry was held over a barbecue pit and charbroiled by the nation’s most renowned film critics (I didn’t say the best) regarding his screen adaptation of the stage classic, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, critics nevertheless gave near universal praise to the outstanding performances of the cast. In particular, critics held up Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, Michael Ealy and Loretta Divine for particular lauding.
The magic carpet ride that went into making For Colored Girls — generating mad buzz because of the stellar cast and Ntozake Shange’s classic — suddenly crashed and burned after getting repeatedly hit with devastating rounds of linguistic artillery from every direction from big-name critics. The wreckage was so complete that the film buzz completely died on the red carpet premiere, before the movie could even get into the theaters.
They have company in feeling like they just got pick-pocketed. Halle Berry, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in Frankie and Alice was also skipped over for the Oscars. The movie Night Catches Us, a low-budget movie directed by African American director Tanya Hamilton and starring Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie, earned rave reviews from some critics. It even got an 80 percent rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but still it got no love from Hollywood.
This dilemma is blacks’ fault, too. We don’t patronize black dramatic films and Hollywood has never respected us — especially since we whine about a dearth of black movies, but then don’t go see the ones that are produced. Why should they waste their time doling out awards to black films if we don‘t support them with our dollars?
–terry shropshire
