Color Blind
Maybe, as this year’s Oscars suggest, Hollywood is finally able to transcend race
by Ben Taylor
This year’s Oscar wins for Denzel Washington and Halle Berry may have been one of the biggest, most momentous events for African Americans in recent memory—second only to Tiger Woods kicking in the country club door. Not everyone, though, was moved to tears by these accomplishments. During the ensuing days, some rabid Nicole Kidman fans defaced Berry’s Web site, attaching devil horns and a mustache to her image and leaving the words “Just Nicole Kidman.” Washington wasn’t allowed to enjoy his win entirely either. Backstage in the press gallery at the awards, he had to fend off questions about whether he’d won the award because he was black.
All of this got me to thinking about the definition of “equality” in this day and age. Was two African Americans winning the top acting Oscars a monumental stride? Clearly, it was a significant accomplishment, but I have a hard time knowing if it merited the sort of histrionics Berry brought forth. Maybe that’s because Berry’s acceptance speech was simply over the top, no matter how sincere it was and no matter how great the achievement was.
Or maybe it’s because I’m the offspring of the baby boom generation. I didn’t live through the civil rights era, and don’t have any firsthand knowledge of what it must’ve been like to exist in pre-integration America. I’ve grown up with black culture, from The Cosby Show to hip-hop, being a natural part of my entertainment world.
Denzel Washington had the perfect retort to the writer who asked whether he’d won his Oscar because he was black: He asked if the reporter was planning on asking Randy Newman if he had won because he was white. Newman, of course, won after being nominated thrice as many times as Washington had been. And Washington’s point was obvious: His win should be celebrated for his accomplishment as an actor, and not as a black actor. And this, perhaps, is the true significance of what those Oscar wins mean for black Americans.
With any luck, this year’s Academy Awards really do point to a Hollywood where an actor’s skin color is a secondary consideration at best, and his talent is the primary consideration. That’s why one of my favorite shows of late has been HBO’s Six Feet Under. This dark, frothy soap follows a diverse cast of characters with remarkably unflashy equanimity. The central characters are a white family in the funeral home business, but the other players are just as relevant to the plot, and they come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives—white, black, Latino, Russian, gay, straight, male, female. Everyone has his or her own plot line and a complex character replete with distinct flaws and attributes. Everyone is a person beyond his or her ethnicity, sexuality or gender. Yet none of this is played with the self-congratulatory PC nature of a Benetton ad. Six Feet Under may not be as forthright or dramatic as a Spike Lee movie, but this type of even-keeled depiction will do just as much to influence a genuine state of equality in Hollywood and the entertainment business.
The perfect response
Of course, as Spike Lee knows, sometimes it’s intensely gratifying to dish it back out just as good as you get it—particularly if you can do so with style. Consider the case of British pop duo the Pet Shop Boys, who’ve just given Eminem a brilliant musical comeuppance.
If you didn’t know, Eminem is fond of using the word “faggot.” He’s also prone to making disparaging remarks about homosexuals. This is disappointing enough given how apparent his talent is, but Mr. Mathers compounds these offenses by claiming they don’t mean anything, that they’re just the product of the Slim Shady character he plays on record. One might be able to swallow this lazy excuse, were there any clear delineation between Marshall Mathers, Eminem and Slim Shady, but there simply doesn’t appear to be. Nevertheless, everyone from critics to fellow artists, including the out and loud Elton John, has defended his freedom of speech. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean that his lyrics are beyond reproach.
Well, the Pet Shop Boys do not intend to take this lying down. The openly gay duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have tackled Em’s role-playing style with “The Night I Fell in Love.” On this track from their upcoming album, Release, a fan of a controversial rap star discovers backstage that his icon is secretly gay and sleeps with him. The song never names Eminem, but the lyrics make their target fairly clear: “I said we could be secret lovers / Just him and me / Then he joked / Hey man, your name isn’t Stan, is it? / We should be together.”
This could easily be seen as a petty attack, but I think it’s the right tit for tat. Besides, all’s fair in love—gay or straight—and war.
Quotidian Challenge
“With a step to your left and a flick to the right you catch that mirror way out west.”
Be the first to e-mail the origin of this useless bit of trivia to btpoplife the shame of your name printed as the winner and some free useless crap from the Nashville Scene!
Previous week’s answer: “What are we going to do now that it’s all been said? No new ideas in the house and every book’s been read.”—“Acrobat” by U2.
Winner: Christian Durrett.
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