ladybusiness | (Reply)

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I really want to talk about The Oscars and the BAFTAs in relation to The Help this year, because its reception was so troubled. I've read a lot of racial criticism of the book now and I'm aware of its problems, which have been translated into the film (I haven't seen the film, but unless it included a lot more about the civil rights movement run by black people the problems remain). And I agree that when you look at it as the only film, that was nominated for awards, which feaured black actresses it's nomination looks pretty dodgy.

White dudes love films about black women as long as they reinforce the kind of cultural narratives that white dudes love to hear. The people who hand out the awards only want to dangle the possibility of an award in front of films centred around black actresses if they're films that contain problematic elements for the communities they aim to represent, but even these films find it difficult to actually win multiple awards. You end up in no representation vs problematic representation and real life wins (an Oscar and a BAFTA for a black actress) vs creating a canon full of problems territory, which requires you to preform many acts of seperation to sort the good from the problems and hold them both in your head at once as equally important. It's really difficult to keep it all balanced and I think it's something that mainstream media really struggles to do.