Andrew Sullivan posts a rage-inducing reaction to Mo'Nique's much ballyhooed Oscar acceptance speech:
Your reader's defense of Mo'Nique was nice but erroneous. Large black ladies have never been "vilified" in this country. Made fun of and stereotyped, yes, but not "vilified."
The notion of the strong Black Mammy is one of the most positive portrayals of Black folk in the US going back to slavery times. And there was nothing "cringe-worthy" in Hattie McDaniel's portrayal in "Gone With The Wind" -- she was in complete control. In fact, her portrayal was just about the only positive portrayal of Black people in that movie. And, yes, Mo'Nique's award acceptance speech was extremely self-conscious, self-aware, and self-important.
Look, "Mammy" is not a "positive" stereotype. There are no "positive" stereotypes, all stereotypes are created with a dehumanizing flip side that is inseparable from the faint "compliment" used to justify their invocation. But the legacy of the Mammy in particular is a grotesque one. Like every other carefully engineered old-school caricature of black people, it's meant to reinforce notions of what kind of behavior is appropriate--in this case, a docile, even happy acquiescence to white authority. "Mammy" was meant to depict black women as ugly and asexual, content to exist as surrogate mothers to the saintly white children of their owners or employers. Mammy's false happiness assures white people that the institutions of slavery and later Jim Crow have black people's consent and approval, her rotund body an alibi for the rampant exploitation of black women by their white slave masters.
There's simply nothing "positive" about it. Mammy may give somepeople the warm fuzzies, but that has to do with whom the stereotypeflatters. It sure as hell doesn't flatter black women.
There was something subversive about Hattie McDaniel making her money and winning an Oscar in her day, but it was also the beginning of an ugly and frustrating trend when it comes to black people and the Academy Awards. McDaniel's character in Gone With The Wind -- willing to stick with her owners even after those mean ol' Union soldiers have burnt the plantation to the ground -- is a perfect example of how conditional Academy Awards seem to be on how the role in question makes a white audience feel. Oscars are like Supreme Court decisions in that while the proponents argue that the decision was made on the merits, it often has a lot to do with the historical context in which that decision is made. It's not just about race, but that's a part of it. It's the only thing that, in my view, explains Denzel Washington losing out for Malcolm X but winning for his portrayal of a crooked drug-dealing cop who compares himself to King Kong--years after Sidney Poiter won for helping those nice white nuns build their church. Let's not even get started on the race and gender politics of Halle Berry sleeping with her husband's white executioner in Monster's Ball, which would really entail a whole other post.
I tend to think that this phenomenon diminishes with the frequency black actors end up winning a given award. But it's still there nonetheless, and the idea that people still think of the Mammy stereotype as a positive just reinforces the idea that for a black actor, winning an acting award has a lot to do with how a mostly white audience responds to the character you've chosen to play.
-- A. Serwer
