femfilmrogue: Black Women Actresses Will Always, Always Forever Matter

Jennifer Hudson’s Oscar snub for playing the late singer/pianist Aretha Franklin in Respect is another terrible yearly moment in Black women actresses history.

The Academy simultaneously makes laughably bad decisions regarding Black History Month social media posts that highlight their compliance to racism and announces more bad news for Black women actresses in a single day. We’re in for the 93rd year of Black women losing out on the Best Leading Actress statuette because no one even made the official five. In the voter’s eyes, Black women could not compete with the subpar all white women nominees with their prosthetics and bad accents.

The Oscar is supposedly the highest honor to be achieved for all those in film— the world’s most expensive art form. Yet Black women have to work twice as hard and still come up empty. Let’s not forget that these women are supremely educated— coming from Juilliard, Yale, Sarah Lawrence, even Howard University. Or performed since childhood. Thus, I cannot believe this prestigious honor repetitively overlooks extremely talented Black women.

Hollywood does not care. They hate them. They hate Black women.

We grew up on awards shows, watching mainly for the beautiful dresses and hoping that someone we liked would win something. The Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars— it was the same predicable outcome. White people were coming out on top no matter how mediocre their efforts in acting and music. With the extra addition of nepotism, it became even more challenging for Black talent to crack a nomination, especially Black women. They seem to have it tougher than anyone.

Twenty years ago, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won Best Actor and Best Actress at the Oscars, I was a high school senior. That pivotal moment brought real hope that perhaps others would come after. Since then, Black women would occasionally be nominated, but never win. These mysterious voting entities set it up for the same white women nominees, some of them earning two trophies before a Black woman can ever achieve her first. In reality, Black women are also not getting satisfactory lead roles. In a male dominated industry, white women are served main courses. Black women are lucky to be the dessert. If they’re lead and not a slave/servant, the nomination is that much harder. That’s how the voters prefer their Black women— as supporting— not a phenomenal carrier of a great story.

Still, to the Black actresses and thespians, the next generation of Claudia McNeil’s, Beulah Richardson’s, Diahann Carroll’s, and Cicely Tyson’s, we have another barrier to tear down. It is not the Oscar. The Oscar is an organization upholding its nearly one-hundred-year-old club. It is in each other that we must look to. By supporting the future storytellers who will write and direct incredible stories starring the best Black actresses that Hollywood refuses to acknowledge, we are moving forward, progressing to the Barry Jenkins,’ Nia DaCosta’s, Nikyatu Jusu’s, Radha Blank’s, Ekwa Mangi’s, Chinonye Chukwu’s of this world. They foster integral cinematic visions worthy of our joy and praise and challenge the grueling systems in place with sharp, intelligent eyes. We need their movies supported and distributed.

Moreover, Black women are the most beautiful, inspiring, resilient masterpieces to me and that’s why this little blog exists. It is high time to let go of the Oscars and what they represent because this yearly disrespect should not be so normalized.

Great Black Women Performances That Will Always, Always Matter Beyond This*