A black actor winning an Oscar? Cut!

Hollywood is still racist and critics open their mouths at their peril

By Bonnie Greer Published 25 March 2002

Three black actors are up for the top acting prize at this year's Academy Awards. It should be a cause for rejoicing. Instead, it points to the appalling racism in the film industry today. Best Actress nominee Halle Berry said as much recently when she accepted the Best Actress award from the Screen Actors Guild for her role in Monster's Ball.

Berry is right - though the big players in the Dream Factory do not appreciate ingratitude, and her remark may cost her the other prize. When it comes to what is euphemistically known as "The Business", blacks are not considered people with whom business is done. This is despite the enormous box-office clout, well out of proportion to their numbers, that black people wield. Indeed, if African Americans were a separate nation, we would give Bollywood a run for its money.

The three nominations - aside from Berry, there is Will Smith for Ali and Denzel Washington for Training Day - are, according to most black people in Hollywood, just that: three nominations, nothing more or less. They are no benchmark, no watershed. Sidney Poitier, who is being honoured this year for his contribution to the industry, calls Hollywood "deeply disappointing", although he is happy for and proud of the three nominated actors.

Julia Roberts is campaigning for Denzel Washington finally to win the prize he deserves - but even the Queen of Hollywood cannot break through the curtain that keeps black people at the back of the bus.

The spectre of racism is everywhere. Everyone knows this, but if you say it out loud and too often, you could bring down the curse of Howard E Rollins Jr.

Rollins, a New York stage actor, landed, at the beginning of the 1980s, what was called "the Sidney Poitier part" in Milos Forman's Ragtime. The film did well and Rollins was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. But, unfortunately for him, he began to speak out about the discrimination he witnessed. He didn't know that this, for a black actor, is a no-no. He went on to make other movies, but slowly began to vanish from the silver screen. He never quite had the career he was expected to have, and died at a young age.

I ran into Rollins once on a New York City subway. He told me that he had been frozen out. "My mouth's just too big," he said. And that was it. The End of Howard Rollins. Cut. Print. It's a wrap.

The last time three black actors were nominated for lead roles in the same year was in 1972: Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson for Sounder and Diana Ross for Lady Sings the Blues. None of the films was memorable, but they were indicative of the liberal, post-civil rights, Vietnam-era sentiment of the time.

Black people have been in Hollywood since the early two-reelers almost a century ago. Yet here are the numbers that count: Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress, Gone with the Wind, 1939; Sidney Poitier, Best Actor, Lilies of the Field, 1963. In the 38 Academy Award ceremonies since Poitier's triumph, no other black leading actor or actress has won the top prize. Despite 780 total acting nominations and 152 winners since Poitier's award, only four winners have been black, and all have won in supporting roles: Louis Gossett Jr in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Denzel Washington in Glory (1989), Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost (1990) and Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire (1996).

Between 1975 and 1980, there were no black acting nominees at all, until protests started. The most recent protest began in 1995 after a People magazine cover story, titled "Hollywood blackout", pointed out that only one of that year's 166 Oscar nominees was black: the director Dianne Houston, co-nominated for a short film. She lost.

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has stated that black people in LA are keeping their heads down so as not to scupper the three actors' chances.

But the problem of black under-representation has not been solved and will not go away even if Berry and Washington or Smith win. Actors may be in the limelight, but black producers, directors, writers, directors of photography and techies still find it difficult to get jobs. Most important of all, there are no black faces among the studio execs who can give the green light to a project. These are the people needed to change the industry, and they are not there.

The bottom line is that Hollywood is about relationships: who wants to be seen with whom, who wants to secure favours from whom, who wants to "hook up". It's a question of familiarity, comfort-zone casting, and who's seen "in the ranks".

It has been almost a century since cinema's first undisputed masterpiece: D W Griffith's Birth of a Nation, a celebration of the Ku Klux Klan. It has been more than 70 years since Al Jolson put on blackface to cry "Mammy!" and open up the movies to sound, yet black people are relatively no better off in Hollywood than we were then.

Think of it - four black people on 24 March, posing together for the press backstage after the ceremony: Sidney Poitier with his Special Achievement Oscar; Halle Berry, Best Actress; Will Smith or Denzel Washington, Best Actor; and past Oscar winner and compere Whoopi Goldberg.

In your dreams.

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2 comments

Mon, 2008-04-28 12:17 — cdent123

As a 'black' actor here in "Hollywood", I have definitely been debunked to 'type-casting/ stereotyped. Most auditions I go out for (maybe 1-3x/week if I'm lucky) are mainly: gangbanger/ Thug (#1), drugdealer, person who shoots or mugs "John Doe" & other 'inferior roles. I rarely go out for "good" roles, like the white guys.

This article is true. It IS about relationships. Practically ANYONE can be a SUPERSTAR, it all depends on your "team". For instance: a person represented by a 'top agency (WMA, ICM, CAA) is more prone to stardom because these agencies run the show. They have the producers, directors, writers, actors & every person of importance. They package them together to make movies/ money. Unfortunately those agencies infrequently lack black entertainers compared to whites......(hmmmmm maybe whites are more "universal"?????).

It's all about if William likes me, personally, to get me steady work or to stardom. If someone thinks I'm satr material, which anyone can be molded. How does Emma Roberts ask for $1 million to due a movie and she just got to be like 16. hahaha. And Ms. Jurnee Smollett who been know since she was about 5 not get deal like that? Hmmmmm maybe because Emma Roberts is Julia Roberts nice and wow they have the same agency. Hmmmm...it makes me think of.....RELATIONSHIPS!

Fri, 2007-01-26 23:39 — ShaunTsumi

O’Melveny & Myers Represents Screen Actors Guild in Wrongful Termination/ Discrimination Lawsuits
Millions of Dollars Paid by Screen Actors Guild Members to Minorities in Settlements and Legal Fees to O’Melveny & Myers Law Firm
Eric Amdursky & Catherine B. Hagen, partners in O'Melveny & Myers LLP have represented the Screen Actors Guild for the past several years in discrimination lawsuits against SAG. Amdursky represents SAG in a series of wrongful termination/discrimination cases. He also represented Time Warner Entertainment Company and several affiliates in a class action brought by television writers over the age of 40 alleging industry-wide age discrimination against all of them. SAG, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO has settled all of the wrongful termination and racial discrimination cases by its minority employees. Three of which where settled in recent months except one. SAG’s officials on its website have vowed to fight allegations that it says are baseless against, Dr. Patricia Heisser Metoyer, former affirmative action director. SAG’s record of dismissing minority staff members is significant.
SAG an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, who gave Ruby and Ossie Davis the SAG Lifetime Acheivement Award, prides itself on a long history of affirmative action and diversity, has settled seven discrimination lawsuits by minority employees since 2001. Valerie Quetel, an African-American who worked as a benefits administrator and recruiter in the SAG's human resources department, alleged a "pattern and practice" of discrimination by SAG. Quetel filed suit in L.A. Superior Court alleging 22 causes of action. Quetel, was a 12-year employee of SAG, filed a wrongful termination-racial discrimination lawsuit. This case was settled by SAG.

In 2001, Peter Nguyen, Asian-American, an associate in the affirmative action department worked for Heisser Metoyer, filed a wrongful termination suit that has since been settled. Terms were kept confidential, as were the terms of a settlement in a wrongful termination suit filed by former employee Ray McCoy Daniel Jr., an African-American.
Another wrongful termination and discrimination case filed by former SAG executive Thomas Baiz, a Mexican-American was settled by SAG. SAG also fired Mexican-American employee, Hector Chavez. Chavez was the associate national director of human resources, was terminated following six months on the job. His case was settled as well.
Deborah Geter, an African-American, SAG employee for 20 years, was in charge of monitoring and enforcing SAG’s Taft-Hartley waivers, which brought in $1 million a year to the union. The waivers allow producers to use nonunion actors under certain conditions, and Geter would collect the financial penalty for the use of the nonunion talent. This case settled by SAG.Former secretary Kelley Langford, African-American sued SAG. SAG settled the lawsuits with Langford.
In November 2003, Heisser Metoyer's lawsuit, filed in L.A. Superior Court, was moved to U.S. District Court, Central District of California, where George W. Bush appointed federal judge, John Walters threw out about half her claims on technical grounds. Her case is currently on appeal in the U.S. District Court of Appeal Ninth District.
Heisser Metoyer sued SAG, alleging that she was forced out over her complaints about the SAG's falsified statistics on the racial makeup of the staff. The action also named the top two SAG execs at the time, John McGuire and Leonard Chassman. . McGuire is currently” a senior adviser” to SAG and Chassman retired with a substantial retirement package.
Eugenia Hicks, Heisser Metoyer’s attorney said in an L.A. Business Journal article says that Heisser Metoyer, on the job for little more than a year, ended up in the bad graces of other SAG officials when she reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the union was exaggerating the number of minorities on its 270-person staff.
"When she got in there she actually started doing something and she stepped on some toes. Some people didn't like that," Hicks said. "They decided to retaliate and they did it with a vengeance."
SAG has countersued Heisser Metoyer, and O'Melveny & Myers joined its original firm in the suits, Geffner & Bush.
The suits, brought by Heisser Metoyer, have been litigated by Eric Amdursky and Catherine B. Hagen, among other O’Melveny & Myers attorneys, hearing is set for February 16, 2006 before Superior Court Judge David Minning, for additional attorney’s fees. Heisser Metoyer pursued in house discrimination allegations along with her opposition to affirmative action budget cuts. There were no minorities among the 30 top SAG execs. The suit alleged that the dismissal came in retaliation. In the suit, she accused SAG's then-human resources director at the time, Linda Shick, of calling her a “black bitch” and alleged that there had been a continuing deterioration in the workplace environment at SAG, with minority employees staging a letter-writing campaign to the board that accused Shick and associates of repeated breaches of confidentiality.
Shick and Kathy Nirschl, the No. 2 exec in SAG's human resources department in 2001, departed their posts later, with SAG saying they had left for other job opportunities
In addition to firing Nguyen in March, 2001 McGuire and Chassman also dismissed Celine Bae, Asian-American employee from the affirmative action department, and placed its then-chief for three years , Heisser Metoyer, who until then received many industry commendations, on leave during the same week, firing her on May 31, 2001.
SAG later hired David White, African-American, formerly of O’Melveny and Myers as Senior Legal Counsel, who consistently throughout the last years, declined comment on all of the suits and execs refused to disclose any details about the cases to the national executive committee, which is composed of national board members.
“The suits are yet another complication embroiling the union, which has historically been beset by internal and external battles and [racial] strife.” By not speaking publicly, SAG has kept the discrimination lawsuits in the background.