The Oscars have come and gone. But there is still something that didn’t set right with me. That would be the host, Chris Rock’s, opening monologue speech.
Maybe it was the fact that I was the only black person in the room watching a black comedian embarrass himself in front of a mostly white audience at the Oscars. Maybe it was the fact that I doubted the impact of him being there in the first place. Or maybe it’s a combination of both factors. Whatever the reason, I found his monologue to be sad at best. Don’t get me wrong. His speech did have its good points, but overall it left a bad taste in my mouth for three main reasons.
Below I give you my take on why the monologue was problematic.
1. Why was Chris Rock there?
Chris Rock's presence did not do anything to take a stand against years of racism against African Americans. Black History month is a time to celebrate black achievements and look back on the past to improve the future.
He stood on the stage and declared, “But this is the wildest, craziest Oscars to ever host, because we’ve got all this controversy. No, no black nominees, you know, and people are like 'Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit.'”
The truth is… he should have quit.
Boycotting shows society that you are not willing to accept a behavior that supports an institution that is against you. For example, the boycotting of the buses in the South during the African American Civil Rights movement allowed blacks to refuse money to those who deemed them unworthy to be riding at the front of buses.
In my opinion, Chris Rock would have made more of a statement if he, as well as the other black actors and actresses, had not stood there faking smiles and pretending like everything was OK. Standing on the stage and commenting on how racist the awards show is supports the Oscars and doesn't do anything to take a stand against them.
2. Chris Rock's onstage presence was stereotypical.
African Americans have been shown in a stereotypical light. We were often the “entertainment” for white people and were not respected enough for our achievements.
The fact that Rock stood on stage made him appear like a servant or entertainment for the white people there in order to make them crack a smile or laugh. I don’t know about you, but there was nothing uplifting I found about his jokes.
“We had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer. You know, when your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.”
He explained to the audience that black people could not protest the awards in the past because we had more important things to focus on at the time. True, but making jokes out of tragedies like lynching and rape made it hard for me to take him seriously.
There was nothing respectful about the way he stood on stage and lectured the white audience that did nothing except walk on stage to rack up all the hardware.
3. Begging for more opportunities will not make them come.
“What I’m trying to say is, you know, it’s not about boycotting anything. It’s just, we want opportunity. We want black actors to get the same opportunities as white actors.
That’s it. Not just once. Leo gets a great part every year and, you know, everybody, all you guys, get great parts all the time.
But what about the black actors?”
There is truth in Rock's statements here. Black actors and actresses should be able to get good roles like white ones do. If I were in a movie, I would like to be the princess and not the princess’ attendant. But at the same time, asking and pleading is not going to get the job done. The first step in making change would be to discontinue accepting degrading roles.
Degrading roles include roles in which black men and women are shown in stereotypical ways. Many believe Kerry Washington has already broken down stereotypes with her role in "Scandal."
Unfortunately to me, Olivia Pope is still a modern-day slave. She may wear nice clothes and speak “proper” English, but she is still sexually objectified by the President with whom she has an affair as were black women during slavery who were used for sex by their slave masters.
As Chris Rock said, we need better roles. We need to be onstage winning awards for our performances too.
But my question is: How can we go about doing so in a way that destroys stereotypes and doesn’t require us to embarrass ourselves on national television?
So to Chris Rock, you can do better.
