I Like Black People Too, Julia!
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 28,
2002
I TUNED IN LATE and consequently can speak only to the
last three hours of Halle Berry's acceptance speech at the Academy
Awards last Sunday. But inasmuch as she engaged in wild
race-baiting to get her Oscar, her expressions of shock were not
very believable. She had spent weeks complaining about one
time she did not get a role because of her color. It was the
part of a forest ranger. Arnold Schwarzenegger probably has
trouble getting cast as a ballet dancer, too.
And yet still, somehow, white guilt worked on Hollywood
liberals! Berry had successfully mau-maued her way to a best
actress award and then acted surprised.
It's interesting that Berry makes such a big deal about being
black. She was raised by her white mother who was beaten and
abandoned by her black father. Clearly, Berry has calculated
that it is more advantageous for her acting career to identify with
the man who abandoned her rather than the woman who raised her.
Demanding that everyone marvel at her accomplishment, Berry
gushed: "This moment is so much bigger than me." Whenever
people say something is not about them it's always just about
them. This is a turn of phrase meant to remind the audience of
the importance and beauty of them. Berry said her triumph was
a victory "for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a
chance because this door tonight has been opened."
Yes, at long last, the "glass ceiling" had been broken.
Large-breasted, slightly cocoa women with idealized Caucasian
features finally have a chance in Hollywood! They will,
however, still be required to display their large breasts for the
camera and to discuss their large breasts at some length with
reporters.
Thus, Berry has explained her philosophy on nude scenes, saying:
"[I]f it's what the character would do, then I'd use my body in any
way that would best serve that character." This, she said, is
her "strong belief." But what does it mean, exactly?
Don't all people undress sometimes? All people pick their
noses, but vapid Hollywood actresses don't insist on showing us that
in every movie on the grounds that it is "what the character would
do."
In fact, Berry's unseemly enthusiasm for displaying "these
babies," as she genteelly refers to her breasts, reduces roles for
any women who lack Berry's beauty-queen features. If movies
must include soft-porn scenes, the audience is entitled to demand
performers with sexual characteristics they would like to see in a
soft porn movie. Somehow, characters played by Whoopi Goldberg
are never the sorts of characters who would do things in real life
like undress or have sex. And by the way, Billy Bob Thornton
isn't cutting it for the female audience.
When they are young, nubile Hollywood actresses all utter the
same idiotic cliches about the artistic value of nudity in
movies. Then they expect us to feel sorry for them when parts
dry up after they become old and start to sag. Live by the
breast, die by the breast.
But Berry's self-aggrandizing pap was merely a footnote to the
main theme of the awards ceremony, which was: Julia Roberts loves
all the black brothers! It was a point she felt could not be
made too often or with too much condescension. Her
presentation of the best actor award began with the exciting
revelation that she had just kissed Sidney Poitier!
Having once famously proclaimed she did not want to live in a
world in which Denzel Washington had not won an Oscar for best
actor, she preceded her announcement of his award saying, "I love my
life!" This was about her, not him. It was her personal
triumph over racism. The only patronizing remark Roberts
skipped was to note that Washington and Poitier were "articulate."
After Washington accepted his award, Roberts leapt on him and
would not let go. It was as if he had grown some sort of
exotic Julia Roberts wart. Not only Washington, but, more
urgently, his wife deserves great credit for their
forbearance. Whatever indignities Hollywood has visited on
blacks in the past, it would be hard to top this.
Whenever white liberals are in trouble, they always run to the
blacks. Immediately after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke,
Monica went to a Washington Wizards game where she hoisted some poor
unsuspecting black girl onto her lap in full view of the
cameras. Bill Clinton dropped the subtlety and dashed off to
Africa. After his abomination of a presidency, Jimmy Carter
built housing in Harlem.
Apparently, Oscar night was Hollywood's shot at patronizing
blacks to generate goodwill – perhaps as wartime penance for its
long-standing hatred of America.
It's too bad Denzel Washington's Oscar was tainted by Hollywood's
self-serving night of condescension. He deserved that
award. And he deserves a special award for not punching Julia
Roberts in the mouth.
Ann Coulter
is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her latest book is
High
Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill
Clinton.
© Copyright 2001 Universal Press
Syndicate
