It's just so sad… And there's nothing they can do.

This year marks the first time in 10 years there have been no black actor nominees for Academy Awards.  In part, it is because Oscar favors a certain kind of movie, dramas, historical epics, and bio pics.


For some reason, Tyler Perry in drag, for the third time...  is not considered a historical epic. If only transvestitism was more widely accepted.

This Time It Will Be Funnier

Hollywood laments a problem they create, and wring their hands with faux guilt that is just not credible. If the motion picture industry was interested in making black dramas here some ideas.

A black family deals with black on black violence. A crime is committed and none of their neighbors will testify. The family does not go postal, instead they are ground down by a system indifferent to their plight and a community terrorized by a criminal element.

Sounds dramatic to me.

A third-generation family is caught between the example of Booker T. Washington, the rage of Malcolm X and the passion of Dr. Martin Luther King.

This could easily be described as a historic epic.

A middle-aged father tries to explain to his son that family values, middle-class values and religious values are not unique to any particular race.

Sounds like a character study.

Problem Hollywood runs into, is their own racism. There are a limited number of “recognized" roles is for black  actors. Most of them center around victimization and racism; most of them advance a cruel stereotype that doesn't exist today.

Conventional wisdom would suggest the federal program is needed to ensure a higher caliber role be offered to nonwhites.

No doubt next year Clint Eastwood's remake of A Star Is Born will land Beyoncé and Academy award nomination. But is this a solution or the perpetuation of a broken model?

What if a movie used acting and a well reasoned script instead of theatrics?

Winter's Bone is a little movie very few people have ever seen. It is available on Netflix and the soon to be neighbors of Brontosauruses, known as video rental stores.

http://www.wintersbonemovie.com/

Abject poverty and brutal isolation cast a very long shadow, making the movie very difficult to watch. The performances, across-the-board, are unflinching in the harsh, selfish and cruel behavior associated with lives in bondage and no way out.

Set in the Ozarks the story chronicles a 17-year-old girls obligation to care for her family. Her father, a freelance  pharmaceutical producer and distributor has disappeared and he put up the families hardscrabble cabin as collateral for his bail.

As one might imagine, freelance pharmaceutical producers and distributors that disappear… Rarely have happy endings. The conventions of her community and the dysfunction of her family provide very few options.

What sets Winter's Bone apart from other Cineplex themed offerings, is a  moral and cultural truth that feeds your soul. Unlike underwire brassiere cast heroines, Ree Dolly is not consumed by her appearance, popularity or libido. In Jennifer Lawrence's  performance, she exemplifies the power of doing what is right, sacrificing for the greater good and putting family first.

In the story is a counterpoint to popular culture. Instead of advocating the pursuit of self-esteem, the movie focuses on the development of character and earning respect.