The Oscar Crew doesn't care and neither should you.

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Hello, everyone! There's a hashtag on the internet, #Oscarssowhite, and you're probably wondering what does this have to with anything retro.  However, it is very relevant because since the Academy Awards or the Oscars was created on May 16, 1929, it has been very white with a sprinkle of color and even if black or other POC wins an award, the character is usually stereotypical such as a slave or the help. I am wondering in this day and age if the Oscars are still relevant because it continues to be tone-deaf and out of touch with reality.  

Hattie McDaniel

(www.wikipedia.com)

The first black person to win an Academy Award was Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of Mammy in the movie, Gone with The Wind in 1939.  She won for Best Supporting Actress.  Now, by today's standards, this would not be acceptable to black people, after all, we're much more than just servants or slaves.  However, as I mentioned earlier, this is a recurring theme in the Academy Awards; either you're the help or slave and you'll get an Oscar.  At that time, it was a great win for African-Americans, even if acting roles at that time were limited, especially in a time of Jim Crow.  The same award was won by Whoopi Goldberg in 1990, 51 years later for her portrayal in the movie, Ghost. Other black actresses who won Best Supporting Actress (Best Actress in a Supporting Role) are Jennifer Hudson, 2006, Mo'Nique, 2009, Octavia Spencer, 2011, Lupita Nyong'o, 2013, Viola Davis 2016, and Regina King, 2018.  For Best Actress, it was even more dismal as Halle Berry is the only African-American woman to win the award in 2001.  That same year, however, Denzel Washington became the second black man to win Best Actor.  The first was Sidney Poitier who won for his role in Lillies of The Field,  in 1963.  Jamie Foxx and Forrest Whitaker also won their awards in 2004 and 2006 respectively.  Best Supporting Actors winners were Louis Gossett Jr, 1982, Denzel Washington, 1989, Cuba Gooding Jr, 1996, Morgan Freeman, 2004 and Mahershala Ali, in 2016 and 2018.  Best Picture went to Steve McQueen in 2013.  

Rita Moreno

(www.wikipedia.com)

Latino winners were also far in between unless you're talking about cinematography and the Best Director.   Jose Ferrer was the first Latino and the only Latino to win Best Actor in 1950 in the movie, Cyrano de Bergerac. Anthony Quinn and Benicio Del Toro won for Best Supporting Actor, 1952, 1956 and 2000.  No Latina has won for Best Actress,  however, Rita Morena has won for Best Supporting Actress in 1961's West Side Story a historic win for the Latino community.

Umeki Miyoshi

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Asian winners are also few and far in between. Miyoshi Umeki won her Best Supporting Actress in the movie Sayonara, in 1957, while Cambodian-Chinese actor Haing S. Ngor won for Best Supporting Actor for the 1984 film, The Killing Fields.  Ang Lee won for Best Director in 2005 and 2012.  

Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to win Best Director in 2009 for the film, The Hurt Locker, while many women won for Costume Design, including Ruth Carter, the first African-American woman to win in 2018's Black Panther.  

Overall, the awards ceremony is notoriously pale and this year is no exception.  Movies such as Adam Sandler's Uncut Gems wasn't even nominated for anything and I heard that it was a great movie. Another film that wasn't nominated, Queen and Slim which was surprising since the Academy seemed to enjoy seeing black pain such as slavery and abusive relations, shown in films such as Monster's Ball, Precious and 12 Years a Slave.  

There were a few bright spots though.  Cynthia Erivo, a black British actress was nominated for Best Actress for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who risked her life to save her people from slavery.  Again, the only way for a black woman to be nominated is to act like a slave or the help, or in Whoopi's case a cheerleader of sorts.  Korean director, Bong Joon Ho is nominated for Best Director, Best International Film and Best Motion Picture of the Year, for his film, Parasite, which was very good and worth the hype.  I hope he wins at least Best Director but we all know how the Academy rolls. For Best Animated Short Films, Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver are nominated for the film, Hair Love, which is about a black girl and her father's love for natural hair.

Is the Academy Awards still relevant today? It's a complicated question.  Humans, in general, want some sort of validation, a recognition for their hard work.  It is even more so for black people, other POC and women. Don't get me wrong, there are other awards shows that support and reward their work but awards shows such as the Oscars and even the Grammys are still seen as the pinnacle of success.  However, the Academy Awards have proven time and again, that they couldn't care less.  They might give you an Oscar every now and then but they're basically rewarding themselves in the long run.  The institution is still white and male, even if they claimed to be liberal and open-minded, which is rather ironic as clearly it was shown otherwise.  The ratings have been dismal lately and this year there's no host.  Who wants to sit for three hours watching this mess?  Plus it's boring.  But I would be watching for fashion and that's it.  I hope that the film Parasite wins some awards, other than that, I couldn't care less.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/when-the-oscars-were-not-so-white-a-history/2016/02/25/cf632cc8-db47-11e5-8210-f0bd8de915f6_video.html

Sanitizing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Next week Monday will be Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day to celebrate Dr. King's achievements.  It's celebrated every third Monday in January.  It was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983 in some States but in other States, it wasn't implemented until 2000 (Wikipedia).  Dr. King was a civil rights leader who spoke up against the atrocities black people faced in the United States, especially Jim Crow.  Now we all know that Dr. King fought for equality for black people but after he died (or rather assassinated), he became an icon for togetherness, freedom and equality for everyone.  Isn't that a good thing, you might ask.  Sure, but sometimes I felt that his other messages have been lost and many wheat people often quote Martin Luther King Jr's phrase, "Judge not for the color of my skin," when they're clearly in the wrong or are called out for their racist tendencies.  In fact, in a 1968 article, 75% of the population disapproved of his actions and mind you, he just passed away.  He even had a poor approval rating before his death, especially with his focus on the Vietnam War and the continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans.  Some states such as Arizona and  New Hampshire didn't even celebrate the holiday until 1987 and 1991 respectively.  So it was rather interesting that they chose to celebrate the sanitized version of Dr. King instead of acknowledging the revolutionary fight he started before he died.  I wondered what Dr. King would say if he was alive today.  The income gap between whites and blacks is worsening every year, birth mortality rates among black women are disturbingly high and race relations have been deteriorating ever since.  He would be disappointed that's for sure.  So we as a people have a lot of work to do in order to achieve equality in this country.  So instead of running around screaming, "let freedom reign," it's time for us to be honest and try to get rid of the disease in this country and that disease is racism and the mainstream society needs to acknowledge that.   Only then, we'll let freedom reign. 

Mary J. Blige

(www.amazon.co.uk)

Happy birthday Mary!! Mary is 49 y'all!  The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, Queen of R&B, etc. How time flies!  I remembered back in the day, listening to some Mary, reminiscing about the ups and downs of life, not realizing at the time, she was going through hell herself.  Life imitating art. 

Mary J. Blige was born on January 11th, 1971, in Yonkers, New York to Thomas Blige, a jazz musician and Cora, a nurse.  She also has an older sister LaTonya and brother, Bruce Miller.  Mary also spent time in Richmond Hill, Georgia. Mary went through hellish teenage years.   She was molested by a so-called family friend and even endured sexual harassment from her peers in school.  That would explain why she turned to alcoholism, drugs and even had sex, trying to forget the experiences she had.  These experiences also played a major role in her songs later on.

(www.pinterest.com)

Mary's singing career started at a recording booth in Galleria Mall in White Plains, NY, eventually ended up with Uptown Records, under Andre Harrell who met with Mary in 1989.  Gotta give props to her mom's boyfriend for helping her achieve her dreams.  In 1992, she made her first album What's The 411? Produced by Sean "Puffy" Combs or Diddy or whatever he called himself these days, the album reached multi-platinum, with hits such as Real Love and You Remind Me, among others (Wikipedia).  What makes this album so remarkable was her style of singing which was much grittier than say, Anita Baker or Aretha Franklin.  Mary even combined hip-hop and R&B to create a new sound.  Yet it was powerful and in many ways relatable to listeners. 

While she enjoyed the success of her first album, her personal demons continued to fester.  She continued with her drinking and smoking cocaine while creating successful albums in the process.  I guess the saying goes, money can't buy happiness.  And I believed that Mary didn't have any support in the industry hence the cocaine and alcohol use.  Plus, her experience with sexual abuse didn't help matters either.   

(www.flipboard.com)

Mary decided to turn her life around and appropriately named her 2001 album, No More Drama, which should her growth and taking ownership of her life.  She was even married to Kendu Isaacs in 2003, who was also her manager but they divorced in 2016.  With the divorce came the drama, almost making Mary broke.  Still, she was able to find success in her music and even in movies.  Her latest movie was Netflix's Mudbound, where she was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (I don't understand why they just can't say, best-supporting actress) and Original Song in both the Golden Globes and The Oscars in 2018. 

Mary is a force to be reckoned with in the music industry.  She went through hell in her personal life yet managed to succeed.  That's why she's so relatable.  She experienced trials and tribulations and expressed herself in her music, allowing herself to be vulnerable in the process.  Her hard work also paid off.  She has won Grammys, plus other awards.   So happy belated birthday Mary, and I wish you more success in the coming years!!

War for the New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone!! How is the New Year treating you?  The new year started with a bang, literally.  Unless you're living under a rock, the U.S President decided to provoke Iran and the country naturally responded in kind.  Everyone is freaking out, talking about World War III.  Thankfully, it has been averted but I wasn't expecting such bacchanal to start so early and the year barely started.  Well, you can't expect anything less from Trump, he always makes reckless and dangerous decisions.  Anyhoo, Bob Marley made this song a long time ago but this is still relevant.  Enjoy and pray for peace in the world. 

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!  Here's Daisy Voisin, The Queen of Parang.  Parang is one of the Christmas traditions in Trinidad and Tobago!!

Golden Girl and The Guardian of the Gemstones: Underrated Dolls of the 80s!

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Hello everyone! Season's Greetings!  It's that time of the year to buy gifts for your loved ones, especially the toys for the kiddies.  But again, don't go into debt doing so, speaking from experience.  Speaking of toys, I remembered growing up in the 80s, there were toys galore; Cabbage Patch Kids, Barbie, G.I Joe, Transformers, He-man, you name it!  I even wanted dolls such as Jem and She-ra, growing up in Trinidad.  But alas, I didn't get any for Christmas, just some no-name doll and perfume.  Well, it's the thought that counts, right?  One doll really caught my eye, in particular, was Golden Girl, not Golden Girls, but Golden Girl and The Guardians of the Gemstones.  

(www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk)

These dolls were created by Galoob in 1984 and they consist of the good guys; Golden Girl, Saphire, Onyx, Rubee and Jade and one male doll, Prince Kroma.  The villains were Dragon Queen, Vultura, Moth Lady, Wild One and the male character, Ogra.  The plot is simply Golden Girl and the other Guardians, guarding various gemstones against Dragon Queen and other villains.  The gemstones also give the guardian powers and skills to protect the Kingdom of Argonia (Wikipedia) from their enemies.  Other characters such as Dymondia, Coral, Turquoise, Pearl (heroes), Spidra and Centaura (villains) were in production but only Dymondia was released, primarily in Europe.  

With so many dolls around, Galoob decided to join the fray and created dolls supposedly in competition with the She-ra line where the fantasy world is concerned.  The similarities are the female blond heroines, the dolls having brushable hair, accessories, horses and even castles.  The only differences are that Golden Girl didn't have a cartoon but the dolls are very flexible compared to the She-ra line.  Plus, Golden Girl got the jagged sword! How cool is that? It's unfortunate that Golden Girl didn't have a cartoon series.  It had a simple storyline but I'm sure more complex series would be added if the cartoon was created.  If it happened in real life, I'm willing to bet it would be as popular as the She-ra cartoon.  Don't get me wrong, I love the She-ra series but sometimes some episodes are too cheesy.  I believed that Golden Girl would be in a similar vein of He-man series which often had a darker tone compared to She-ra.  It might even be a cartoon version of Xena: Warrior Princess!  

(toplessrobot.com) Ohhh!! blood!!!

I wondered why the cartoon was never created.  It could be a lack of money in producing the cartoon series or perhaps it wasn't on the agenda.  The main thing was to produce these toys to make a profit.  I also sensed that Golden Girl may be too dark for girls; you're talking blood and gore, straight-up fighting that it was even too much for He-man!  Apparently, society at the time believed that girls shouldn't be exposed to dark themes in cartoons but it was okay for boys.  That's my take on it.  Still, it would be a great cartoon series. Maybe companies such as Netflix can make it into a cartoon series, just hopefully not in a similar vein as the She-ra series on Netflix but stay true to the original for once.  Golden Girl and The Guardian of the Gemstones toy line was definitely underrated and sadly it did not get the shine it deserved at the time.  

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Tyra Banks

                                                   

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Happy belated birthday Tyra and may you see many more.  Tyra Banks, a multifaceted woman, is a media personality and what we call in those days, a world-famous supermodel.  Do people still call models, supermodels these days?  Tyra Banks is basically a jack of all trades; a supermodel, tv producer, singer, and even an author!  I'm waiting for her to join NASA, (just kidding) but it goes to show that she's willing to try many things to be successful.  Modeling is a great but rather short career and thankfully, Tyra moved on to other areas in order to stay in the game so to speak.

Tyra was born on December 4th, 1973 in Inglewood, CA.  Her mother Carolyn London is a medical photographer, while her father, Donald Banks is a computer consultant.  She also has an older brother Devin who is currently in the Air Force.  Her parents divorced when she was 6 years old.  In high school, Tyra experienced what we would call an "ugly duckling" phase.  Tyra was teased mercilessly for her size, she was very skinny in high school.  High school, in general, is pure hell (speaking from experience).  If you're not part of the norm, in regards to appearance and the coolness factor, kids would tease and harass their peers, making their experience unbearable.  

There's always a silver lining because Tyra started modeling at age 15.  Sadly she was rejected by many modeling agencies, mainly because she's black and apparently they met their black girl quota which is still practiced till this day although, nowadays diversity is becoming a thing in the fashion world and more models of color are hired in many shows but behind the scenes, it's still very pale.  It remains to be seen if diversity in the fashion world will be here to stay or it's just a trend.  Tyra finally got hired by L.A Models and resumed her modeling career.  She eventually moved to Elite Model Management and moved to Europe (Wikipedia).  In 1991, she was booking 25 shows left to right in Paris Fashion Week and she appeared in many magazines including Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair.  She also appeared in many campaigns for fashion designers including Chanel, Oscar De La Renta, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana among others.  She was even a Victoria's Secret Angel and appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue (Wikipedia).    

(www.dailymail.com)

Now back to her modeling career in Paris.  As I mentioned above, Tyra was booking 25 shows in Paris Fashion Week.  However, there was another black Supermodel on the scene; Naomi Campbell. Also, keep in mind that model agencies do not hire many black women.  And the media took notice of this and instigated a rivalry between Tyra and Naomi.  Look out Naomi, Tyra is coming to take your spot!  Well, let just say bacchanal start!! In 1992, Naomi allegedly told the designer Karl Lagerfeld (RIP) to ban Tyra from the catwalk, threatening to walk off from the show if she showed up.  She allegedly forced John Casablancas, founder of Elite Models to drop Tyra (www.jezebel.com)

I could only imagine how Tyra felt at the time.  There she was, a young girl trying to make it in a cutthroat industry, only to be hampered by a fellow black woman.  As they say, all skin folk ain't kinfolk.  Don't get me wrong, I like Naomi. She worked her butt off in an industry that is unkind to black women and other POC.  She even made supermodel status.  However, her attitude stinks in my opinion and by many reports, she was very difficult to work with even as Tyra left the industry, going as far as assaulting her co-workers. Not excusing her bad behavior but it was a way to cope with an industry which seemed glamorous and excited on the outside, can be very demanding physically and mentally, more so for the few black models in the industry who had to endure the racist mentality from designers and model agents.   

Nonetheless, this left Tyra scarred for a while and it could possibly be the reason why she left her European modeling gig and went back to modeling in the States.  Tyra eventually became an actress and she performed in many shows and movies including Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Love and Basketball, Ugly Coyote, etc. She even had a talk show, The Tyra Banks Show, which aired from 2005 to 2010 and it won 2 Daytime Emmys.  I wished it was still on the air but sadly it was canceled when the CW channel became gentrified.  

(www.urbanogcom.blogspot.com)

However, she was famous for creating and producing a reality series, America's Next Top Model, which exposed contestants to in and outs of the modeling industry. I sometimes questioned the challenges that the contestants have to endure or in the case of contestant winner, Danielle Evans of cycle 6, who had her gap fixed and she was criticized for her southern accent. Or Tyra and the rest of the panel's disdain for Yaya's Afrocentric identity.  Honestly, the winners are mostly commercial models, not necessarily editorial and they often turned to other pursuits such as acting and music.  Well, the show wouldn't be famous without some bacchanal and some models were bumping heads, eerily similar to what Tyra went through in the past.  Nonetheless,  the show became successful in its own right and there are even international versions, including Canada's Next Top Model, Britain's Next Top Model, Africa's Next Top Model and Caribbean's Next Top Model among others.  Interestingly enough, it was in Africa's Next Top Model, a winner Aamito Lugum from Uganda, who is an editorial model and she has modeled in many shows, magazines and campaigns including Lacoste, Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, H&M and various editions of Vogue and Elle among others.  I really enjoyed the show and I was disappointed that they didn't show season 2.

Tyra Banks has shown the world that she is a resilient and entrepreneurial woman and I admired her for that.  She went through hell just to show the beauty of black women in the fashion world even when the naysayers say otherwise.  I wish her all the best in the future and again happy birthday!  Don't forget to smize!!