Headline of the Day
Cidu Bill on Mar 8th 2010
From AP: Mo’Nique Becomes 5th Black Woman to Win Acting Oscar
Seriously, isn’t this at least three black women past being even remotely significant?
Filed in Bill Bickel, Mo'Nique, Oscars, media | 20 responses so far
furrykef Mar 8th 2010 at 10:15 pm 1
I dunno. I was quite surprised to find that so far there have only been five. I guess it makes sense when you consider than only two actresses a year can get an Oscar (one for lead character and one for supporting character), and of course black people didn’t regularly get prominence in cinema until the 70’s…
PeterW Mar 8th 2010 at 10:48 pm 2
Clearly the solution to this grave disparity is to introduce “Best Black Lead Actress” and “Best Black Supporting Actress.”
But wait! The numbers will never even out like that! We’ll need to retire the “white” awards for a few decades. And by that time, people will be grumbling about low numbers among Hispanics…
Or we could just stop looking at race. But that will never happen.
CIDU Bill Mar 8th 2010 at 11:06 pm 3
Peter, I have no problem with making a big deal of First Black Whatever, or First Woman Whatever, if that’s important to people. My point was that Fifth is probably a non-issue by anybody’s standards.
CaroZ Mar 8th 2010 at 11:11 pm 4
I can see the headline in November, 2092: “Maria Washington becomes 5th woman, 4th black, 2nd Washington elected president.”
Yes, after a certain point it does become odd to emphasize the ordering.
(And I don’t expect there to be “headlines” in the way we think of them in 2092, for that matter.)
CIDU Bill Mar 8th 2010 at 11:19 pm 5
There probably will be, Carol, though certainly not in newspapers. For that matter, the headline I quoted, I actually read online.
Bob in Nashville Mar 8th 2010 at 11:49 pm 6
OK, CaroZ, but will she be the first black woman President, or will Oprah beat her to it?
CaroZ Mar 9th 2010 at 12:20 am 7
Bob, that depends on whether or not you count President Nicholson, who was elected as Joseph in 2068 but finished his term as Joanne.
Rasheed Mar 9th 2010 at 07:13 am 8
Some people call Barack Obama the First Black* President, you know that’s going to come up again if someone with TWO black parents gets elected.
Pirk Mar 9th 2010 at 08:28 am 9
and again if an alien with jet black skin gets elected
Beckanva Mar 9th 2010 at 10:25 am 10
But, don’t forget, that alien would have to be born here, so is it really an alien anymore?
David Mar 9th 2010 at 01:46 pm 11
Right, Beckanva, the alien would have to be native born, unless the Schwartzenegger amendment passed. In any case, the alien would be the first xeno-American, cymk (0,0,0,100) president.
Keera Mar 9th 2010 at 02:00 pm 12
CMYK, please. (The one thing is this discussion I am sure about.)
Keera Mar 9th 2010 at 02:11 pm 13
in not is.
David Mar 9th 2010 at 04:02 pm 14
Sorry Keera, I just didn’t want people to think I was shouting.
PeterW Mar 9th 2010 at 06:07 pm 15
No, I got your point. I’m just saying we’re counting because of a disparity that matters as long as we say it matters.
dasein668 Mar 9th 2010 at 06:59 pm 16
David, I think Keera was indicating “magenta before yellow, please”.
DPWally Mar 9th 2010 at 07:23 pm 17
I think they gave up on finding an acceptable way to say “1st obese woman wins Oscar”, so they picked a different physical attribute for the headline and left it to us to figure it out.
Chakolate Mar 9th 2010 at 09:31 pm 18
I think it probably matters to Mo’Nique.
And I find it disturbing that my reaction to the fact that she was fifth was ‘Oh, have there been four others?’ and not, ‘It’s shameful that we are so uneven’.
Chakolate Mar 9th 2010 at 09:31 pm 19
Sorry, forgot to check the ‘notify’ box.
Keera Mar 10th 2010 at 12:07 pm 20
What dasein668 #16 said.