dear all,

still waiting for some sun. this month’s  lines are about blackness in hollywood.

who of you has seen "precious", and/or "the blind side", i wonder, and what have been african-american responses to those films?

i marvelled at the chuzpe with which the oprah production – to rave reviews – has presented a black woman character on screen who defies all categories of black hollywood beauty – as in: the lighter the better, on all counts;

but whose story, on the other hand, so perfectly plays into the stereotpye of the welfare queen, uplift and all. i also wonder how non- us audiences will watch this movie, and what they might see, or not see –  i’d be happy to hear feedback on what seems to be quite an event in hollywood history, and so might be other caar members and friends.

the same holds true, albeit for different reasons for "blind site". apart from the fact that bullock’s acting does not warrant any oscar in my eyes, staid and self-indulgent and coy as it is, i was stunned not to find an outcry against the film’s utterly malicious racism in the press.

in the age of a super intelligent, savvy, elegant, cosmopolitan, very well educated black president – what does it mean for hollywood to celebrate a movie that panders to the most reactionary, southern self-congratulary fantasy of white benevolence (complete with a showdown of bullock in sexy dress as a nra whiz who threatens to shoot the ghetto kids harrassing her, rhetorical as that may be meant???!!).

a fantasy in which the young black man is presented as entirely witless object of white motherly pushiness for his greater good… are we back to to before the 1950s, this seems worse than sidney poitier’s premiere roles?

responses welcome, i, for one, am stunned.

sabine, march/april 2010