What Are We Complaining About?

The Oscars were just aired on Monday night and I noticed a very interesting thing when I went to my social networking site. Being that the site is geared primarily toward the Black community most posters are Black. The thing I noticed was how many complaints came forward regarding Blacks being represented at this awards show.

This led me to explore the accomplishments of Blacks in the show business environment and my findings are something of which to be proud of. Not only should it instill pride but optimism as well. Some even express the need for our own (Black) award shows independent of The People's Choice and Oscars. Well actually we somewhat do have our own set of awards in the:

NAACP Image Awards,
The BET Awards,
The Black Movie Awards
The Steller Awards
The Dirty Awards
The Hip Hop Awards
The Essence Awards

As for the Oscars this year I felt Taraji Henson should have won also, but at the same time, I thought Mickey Rourke should have won best actor. My personal opinion from the prospective of a movie buff and lover. Being a Black man who has seen the progression of prominent Blacks within the movie industry I have to wonder why we as a people are not celebrating the advances that have been made opposed to saying things have not changed when history shows that things have changed quite a lot.

Tyler Perry for the weekend opening of Madea Goes To Jail broke all standing Lionsgate opening box office records in the studio's 14 year history with an all Black cast. He also has his own studio and Carte Blanc to produce and make movies at his discretion. A Black man, Will Smith was the top box office draw for 2008 and Eddie Murphy is number 3 on the list of Hollywood leading men as far as earnings.

Oprah Winfrey leads in multiple categories including entertainment. Harpo Productions is leading the pack in that field. I know we want more and more and more, but we are on top of the game in so many categories. Tyler Perry, Bill Duke, Spike Lee, Will and Jada and Oprah have proven if you present a good product everyone will come out to see it.

When I mentioned the number of specific Black awards shows a poster came forward with the statement; "We have the BET awards but it's not the same. I thought it was so boring. I fell asleep". My only reply was that we have all of these award shows specifically for a Black audience and they are no good? I personally am not an award show person and watch little if any. Being a big movie buff I usually watch some of the Oscars. I am the die-hard movie buff and view movies strictly for entertainment value, and like many people, think the Oscars are boring as well.

I have seen other complaints regarding Black representation on the soaps. I'm not a big fan of the soap operas but have watched one continually for over 30 years. The only one I watch is All My Children and they have Jesse, Angie, their son and his girl, as well as, Jesse's daughter from the time he was away. They are well represented in the storyline on a daily basis almost.

The way I see it, Blacks make up 14% of the American population and on all channels we are represented on most of the shows. One may not especially like the characters, but they are there. Take NBC on Thursday night. Four of the five shows have a Black character in a co starring role.

I come from a time when there were hardly any Blacks on TV, so these days it seems to be quite a few. Quality roles? Taye Diggs in Private Practice, Omar Epps in House, Vanessa Williams in Ugly Betty, Mikai Pfifer and Angela Bassett in ER, Dennis Haysbert in The Unit, Anthony Anderson and S. Epatha Merkerson in Law and Order, Ice Tea in SVU.

Black shows include The Game, Everybody Hates Chris, Under One Roof (terrible I know, but quite a few Black actors working), House Of Payne, Meet The Browns. Then we have a station, whether we like it or not, dedicated to mostly Black shows, music and movies. And lets not forget a prime time host in Wayne Brady for Don't Forget The Lyrics. On basic cable with The Closer you have a main character in which Corey Reynolds portrays, Psych has Dulé Hill, Leverage has Aldis Hodge, In Plain Sight has Todd Williams.

I guess being from the ol school I see the progression and the representation. On the screen last year we had Samuel L Jackson every damn where, we had The Express, Secret Life Of Bees, First Sunday, Brandon T. Jackson, in Tropic Thunder, Will Smith in Legend, Mike Epps, John Eric Bentley and Ashanta in Resident Evil Extinction and a host of Blacks doing voice overs for animated flicks like Madagascar II, Kung Fu Panda and others. This year two of the movies up for consideration have a nominated Black actress.

Where we are really making strides is in the producing and directing categories. I don't do it all the time but every once in a while I will read the closing credits and am surprised by the familiar names behind the cameras. But I agree that we are behind in the writing environment.

Of 839 writers on prime-time shows last fall, 55 (or 6.6 percent) were African-American. And 40 of those were employed on UPN and the WB shows. Only 15 black writers were employed on NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox shows combined. NBC had only one black writer out of all its 189 prime-time staff writing positions. CBS had two.

6.6 percent is not quite up to the 14 percent which would adequately represent our culture I agree. Yet 10 years ago that number was less than 2 percent. Having seen the Civil Rights Movement grow over the decades, I believe equality and a level playing field, is the utmost requirement. So out of our 14 percent, how many are going into the area of script writing? And out of them, how many are good at it?

In all of television there are only a handful of shows which are totally compelling in scope and content. Personally for me there are not enough "24" like shows which are spellbinding and holds one's attention to that level. Of course the numbers indicate the need for more representation, but as I stated, we have come a long way in a relatively short time. There was Gordon Parks and now there is Tyler Perry, but then in reading some of the credits, Will and Jada are producing like crazy in both TV and Big Screen projects. The same goes for Bill Duke, Forest Whitaker and a host of others.

Then there is the complaint concerning the lack of quality roles for Black actresses yet that complaint seems to apply to females in general within the industry. As you will see from the site I provide, women in general have the same complaint, even the White ones. Go figure! There are a lot of links to many different sites proclaiming the same thing. Google using keywords "Lack of roles for women in Hollywood" and there are pages of sites with women complaining.

"Women in Hollywood" panelists discuss lack of good film roles for women

http://www.afterellen.com/blog/sarahwarn/women-in-hollywood-panel-2008

I guess you would have had to be here to really appreciate the advancements. The above is quite a lot for only being 14%. And this is by no means a complete list because we have a bunch of straight to DVD Black movies out now. Just cruise through Blockbuster or Netflix.com to view them. Believe it or not; We've come a long way Baby!

And in speaking of actresses such as Ms. Henson, does anyone understand what a nomination will do for an acting resume'? Henson was already getting a lot of exposure but now her dance card will be full for a while. I know I'll probably get on some nerves because I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I actually seek out the positives in life because I have seen enough negatives to last me.

I thought our goal was equality and we actually have Black Entertainment Television! Come on My People now tell me we would not be having a fit if someone came out with White Entertainment Television or the White Movie Awards. Let's enjoy the progress shall we.

Hell I remember back in the day when Blacks were working and releasing a new flick every week. Then the NAACP began complaining about the roles. I knew a few people who were working as extras, stuntmen/women, set design, writers,props, etc and with the criticism, the money stopped flowing and all those people were out of work. Read what Gordon Parks has to say about how we sabotage our road to success instead of paving it.

Park's life and contribution to Black film making is an interesting read. Also check out the link for Blacksploitation Films. We were making strides into more legitimate film making and were stopped by our own complaining. Even though they halted a lot of Black actor's careers, a few were able to maintain. Those such as Richard Roundtree, Ron O'Neil, Pam Grier, Ossie Davis and a few others. But for all intents and purposes, Blacks killed Black film making by not being patient enough to allow it to evolve as it has done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Parks

Also the general consensus is that BET still has a Loooonng way to go in terms of "Quality" programming, And that is true, yet I remember when it was the future of quality Black programming. BET has gone backwards in my opinion. Does anyone remember the days of Donny Simpson? It was informative in a lot of areas and brought positive things from and into our culture. Don't get me wrong, I like Hip-Hop, but the Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap generation ruined the station. But I understand that in a culture of capitalism. They opted for ratings over substance and in their market; it was that or die because they were in head to head competition with MTV. So BET became the Black version of MTV and its ratings soared.

Remember Teen Summit? Great show but no one watched. So we kind of become an oxymoron in our expressed wants as opposed to what we support. In every walk of life you get some good and you get some garbage. I mean really! As lovers of movies and TV we all know there is some garbage produced by the industry. And White garbage more-so if we want to separate it. Did anyone see Earnest Goes To Jail?, Pee Wee's Big Circus?, Prom Night?, etcetc?

MTV even got the decent reality shows. I think that From Gs To Gents should have been a BET reality show project. That is Jamie Fox's franchise and I think a pretty good show. Even T.I.'s Redemption is pretty good and it also is on MTV. So isn't the program director of BET a person of color? So it would seem to me that a lot of the complaints we voice should be to our own don't you think?

As Tyler Perry has proven, if we put out a good product, people will buy. And with all the talk of color, the studio executives really only think in one color and that is green. If it makes money they will sell it. So what do we want? Like was said we had an all Black soap and no one watched and then we blame someone else for its demise? Black folks watch a lot of TV, but combined we cannot support this or that show. This is a business and has to have mass appeal.

The Bill Cosby Show is a perfect example. They led their time slot for years because America liked the show, not just Black folks. And I'm sure some here heard what I did by a few of our people. "That shit ain't even real! Black folks don't act like that". Yes there are some who do because there are Black doctors married to Black lawyers who have smart kids who go to college. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy, by not being open to that which is beyond our scope of knowledge and understanding and sometimes, our hood.

Just keep living. Our children and our grandchildren can be the ones to sweep the Oscars not only in front of the cameras, but behind them as well. Just keep our children learning. Keep em learning and we will continue to grow. I mean just think about the scope of what has happened in this country. 144 years ago we were slaves and tonight a Black man is running the joint.

A Black man is the most powerful leader in the world. The top law enforcement authority in the country is a Black man. Even the leader of the GOP/RNC is a Black man. A Black man wrote, produced and directed the biggest movie in a studio's history. A Black man is the top box office draw in the world with another in the number 3 position. Arguably a Black woman is the most powerful woman in this country and one of the wealthiest in the world. In perspective, this shit is amazing y'all! Only we can continue this upward climb and only we can fuck this up.

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