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The 2004 Academy Awards:
Black Oscar Nominees Break the Mold
by Audrey T. McCluskey
Director, Black Film Center/Archive
February 2005
Many black Americans, especially those of a certain age, are often skeptical of things that seem too good to be true. History has instilled in some of us a wariness of abundant praise from the white establishment. So, having four black actors, (including one so nice he was nominated twice!) garner recognition by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the best actor and supporting actor categories in the same year, evokes both excitement and wonder -- as in 'I wonder if Hollywood is playing with us again?' While nearly everyone agrees that this bevy of nominations is long overdue acknowledgment of the talent and range of black actors, they do not erase the accumulated memory of Hollywood's woeful history of shackling superior black actors with stereotypical roles, then selectively rewarding their performances in them. Although Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind (1939), James Baskett in Song of the South (1946), and Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field (1963), earned their academy awards the old fashion way -- through exemplary performance, their characters nevertheless, provided comforting, but distorted images about race relations in America. Hollywood's racial fantasies continued when Whoopi Goldberg was tapped for her supporting performance as Oda Mae Brown in Ghost (1989), an updated mammy-type fortune teller who gives up her body to reunite white lovers. Denzel Washington's best supporting role as the unbowed union soldier, "Trip," is a notable exception. Yet, many think that Denzel was overlooked for his powerful performance as the heroically complex Malcom X (1992) and then rewarded with an Oscar for the convincing, albeit, more stereotypical role of a psychopathic cop in Training Day (2002). Even Halle Barry's historic win in the best female performance category for Monster's Ball (2002) in which she plays a sexually starved woman who takes up with her husband's racist white executioner, flirts with an old stereotype of black women.
This year's nominees certainly do not fit the previous mold. There is not a driver for Miss Daisy to be found among the 2004 nominees. In Million Dollar Baby, Morgan Freeman as the gym's janitor eschews the familiar trusty-helper type that is on the surface of this role, to create a character that befits the subtlety and power of his acting brilliance. Sophie Okonedo's nomination for her supporting role in Hotel Rwanda as the strong-willed and loving wife of a genuine black hero is stereotype-free. That uncompromised, but very real human hero is Paul Rusesabagina, played by Don Cheadle, one of the two black men nominated for best actor this year. The other one, Jamie Foxx, out foxed Tom Cruise in Collateral to pick up a nomination for best supporting performance. Then, with the difficult task assuming the persona of a recently deceased American icon, he somehow nails Ray Charles in Ray.
Given these vastly different and award-worthy performances, Ralph Ellison's observation that Hollywood "movies are not about blacks but what whites think about blacks," seems to lose some of its truthful sting. There should be several winners Sunday night. But even if none of these actors wins, they have broken the mold of predictable black characterizations, and that is a burden lifted. Such highly touted, visible roles may even decrease the skeptics among us who do not trust Hollywood to do the right thing.
