No Oscars for Colored Girls

I recently watched the Oscar winning movie 12 Years of Slave, of which Lupita Nyong'o received a academy award for her "outstanding performance." I was skeptical about seeing the movie, personally I don’t like to watch slavery movies mostly because they’re too real for me. It’s something about seeing the mistreatment and abuse of my ancestors that invoke a deep rattling of my soul. But I felt obligated to give the movie a fair chance, especially after hearing the rave reviews about Lupita’s performance as well as Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played the main character Solomon Northup.

Although I loved the performance of Ejiofor, I was a bit underwhelmed by the performance of Lupita. Not that I disliked her acting, I actually thought she was great. But to be honest, of the two hours the movie lasted she played in about 15-20minutes, and most of her on screen time she was silent. And when she did actively play a role in a scene, I still didn’t see a Oscar worthy performance. Although I will admit the scene when she was getting whipped by Chiwetel was intense and heart-breaking, I still didn’t see an “extraordinary” performance overall.

After watching the movie and giving it sometime to process, I struck up a conversation with a close friend of mine. I brought up my concerns about the lackluster of Lupita’s performance compared to the hundreds of reviews telling me how awesome she was. He agreed pointing out some of the same things that I took note of. And with this in mind I started to wonder, why was it such a “mind-blowing” performance? I’ve seen acting far greater than the 20 minutes she played in that movie, and none of those performances were raved about or even nominated for an academy award. Of course, I brought race into it, which I found to be a reasonable response considering the movie was about slavery and it’s a rare occasion that I black actor even gets nominated for an academy award, let alone actually wins.

Actually when I began to think about it, I could think of multiple black actors with Oscar-winning performances that have been passed over year after year after year. Performances that have been breathing taking and so real that the audience gets lost in the moment and actually starts feels what the actors are portraying. Performances that even the most critical of commenters raved about. I could even think of multiple movies, with a mostly black cast, that were mind-blowing and yet no nominations were given.

While re-watching an incredible movie called For Colored Girls, which follows the lives of various black women displaying the different walks of lives of the women in the black community. With a cast of extraordinary actors that have been known to truly embody multiple characters in different roles, and excel. Some of which are Kerry Washington (in the movie Ray), Loretta Devine (in Waiting to Exhale), Anika Noni Rose (in Dream Girls), Whoopi Goldberg (in The Color Purple) and Phylicia Rashad (in The Cosby Show). They put together these fantastic actors and gave them an amazing script that depicted the struggle and true life stories of some women of the black community. With that, they added poems adapted from an amazing play called “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the End of the Rainbow is Enough.”

The movie was produced and directed to a T. As a viewer and an “amateur movie critic”, I gave the movie 5 stars, everything was perfect. It was real and dramatic with so much truth that I felt like I knew these girls—the characters that they played. I felt like they portrayed an image of my mother, my sister, my aunt, or a classmate I once knew. There was so much honesty that it was almost unbearable. What there wasn’t was recognition by the Oscars or SAGs, but of course they were recognized for a phenomenal performance by the NAACP Image Awards.

I couldn’t help but to notice a disparity in the entertainment industry and more than one question found its way into my mind (and now on my blog). If you really look at the nominations for academy awards involving black actors, you’ll notice that the majority of the nominations and winners portray a negative side to the community (i.e slavery, corruption, poverty). The industry tends to overlook the triumphs and the positive side of our community. Sure, perhaps 20 to 30 years ago we had Spike Lee blowing the ceiling off of race relationships as it pertained to the movie industry. He bridged a gap and showed not only the negative sides of the black community but also the real life aspects of black culture informed all American’s about what was really going on in our communities, just like in the movie For Colored Girls. Nowadays our community is overlooked unless we play a slave, a butler, a maid, an abusive mother or even an alcoholic pilot.

Another point that came into mind as I began to look at the industry is location. It seems Atlanta has become the “black Hollywood” over the past 10 years. First starting with the Tyler Perry franchise and now spreading to more and more major and independent black movies. My question is why? As I contemplated more, best answer that I could think of is, because that’s where we are accepted, with our own kind. This modern-day segregation reminds of the Jim Crow laws of the south, it’s unspoken but everyone knows the rules.  They are as follows:

1.      Limit the amount of blacks in major Hollywood films

2.        Fair skin is the “right” skin

3.      Work twice as hard to get a quarter as far

4.      Tyler Perry is your best bet if you want to “make it big”

5.      Atlanta is the place to be for black entertainers

6.      MUST play maid, slave, butler, etc for any academy award recognition

Do you see where I’m going with this? What's your opinion?

SEX TAPES!!!!

Sex tapes are all the rage in Hollywood and now Atlanta. This a video my response to her sex tapes and my thoughts/opinions about them in general. Please comment and let me know what you think!

Thanks Party People!

Blogger Conscious

So I’ve recently entered the world of blogging, my first big step in my goal to becoming a writer and so far my experience has been great. I love reading people’s stories and hearing their point-of-view, even I it differs from mine. It’s just interesting to get glimpses of people’s minds and learn more about different perspectives. I’ve been trying to immerse myself into the blogging industry by finding blogs, following blogs, and most importantly writing. And as I dive deeper into the ocean of blogging I realize how risky it can really be, to be so vulnerable and open to the opinions of others. Some people can really be harsh in judging and it’s impossible to avoid it. Once you post something (anything) it’s available to anyone with a computer or a smartphone. Your opinions, your story, or even your art now becomes a public record. That type of power comes with a responsibility that I don’t think people recognize.

Words are one of most influential things in the word in my opinion. What you say mattes, maybe not to everyone, but your words DO have power. One blog, or even one sentence, can change the mind of a person. By realizing that I began to recognize the responsibility of being “blogger conscious.” I think it’s important to be open and honest when writing, but I also think it’s essential to have a “good” public imagine--to write without judgment, even in commenting each other’s work. By blogging we create an image for the web to see and a lot of the time it’s reflection of who are as a person in the inside that we’re trying to express to the world. Being that vulnerable isn’t easy, to put yourself in the line of fire in an effort to be heard. It takes great courage to reach deep and offer it up to public, for whatever reason. That’s why, in my opinion, I think it’s important to be kind to each other --to speak and listen without judgment, to inspire without preaching, and to give by taking.

We are just people with a computer trying to tell our stories, trying to get our voice heard, trying to express ourselves. I think we should be conscious about what we say because at the end of the day it’ll have some effect on someone somewhere. Just my opinion, as always I’m eager to hear your take on the issue.

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What's Your Morning Routine?

We all have them, but what is your morning routine? I want to compare stories, hopefully I'm not the only bum out there. (Fingers crossed) Also let me know what you think about my routine. Post a comment or reply with a video.

Thank you lovely people!

The Suppressed Person

Last night, while doing research of writers and blogs, I came across a very interesting writer. His method of writing was very unique and his topic really hit home for me. The blog mainly revolved around his thoughts and emotional ties to a short story written by David Wallace Foster by the title The Depressed Person published in the January edition of Harper Magazine in 1998.

I took it upon myself to read the short story so I could get a first-hand idea of the message Foster was trying to convey. It literally blew my mind how he seemed to grasps the self-loathing and inadequacy a person suffering from a mental illness feels due to the emotional isolation. I know because I’ve felt it, and it sucks. But an interesting idea that he proposed in his story, was that perhaps the mentally-ill sufferers use their diagnosis as a crotch to avoid deeper emotional pain. He didn’t go into detail but as a put mort thought into it and tried to relate it to my life, I began to more fully understand his point (to the best of my abilities).

By focusing on one issue, which may or may not be the most important, we neglect other aspects of our disease that could assist in recovery. For instance, I personally focus so deeply on my current emotions of depression that I forget to acknowledge my past emotional agony that has led me to this point. I overlook the constant guilt I felt as child because of my parent’s volatile relationship. And that feeling of guilt contributes to the self-loathing that I’ve felt in the past during my periods of depression. I think that point of the short was the most profound. I never looked at my circumstances from that point-of-view before and it opened my eyes to another way to think of my diagnosis.

But the blog was so visceral and real that I had no choice but to be captivated by the writer’s own description of his personal experiences with dealing with the pain of discovering a selfless, empathic “real person.” I thought his perceptive was dead-on when it came to the narcissism associated with mental illness (by the way, chronic depression is considered a mental illness).

Suffering with a mental illness makes the sufferer constantly think about how they feel and how it effects them and how to feel better. The illness almost forces the person to seek constant support, either from within or externally (i.e. drugs, support system) and that, in turn makes that person appear selfish, self-serving and narcissistic. Any one from the outside looking at them will either feel pity, having never felt such mental and emotional isolation, or burdened by the constant patience they must exercise to accept that person into their life.

I know this from personal experience. I suffer from Bipolar Disorder and it’s not easy trying to convey how feel when I barely can gage my own emotions accurately. I constantly have to seek support and use various “coping skills” to feel “normal.” Without realizing it I “become” selfish to the world around me. Because my mind and mood can change rapidly and without notice, I feel obligated to seek counsel outside of myself by reaching out to my “support system.” The only issue is that eventually it stops being “fun” for the people around (i.e. my support system) and starts to become a burden. Or at least that’s how I feel.

Another aspect of having a mental illness that I don’t think most people realize is the shame associated with the diagnosis. No one would voluntarily decide to be sick, especially in the mind. It’s debilitating and humiliating to not be able to control your mind and emotions. And in result add to feeling of self-loathing. It’s like a catch 22—to feel better overall you have to feel better about yourself, but in order to build self-esteem you have to feel better overall. So how do you win? How can I win? How I do I maintain my support system without feeling like a burden? Find more friends/people to burden? Or try to build a person on an unsteady ground? Or maybe I’m being too hard on myself? I still don’t know maybe the answer will reveal itself over the span of my life and I wouldn’t feel so emotional isolated.

Please remember to comment!

Can Anyone Hear Me?

For me one of the most challenging obstacles I have faced since re-starting my writing career is finding my voice. Initially I thought how hard could it be? I’d simply be saying how I feel about the things that matter to me. I would write about whatever came to mind. I might even mimic some of the writing styles I have been raised on over the years and just add my own flare to make it somewhat unique.
The only issue is that isn’t me. That’s not the writer that I have dreamed of becoming my whole life. I never wanted to be an imitation of someone else, especially considering how important maintaining my originality has always been to me. I always wanted to speak from such a profound and wise place – to be able to invoke thought or even change.  So again I was faced with the problem of, what is my voice? And better yet, how do I discover it?

Over a series of weeks which included the reading of several articles, blogs and a couple of books I started to wonder what my voice would be and how would I get my message out there. “How will I be able to captivate minds with my words?’’ A thought that ran across my mind a many times. The first thing I did was compare myself to the writers of the works I’d been studying. Thinking, what was their voice? Although I read their works, I was more concerned with what their message really was. Then I quickly realized one important fact and I think one of the most essential aspects to realize before becoming a ‘’real writer.’’

I am not any other writer. I cannot find my voice in the works, or rather the words, of other writers and to find my voice, to really hear how I sound, I most speak. I most first find my soul then my heart and lastly my words and speak out right and out loud. I have to truly know myself and extract the truest pieces of my heart and soul then turn that into words. Only in connecting with myself as wholly and as honestly as possible, will I know what it is that I have to say. And after all of that, actually figuring out how I have to say it is the least of my problems.

The bottom line is that with every day and with every word I write, I get closer to discovering my voice. The more I connect with myself and the more I uncover my inner ‘’literary god’’ the more my voice will become as clear and as audible as a diamond scratching against glass. And the more undeniably unique and undoubtedly sacred my words will become.

So the only question I have left to ask when comes to my voice now is Can you hear me?