VOGUE copyright Conde Nast
© 2022 h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com
© 2022 KM Fikes
Will Smith...yada, yada...Chris Rock...blah, blah...
Why bother, my good peops? Because. This is the second assault on a black body on the Academy Awards stage. This entire post is dedicated to the first - as it occurred a decade before this blog - committed to all aspects in our culture that may deem to be schemed H2Omeloncholic. One began to chronicle the quixotic as quotidian 'happenings' of H2Omeloncholy in 2013. One refers now to the first Oscar assault in 2003. Arguably, we might consider tonight's assault number three: per inclusion of the egregious offense of the studio, MGM, reportedly drafting the acceptance speech for Hattie McDaniel's Best Supporting Actress 'win' in 1940. To boot, there is her seating away from from her fellow nominees and co-stars during the ceremony. As late as WWII, the Academy saw no conflict in placing their award fête at the Ambassador's Cocoanut Grove Nightclub; the Wilshire Boulevard hotel would remain segregated until 1959 - due only to the 'official' end of Californian racial discrimination. Math, please? McDaniel received her 'honor' from a locale that required lawful mandate to integrate nineteen years later. 'Public integration' of the following account from nineteen years ago pays no homage. Howe'er, let us not parse that holistic hostility or atmospheric violence of such stock socio-abuse. Instead, one remains with 2003's actual physical altercation. Alas, 'second' assault, tonight's shall be.
Gentlesoulfolk, if you traversed the previous paragraph - awaiting clarification? That is the precise point of penning. At present. Altho'? A haunting is the collision of presence and absence. If you are hip and thereby haunted enuf to be triggered, I applaud you as much as apologize for even this hint or 'haunt' of reflexive PTSD. And no, qualifying 'post trauma' is no insensitive exaggeration for this incendiary incident is rife with searing specifics: psychic, ancestral, generational...far past the 2003 assault. Notably, the Pinkett whole - of a famed hyphenation - is planted in the periphery of this legacy. Roots rambling...far. On air.
Image Credit: oakalleyplantation.org
This spring, from the producers of Patriarchy, and the director of Colonial Project, who brought you Misogynoir *, starring award-winning StruckSure, a story comes to the screen that's been haunting souls:
The last census taken before the Civil War cites just under 4 million enslaved persons in the US. Approximately 450,000 Africans were accosted in the transatlantic slave trade. The population - of perceived chattel - grew exponentially, fueling Northern and Southern economy, no longer requiring the treacherous Middle Passage. Then again? Did the new Triangle Trade route take the shape of womb? Black women were breeders - breeding with enslaved others and/or systematically violated by 'owners'. Their offspring were not considered ‘family’ of slave owners but rather property to exist in forced servitude to their ‘relatives’ or be trafficked away from their birth/blood families, to breed elsewhere on unknown plantations. The fertility of African and African-descended women was essential to ‘trade’ and thus built America. Those beings that they begot were not legally fully human. Enslaved fertility, then, translated as that of livestock - to be auctioned and inherited.
This was not deemed rape. The profitable result was, daresay, embryonic capitalism. And true to Merican roots, its most trenchant commodities must become entertainment. Dispensing structural molestation may prove impossible to bear - upon the oppressor's sanity - unless they trick the mind into implementing the height of cruelty as not just supremacist maintenance. But sport. Better still? Theatre - for that certain dramatic or comedic flare. Best? Entitlement meeting amusement.
And so it was in the Antebellum South. And so it was that fateful night in Hollywood, 2003.
Back to Hattie McDaniel's award for 1939's Gone with the Wind. Officially stamping her role made too much sense as Mericans need that romantic vision of slavery. So very much. Almost the epitome of romance - for some - as plantations are still the chosen backdrop for actual weddings of history-averse Millennials. One oft wonders if they hold their bridal showers at Auschwitz.
There are slave narratives of trees growing conveniently close together. One leg of an enslaved woman is tied to one trunk and the other...you get the nightmare, horror, institutional intimidation, domestic terrorism...ya get the (motion)picture. This unmitigated hell, like lynchings during Sunday church picnics, was recreation. As silly for some as searing for others. White men lined up for their turn and white woman had another enslaved woman draw their drapes closed in the 'ladies' parlor.
Wedding photographers poise young couples under these same 'conjoined' trees now - as the first shot to begin their matrimonial sojourn. And even if this particular bark did not witness a rape nor was exploited as a death chamber with noose, enslaved generations were psychologically tortured, ever aware that learning the alphabet or attempting to flee could mean this same tree - that gave them seconds of shade - sprouted sharpest twigs for lashings. Any time they got outta 'order'.
We, watching in 2003, were not there. We, streaming(consciousness) in 2022, were not under said trees nor tied to em - amongst the wilds of ruffles upon cultivated ruffles of evergreen leaves swaying from volatile bows boughs.
Image Credit: MS McCarthy, GETTY - Oak Alley Plantation, Louisiana - for wedding rental & film production
Our DNA was there; it will never forget. And this, one strongly suspects, is why, when discussing the 2003 Oscars with a plethora of black women, from perspectives refreshingly diverse, the reaction seems an eeriest mirror reflection:
"My stomach dropped".
Or:
"I was nauseated".
And:
"Felt it in the pit of my stomach."
So many - from vast black views. Yet one fierce lens thru the roof of an observatory. All voiced to refract a similar line. Lining that winds round - low, rumbling, growling. In that organ designed for digestion. Atop a uterus of fibroids and astroids. A shared somatic, if not cosmic, reaction. Across time and space. A visceral experience of the assault - encased in television. Scope. Ours. Oh, how the assault was so much more than how she was grabbed and a tongue was forced down her throat.
The assault was - equally - in the applause, in the awkward laughter, and in ultra acceptance of Oscar exemplar. Those applause turned our insides. Out. Collectively, that residue rendered us ill - from lost memory. But one actor made a perpetrator's choice; reception by his colleagues - as much as hers - concurred. Hence, their allegiance - and ethics - were as sealed as "the envelope...po-lease".
Psychically, our nipps, our clits, the lips between our legs, and those upon our face? They remember you, Great and Great and Great Grandma. Our lips know. Our lips know yours rarely had consent. Like Hattie denied her own words for her own gratitude or Halle aggressively wiping her mouth in a disgust that even though caught on camera? It was not seen, not heard, acknowledged nor censured. Berry's assault - which garnered Oscar ovation - was felt. In our gut. Trunks, if ye will.
White women rocked in whicker on porches as black women screamed from 'the Mistress' sons gang raping her. And S. Sarandon cheered. One recalls that too. Most unfortunate because the camera panned the celebrity audience and could have landed on any public figure. The randomness of her rooting - captured - gives one pause to mention. She is, nevadaless, 'fair' or not, indelible to the 2003 memory.
Existential as ethereal, our haunting is the impetus of this post. Further, the crux of that impetus is finally extrapolating how and why a nausea - palpable as popular - was instantaneously induced. As ignored. The memory is now nineteen years of age, making it eligible to vote. Each detail is as pertinent as those in dream analysis. The most surreal aspects? Telling. Therefo', an unwitting flash of a willfully ignorant by-stander can be no candidate for discrete deletion.
Sarandon is - inextricably - the 1991 portrayer of Louise, an inferred survivor herself, who lethally intervenes, preventing the rape of Thelma. Scripted roles, of course, are not reality but I was stunned by this one - outspoken, otherwise, on progressive causes. For them. And Iraq. At that particular juncture, she was quite vocal. About certain types of warfare. In Sarandon's 'defense', she did not get what was occurring. My stomach did; it turned. I was not alone. In 2003, she could not identify: Halle Berry's assault on stage nor the countless - of color - at home with sickened stomaches. Sarandon's 'passage' has had at least some privilege, keeping her 'middle' intact. Eyesight too, perchance, quite respectfully. Many, like moi, are medically nearsighted while others are farsighted. Whilst Colonialism may be no ophthalmological condition, might it possibly be hereditary - wherein its heirs can suffer from selective 'gaze'? Myopia blurs background and thereby, perhaps, broader context. In Sarandon's 'defense' - which is genuinely extended here? That 'defense' is too exhausted by the injustices inflicted upon it so declines to indict one obliviously caught in a camera shot. Past her, a mass indictment must be leveled on this night - if leveling the 'field' surpasses 'playing'.
For some time after, perhaps up until Hollywood's appropriation of Tarana Burke's #MeToo, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences framed an Academy winner's/member's assault as their annual ceremony's 'coup'. No warnings of the sensitive nature of said material but instead bookending an assault with perhaps fast food deals or mattress sales. ABC/Disney played - on a loop - their prize of a commercial to an upbeat soundtrack. Currently, to the contrary, 'clutched pearls' seek conversion to handcuffs. Oscar producers give pause none in asserting the legal term, "battery" as LAPD stands by - whilst their 2022 award presenter declines to press charges. Now. Then? For them, a historic Best Actress coronation in 2002, that dissolved into the vestiges of traditional tragedy in 2003, was spectacle as much as 'free' publicity for future Tinsel Town proms. Sponsor? Board of Governors.
Regarding the black female body thus is standard US practice - in a 'joke' RE: hair loss resulting from auto-immunity or underscored in today's disproportionate maternal mortality rates. When profit from certain procreation wanes, concern for said wombs precipitously plummets. Those with womb of historical oppression, poised at career pinnacle, arguably redefining their very professions, are named Beyoncé and the real King Richard's daughter, Serena. Beyoncé opened this year's Oscars in tribute to tennis pioneering phenoms, Venus and Serena Williams. Their sister, Isha Price, was an executive producer of and central advisor on the work garnering a nomination - too soon asterisked as an infamous award. Infamy is not always unconscionable, as should be the shared scares of champion, Williams and star, Beyoncé: when giving birth, both iconoclasts were accosted by institutional medical neglect.
Halle Berry was thrice accosted that night, nigh two decades removed. The second affront was in systematic neglect. Neglect - via institution/system - communicates citizen value. When one's full humanity is considered, the result is humane response. Ironically, Academy observers have fashioned their own term, "Oscar snub", denoting a meritorious performance that enough consensus agrees earned acknowledgement not extended. Alas, there exists no amount of distracting regalia to excuse what should have qualified as admissible evidence morphing toute suite into promotional tool. 'Sensibilities' of those hailed for their talent were not rattled in 2003. Quite the contrast to how riled up they are at present. Row after 'row' of Hollywood elite were not appalled; they approved. When the most acclaimed nod in the affirmative, they abet strike three. As has been. Since breasts were fondled on the auction block. Third blow: a proprietary label practically peels off an iconic statuesque bottle as criminality makes 'their' commercial.
Indigenous descendants date this Colonial franchise back to 1492 but editors of The NYTimes choose 1619 for criminality as the premier ad campaign of Yet-a-Nation. Film had not established itself as a verifiable art form until the technical feat of DW Griffith's Birth of Nation in 1915. At a pace opposite of pancake-syrup ooze, the landmark movie became propaganda for KKK recruitment. Theme? Defense of white woman's 'virtue'. A dramatic tour de force, the plot of Hollywood's 'founding' flick hinged on the specter of assault. And yet? In 2003, this same brand of assault, fact-not-fiction, lead an Academy's highlight real reel of treasured moments. Thru Oscar's 'gaze' - rather than create a cinematic 'threat' to national security - the same assault was a golden advertisement. "Battery" was construed as welcome spontaneity to which an audience would be treated - if they tuned in to the most glamorous of global telecasts. Cue a viewership of bellies unbound, free of knots, to enjoy stove-top popcorn, microwaved buffalo soldier...shoulder wings, or defrosted Southern picnic fare. 'Washed' down, maybe, with the latest iteration of boxed, carbonated mint julep.
Twitter will be broken tonight and tomorrow with quips RE: Jada Pinkett-Smith's 'honor' - at the whim of toxic masculine display, aghast at a Fresh Prince's outburst of violence - in front of 'them' - and/or the incessant Merican obsession with the 'modern' comic's Pilates Reformation of the First Amendment. Thankfully, less than a week ago, NJ Senator Corey Booker exampled evolved chivalry. In his words - 2.0 gallantry - centering the next Supreme Court Justice, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson: "No one's stealing my joy". Meanwhile, the portrayer of Richard Dove Williams, Jr. apologized addressed Da whole damn Room. A. Brody will never have to do so. Nor will GOP neocarpetbaggers: Cruz, Hawley, Cotton, or Graham. Albeit all are haunted, only chosen tummies are unsettled mummies. The rest wreck the world. Thus, why would Brody - imposter arborist - nigh contemplate any pardon for his inadvertent advocacy of the wrecking 'order'? Inflicting triangularly-targeted injury solidified him beyond any Oscar, to archetypal recipient of 'our' Founding Fathers' honorarium.
Til our next 'post', feast upon produce in season...
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