There Are No Perfect Messengers
on Katt, Jay-Z, and Mo'Nique
Last weekend, I was chatting with a friend about the current state of The Oscars and Grammys. I mentioned that though I’m not in the realm of being an award-winning filmmaker or entertainer, an NAACP Image award would mean a lot more to me than an Oscar because awards created by our culture have a much better understanding of Black artistry. I thought this was a radical idea until I watched Mo’Nique’s interview with Shannon Sharpe.
Club Shay Shay started this year with a bang with Katt Williams’ interview in which the comedian called out many of his peers and the entertainment industry. It wasn’t long before the episode hit over 40 million views on YouTube. As Williams’ interview made its rounds on the internet where people debated if he took it too far, spoke the truth, or embellished his claims (there is no way that man read 3,000 books a year), it opened the door for more Black people in the entertainment industry to start telling the truth about their experiences.
Just one month later at The Grammys, Jay-Z caused a similar stir by accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award and using his acceptance speech time to call out the award’s ceremony’s history of undervaluing and snubbing Black artists like DMX and his wife, Beyoncé. While I agree with much of Jay’s sentiments, criticizing the racially biased practices of an award ceremony, while also still valuing their opinion of your work, felt a bit paradoxical to me. On one hand, we should hold these ceremonies accountable for judging their most coveted awards through the lens of what White America deems to be the best without regard to the overall cultural impact of a body of work. On the other hand, why should we continue to allow them to adjudicate the value of our work?
During Mo’Nique’s interview, Sharpe asks her what her experience was like when she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Precious. She responded by saying, “People always ask me about the Oscar, but nobody asks me about the [NAACP] Image Award. No one ever said to me, what did it feel like when they called your name for the NAACP Image Award and they were people that looked like me. Because we put so much weight on that award… it’s an honor for any award, not just that one. As a little girl, I never watched the Oscars because nobody [who] looked like me was winning. ”
There is this idea that winning any award that corresponds with a letter in EGOT is the pinnacle of success. There is an even more pervasive assumption that winning these awards is what propels and sustains success. Actress, Erika Alexander recently spoke about this on The Breakfast Club, stating “This world puts a premium on people who win awards”. However, for Mo’Nique, a person who has won an Oscar and has many other notable credits to her name, to be blackballed despite having what is perceived as the highest honor for acting, begs the question, what unspoken agreements are you accepted to adhere to, to maintain your spot in that premium position?
It’s no secret that decorum is a norm within Hollywood. It’s part of the reason why folks acted like their lives were in danger when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at The Oscars. I can imagine that pretending to like people you don’t or be okay with working conditions you are not, is a deeper reality for Black entertainers than their white counterparts. Decorum, is, after all, the cousin of respectability politics which are created and upheld by white supremacy. Yet it still seems to be a rare occurrence for people to consider how this standard of decorum keeps people from being accountable for causing harm.
In the aftermath of Mo’Nique’s interview, media outlets predictably painted the conversation as her “slamming”, and “trashing”, the likes of Tiffany Haddish, Oprah, and Tyler Perry, and others chose to focus on her comparing her career to Melissa McCarthy’s. While clickbait is, unfortunately, the norm in journalism these days, there were some very valid points about pay equity, exploitation, and the perception of fat Black women in Hollywood that were more worthy of discussing. Through chronicling the pain points of navigating the industry, she shed light on how commonplace it is for Black women to not only be unprotected and disregarded but to accept this treatment without pushback.
This is not the first time Mo’Nique has spoken publicly about many of these issues. She was infamously named Donkey of The Day by Charlemagne The God for calling for a boycott of Netflix for unfairly compensating her for a comedy special (which he has since apologized for). There were certainly parts of the interview I did not agree with (the bonnets discourse and being groomed by her husband were weird). This coupled with the aftermath of the interview resulting in a public (and cringey) back and forth with her eldest son, has caused the validity of her statements to be overshadowed by what many perceive as bitterness and narcissism on Mo’Nique’s part. This all validates a point Mo’Nique made in the interview, “we get so caught up in the messenger that we overlook the message”.
Language is a powerful tool and so when I see words like “slams” “trashes” “rips into”, and “bashes” used in headlines about Black entertainers making very valid critiques about the entertainment industry, it tells me that people view our uncomfortable truths as acts violence. It should not be controversial for Black people to be honest about their experiences, especially considering how long we’ve been expected to stay silent about them. Nor should it give license to negate the validity of those experiences because they’re being told by people who, like all of us, have flaws.
Katt, Jay-Z, and Mo’Nique are not unproblematic, and no one should be above reproach. The art of parsing through information is a delicate one, especially at a time when everyone is telling you what to think and how to feel. It would be unwise to believe every single detail of what someone says (again, Katt did not read 3,000 books a year!), but being able to cut through the noise is a vital step in being able to push conversations forward. If not, we reduce very real issues into useless celebrity gossip, which is something we simply cannot afford if we want progress. So, hold whatever opinions you want about the messenger but don’t lose the message in the process.
READING
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
I was gifted this two Christmases ago, and truthfully, I was avoiding reading it. I wasn’t trying to dive into an emotionally charged story about racism/colorism — but I finished this in five days despite it being 400 pages, so obviously I liked it. If you’re a fan of Passing by Nella Larsen or Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi then you will enjoy this one. It’s currently being adapted into a series, but TBD on how that’s going, Issa Rae was originally set to produce it but I found out via her TIME magazine feature that she’s no longer attached to the project. Whoever is handling it, I hope they do so delicately because there is so much nuance about the nature of passing in this book. I hope they get it right!
WATCHING
Origin
I’ve been getting back into going to the movies. Yeah, it’s hella expensive compared to the days of asking my mom for $10 so I could go see Glitter in theaters but, I want to support Black filmmakers in this volatile industry, especially Black women directors. At the Regal Theater I saw this in, they play an introduction from Ava Duvernay where she thanks the audience for coming to the movies and says that she doesn’t want you to enjoy the film, she wants you to experience it, to let it wash over you. This is the perfect way to describe this film. It’s not about if it’s bad or good, if you liked the story structure or not. The purpose of this film is to leave you with something to contemplate about the place you occupy in the world and how it intersects with others who are not like you at all. It is an incredibly timely film. I had to sit in the theater for a bit after credits rolled to just take it all in. When was the last time a film made you feel that way?
LISTENING
Listen, I enjoyed Usher’s halftime performance but I have notes! Mainly, that it was too short and the music direction could’ve been more focused and seamless. Those transitions were a little all over the place and I get it, you’re trying to squeeze a 30+ year catalog into 13 minutes. To soothe my saltiness about the songs that didn’t make the cut, I made a playlist.
CALL TO ACTION
In less than the amount of time it took you to read this newsletter (and thank you if you read all the way through!), you can do a few simple actions to help #FreePalestine
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LaChelle