“Monster’s Ball” (2001) is about a black woman who has an affair with a white man who, unknown to her, was the prison guard who put her husband to death. It stars Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry, who won an Oscar for Best Actress, the first black woman ever. Sean Combs and Mos Def also appear.
Spoiler alert: I cannot give away the whole film in 500 words, especially one whose main strength lies in its performances, but I do give away the ending.
Leticia Musgrove, played by Halle Berry, is a waitress in a small town in Louisiana. Her husband (Sean Combs) is on death row, her son is dangerously fat, her car is dying and, with her husband in prison so long, she is about the lose the house.
Then her husband dies in the electric chair.
Then her son is hit by a car and killed.
End of Act One.
Colonel Hank Grotowski, played by Billy Bob Thornton, is a prison guard. His wife is dead. He tells his son he hates him, who then shoots himself in the heart. He puts Leticia’s husband to death. He, by a twist of fate, drove her and her dying son to the hospital.
She is a waitress at a late-night diner he frequents to drink black coffee and eat chocolate ice cream with a plastic spoon. But despite that and despite her beauty, he tells the police at the hospital that he has never seen her before.
Then one night he is at the diner and offers to drive her home. He tells her that his son died too. She invites him in. They talk and drink whisky. Then suddenly she bares her breasts and throws herself at him! Naked sex scene of pure lust follows.
Next morning he sees her husband’s picture hanging on the wall and understands who she is. He throws up in the bathroom. And then carries on with the affair without telling her who he is.
Later she meets his father by accident. He informs her that in his younger days he liked “nigger juice” and that a man is not a man until he “splits dark oak”.
While Hank is not as racist as his father, he does call a black guard the n-word and reminds him that he could fire him – while saying nothing of the kind to a white guard who did the same thing as the black guard. That he did not know who she was at the hospital also speaks to his racism.
She loses her house and moves in with him. At the end of the film she finds out who he is – and stays with him!
The End.
Vanessa Williams and Angela Bassett turned down the lead. Bassett said:
I couldn’t do that because it’s such a stereotype about black women and sexuality…. Film is forever… It’s about putting something out there you can be proud of 10 years later. I mean, Meryl Streep won Oscars without all that.
See also:
- The Jezebel stereotype
- black actresses
- Halle Berry
- Angela Bassett
- the mass incarceration of black men
- race and beauty
- possibly related films
- Precious – directed by Lee Daniels, who was a producer of “Monster’s Ball”
- American Violet – small-town South/prisons/race
- A Lesson Before Dying – also set in Louisiana (but in 1948)
- Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs – its producers also took pains to be true to life but it still came off as racist
I’ve yet to see this movie but man, talk about plantation stertorypes.
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Yikes. I’ve never seen it and now I REALLY don’t want to see it.
Also, the phrase “split black oak” makes me feel sick to my stomach.
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“She invites him in. They talk and drink whisky. Then suddenly she bares her breasts and throws herself at him!”
OMG Abagond sometimes your writing cracks me up! 🙂
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I was disappointed in Halle Berry for this movie which was basically some white man’s fantasy played out through some Southern racism and a long softcore sex scene involving Halle and Billy. When she won an Oscar for this abortion and carried on like Tyra Banks did in Higher Learning I wanted to reach inside my television and shake some sense into her… that was an awful day, all while they honored Sidney Poiter.
I’m sure Billy Bob Thornton (one of my favorite actors) wasn’t proud of this movie as it adds zilch to his great resume. Maybe grinding his privates on Halle was a bonus but hell he was with Angie Jolie for a long time. If you haven’t seen this garbage DON’T, you aren’t missing anything.
“make me feel good” – Halle Berry.
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No, no! I can’t read this until I watch the movie. I’ve been planning to watch it but I keep forgetting.
Greg Dragon,
“carried on like Tyra Banks did in Higher Learning”
That one was hilariously bad. I thought “Tyra dear, stick to modeling. Acting is not your forte”.
“If you haven’t seen this garbage DON’T, you aren’t missing anything.”
Ha, this makes me want to see it more.
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I listened to some of Marc Forster’s director’s commentary.
He took great pains to be true to life. For example, everything was shot on location, there is not a single set in the whole thing. He also fought the urge to make the film corny and sentimental, particularly the ending. Halle Berry herself researched what women whose husbands are on death row go through – the anger and tiredness and grief and loss.
And yet despite all that painstaking effort, Berry’s character is badly motivated. The part where she throws herself at Thornton and at the end where she so easily makes the decision to stay with him despite who he is and despite the fact that he had been hiding it from her – just are not believable. Except perhaps in a white fantasy frame of reference.
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I don’t know why I haven’t watched this movie yet. Maybe I thought it would be depressing. However, reading your synopsis, I now KNOW that it is depressing, but for different reasons than I thought it would be. I wonder how this movie even got made.
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Yeah, I got the same nagging impression from this one. I saw it because everybody was so full of praises but was dissaponted. And Halle has done better roles in my opinion than this one.
But I guess it is still so “brave” too show BW sex in american films that it made everyone to think that this must be an outstanding piece of art. I think it is a piece of selluloid.
I never figured out why Halles character did not beat the shit out of that crakcer prison guard who pulled the switch on his old man. And why on earth the whole sex scene game about. Because of what? They were, ehem, horny??
Don’t get me wrong, I think Halle is pretty, even though I don’t know why a woman with her looks would date a pale face like that in a first place. And once you meet tha Dad, well, lets just say, most of the black women who write in this blog would’ve been gone in less than a second and rightly so.
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I haven’t seen the movie and don’t know the entire context. But my thought is that Halle might take the part while Angela wouldn’t because they come from different social backgrounds. Halle, of course, is the product of an “interracial” relationship and thus isn’t likely to view people of different colors engaging in sexual relations as controversial or taboo. I also remember Thad saying at some point that Brazilians (who are largely mixed race) don’t understand all the fuss about the film in the states.
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I didn’t like this movie. I hated that Halle Berry won an oscar for this. It makes me sick to my stomach to see how black woman can only be reconized or win oscars in Hollywood playing prostitutes, and welfare moms like Monique in Precious. It ridiculous. Hollywood is not for black women at all. They love forcusing on skinny white women with no real talent then to reconize black women with REAL talent.
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I just read something about this. Lee Daniels said he was a casting director at first and was tired of turning away black actors because there weren’t any roles. So he got into production and produced monster’s ball.
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I’ve seen it once and that’s about it. It’s hard to watch these types of flicks without some sort of “brain switch” to reroute critical thinking and historical perspectives. Denzel won the same year with “Training Day”. Now, I’ll admit to seeing that more than once due to the hip-hop influence and the overall genre (crime drama).
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Abagond,
“The part where she throws herself at Thornton and at the end where she so easily makes the decision to stay with him despite who he is and despite the fact that he had been hiding it from her – just are not believable.”
I have not seen this movie, but from your description, what draws these people together seems to be grief and a need to connect. Her husband would have died regardless of who pulled the switch.
I don’t think you can predict what peoples reactions would be in the throws of confusion, desperation and grief.
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There’s enough money between the sports and entertainment community to green light some black projects. And God knows there’s an incredible body of black literature. Where’s the Langston Hughes story? The Thurgood Marshall movie? THe Life Story of James Brown? These are personalities that even white people know about and would see. It’s hard for me to complain about black actors not getting work when Oprah Winfrey and Sean Combs and them are sitting on piles of cash and could be getting those movies made that encompass all of the black experience.
That’s part of the problem. So little has been seen that when a movie does come along there’s pressure for it to be everything. Some blacks are welfare moms, some black women are triffling, some black men are criminals. But we also need to see the one’s that aren’t. That are hard working, inspirational people. We can’t rely on white hollywood to adequately tell our story. It seems useless to complain that they don’t. What are we going to do about it?
As far as Berry, I was disappointed in the movie and don’t think the performances were that great. What she was awesome in was Losing Isaiah. That’s what she should have won for.
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Abagond,
Let me add stress to that list. I think there may be a few people who have gotten into toxic relationships while in very stressful situations.
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Good point.
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i’m offended by that movie…
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the last comment was peanut’s
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i’m surprised you didn’t give your personal opinion abagond…did u like it, hate it or what??
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“She invites him in. They talk and drink whisky. Then suddenly she bares her breasts and throws herself at him!”
yeah it was comical the way you wrote that…lol
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Haha. I agree with the others, the way you wrote that line was funny. I want to see this movie but I’m afraid I might get sick. I watched ‘Precious’ for the first time last night and I felt physically ill during the entire thing.
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Yeah, I also felt uncomfortable watching Precious but I didn’t know why. Until I read the thread about it here.
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I haven’t seen the movie.
I actually talked to my mother about this movie and black people’s views (well, black people on this board- I don’t want to go into generalizing). We talked about Jezbel stereotype and whether the movie was too sexually explicit. She said no- there is a little sex, and she does it out of desperation.
So I’d really like to watch the movie and see how they handled the situation.
The part where she throws herself at Thornton and at the end where she so easily makes the decision to stay with him despite who he is and despite the fact that he had been hiding it from her – just are not believable. Except perhaps in a white fantasy frame of reference.
I don’t want to defend the director, but maybe it’s studio’s fault? Maybe the test audience didn’t like an original ending? I mean, they changed the 3000 years old epic (Iliad) because test audience didn’t like the ending of movie “Troy”, so it’s not like it’s impossible.
Though white fantasy is also possible. Is the rest of the movie similar to the ending? Or is it just strange and doesn’t fit with the rest of the film?
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To Abagond:
She loses her house and moves in with him. At the end of the film she finds out who he is – and stays with him!
I didn’t get the impression that she had made a clear decision to stay with him… wasn’t her discovery made just before the end of the film..? (It’s been a number of years since I have seen it..)
As I remember in the final scene Billy Bob Thornton’s character is talking about their potential future together whereas Halle Berry’s character is still trying to process the newly discovered information (with less than 10 minutes left in the film..) with a rather distant look on her face.
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I haven’t seen the movie and only even know about the plot through Abagond’s post today.
It seems that Abagond and others feel that Berry’s character was somewhat offensive because Berry still stayed with Thornton’s character even though she knew he executed her husband and was somewhat racist and misanthropic.
Abagond doesn’t mention the part of the movie I read about where Thornton’s character is the one who picks up Berry’s character as she’s cradling her dead son on the highway after he’s been hit by a car. I understand that Abagond limits himself to 500 words and must prioritize the information he conveys to us which causes him to give us the Cliff’s Notes version of an important part of the movie by writing:
But her son was hit by a car, Thornton’s character picked her up (after initially driving by which highlights the main point of this movie that even very flawed people find love in the oddest places – often *only because* the circumstances are so odd, actually), and he drives her home afterwards. That would seem like a unique interaction that could very easily lay the groundwork for a relationship – especially when the two characters are so distraught with their life’s path up to that point. Hell, people bond over Jaeggerbombs at bars, why can’t they bond over the mutual loss of their children?
Berry shacking up with him merely highlights the fact that flawed people get together. It is a reality. The people we date and mate with aren’t always our ideal, but we settle for them out of either necessity or lost hope. Often, we overlook issues that other people would find deplorable. Abagond and others think that Berry’s character should have been more wary of his racism, his family, and his misanthropy, but they don’t realize that a character like Berry has different priorities and different values in life. To expect her to become offended by the things you think she should be offended by is preachy.
You also have to ask yourself, if she’s the type of woman who would marry a man who would eventually commit capital murder, what makes you think that she’ll then conform to any “rational” decision making in the future?
This movie is one of the new wave of realistic movies. They seek to analyze and understand why the world works in the imperfect ways that it does. Why people form imperfect unions. Good thing I don’t limit myself to 500 words, I guess. That way I can give a more complete analysis.
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Chuck:
I did point out that Thornton drove her to the hospital:
“He, by a twist of fate, drove her and her dying son to the hospital.”
And that he pointed out he had lost his son and that that led to more of a relationship:
“He tells her that his son died too. She invites him in.”
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abagond:
you don’t see that that could very easily fuse two people together? that type of traumatic experience could easily cause Berry’s character to imprint on Thornton’s character. Again, this movie is about the sometimes twisted psyche of regular folks. It handles the nooks and crannies, cracks and crevices of the human condition, and rather than lead the characters through the routine script that the audience wishes they would take, this story follows the more likely path – one that is not purely rational.
After all, there are thousands of women who marry *felons* themselves. There are women who are happier going back to physically abusive husbands time and again because at least he’s the jerk she knows. Politicians commit adulty or get embroiled in financial scandals even though they know they are toying with disaster. The list goes on and can apply to almost everyone in this world.
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Chuck:
If it were a true story, I would buy it. Truth is stranger than fiction. But fiction has to be believable within its frame of reference. That goes even for “Lord of the Rings”.
In this story a black woman will throw herself at you, be with you even if your father is openly racist while you give little sign of being much different and, right after she has caught you in a huge lie, does nothing but smiles and eats ice cream with you and looks at the stars. Maybe you live in a world like that. I certainly do not.
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I had trouble with the motives too. Actors did a good job, I got no problem there. But the thing with racist red neck prison guard and black woman… I just don’t know. Ok, they have lost their kids and blaah blaah blaah. But I just don’t know. Something in the story just did not click for my money.
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Uncle Milton:
How I remember the ending: she did have a strange look on her face – and we could not see what was in her right hand!!! I thought maybe she had a gun since there were only minutes left. But then they are sitting on the back steps. She smiles, he feeds her a spoon full of ice cream and he says, “I think we’re going to make it” and they look up at the stars.
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@ abagond: kind of yucky, that is straight from the Disneys animated movie where the dogs eat the meatballs in the back alley and the italian guys sing a great song: Bella Notte. 😀
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Peanut:
I did not like the film. It was well made and well acted and there was never a boring moment, but Berry’s character was not believable and played to stereotype, while Thornton was creepy and unlikable, which was unfortunate since he was the point-of-view character.
It is also unfortunate, if that is the word, that Halle Berry should win the Oscar for Best Actress and win it for this film. Just off the top of my head, Angela Bassett, Kimberly Elise and Whoopi Goldberg are way better actresses than she is.
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abagond:
Have you written about Denzel Washington winning an Oscar for “Training Day”? That movie depicts him as a rogue cop who can’t control his impulses who abrogates his duties as a father.
I’d feel more comfortable with the spirit of this post if you addressed that as well since your focus on only “Monster’s Ball” makes it seem as if you only dislike Berry’s character and the message because it involves a white love interest. Correct me if I’m wrong – although I’ll concede its your blog; write what you want.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I will now that you’ve piqued my interest here. But from your synopsis and what I quickly read about it, the most important scene in the movie was Thornton’s character initially driving by a black woman clutching her dead child on the side of the road and then turning back to pick her up. It shows that who we are is not what we say or even out knee-jerk reactions; its what we ultimately do that determines our character. Thornton’s character overlooked color and saw humanity. Berry later overlooked Thornton’s flaws and saw humanity as well – being a flawed person herself.
I’d have to see the end of the movie for myself. With all due respect I don’t believe that your interpretation of the end of the movie is true. A tortured movie like this doesn’t end up in “ice cream”. But maybe it was Neopolitan or something.
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Chuck said:
“You also have to ask yourself, if she’s the type of woman who would marry a man who would eventually commit capital murder, what makes you think that she’ll then conform to any “rational” decision making in the future? “
We are not told much about his crime – why he did it or whether he is even guilty. So it is hard to conclude anything about her judgement based on that.
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Saw it. Hated it.
Vomited.
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Chuck:
I loved “Training Day”. What makes that movie work, at least for me, is that we are so used to Denzel Washington playing the good guy, particularly good policemen, that we assume he is good going in, as does his trainee, Ethan Hawke – only to discover to our shock that he is anything but! The film does not excuse his “flawed” character or even tries to. Once we discover his true nature he is regarded as just plain evil.
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“In this story a black woman will throw herself at you, be with you even if your father is openly racist while you give little sign of being much different and, right after she has caught you in a huge lie, does nothing but smiles and eats ice cream with you and looks at the stars. Maybe you live in a world like that. I certainly do not.”
LOL…abagond is a comedian today…eating icecream and looking at the stars…
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I disliked this movie because of it’s sense of hopelessness. It left me feeling hollowed out, there was no joy to compete with the despair.
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I have never seen this movie and have absolutely no intention of seeing it. I remember when it first came out; when Black men and Black women learned that I had not yet seen it, they literally BEGGED me not to. I think most of them had a problem with the manner in which the “romance” between Berry and Thornton’s characters was handled. Why can’t Black female sexuality ever be presented in a normal, healthy and loving manner?
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Distraught beautiful black woman throwing herself at sub-standard white dude.
Gotta love how some white guys see that and instantly think, “Realism.”
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Would the reaction been different if Hallie Berry had not played the role? What if it had been CCH Pounder?
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Ankh,
Well, it does play into many of their fantasies that their being White is all they need to bring to the table in a relationship with a BW. And that the most mediocre and sub-par of them are deserving of the cream of the BW crop.
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The only thing Thornton’s character brought to the table was that he stumbled across her on the highway as her son laid dying. The movie’s not supposed to be a fucking fairy tale; its implicit in the movie – from what I can tell – that these two flawed individuals only fell in love because they really had no other options.
Halle Berry’s beauty wasn’t a part of the essence of that character; it wasn’t supposed to be about a redneck prison worker being able to pull a hot sexy black woman.
witchsister:
This is an idiotic statement. White men don’t think like that. Most of us white men are surprised when we find out that a black woman is attracted to us because we’ve been conditioned to think that that doesn’t happen.
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lol @ witchsistah…you may have a point…
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Training Day was a movie about bad guys, white, black and brown. It never tries to “reason” nor ” explain” their behavior for the better. These guys are just bad. Plain and simple. As for the Ethan Hawles character in the movie, in the end he beats the shit out of Denzel and leaves him to die. He knows this guy is going to get killed one way of the other and does nothing to stop that, so he has become one bad mfker too. As for the Oscar for Denzel in that movie: he is friggin good in it. Just look at him working the white boy into to the trap of chicano gangsbangers. That is cold, man, and extremely well played.
The problem with Monsters ball is that the story, for me, did not seem to be real. And I do not mean realistic but real in its world. Don’t get me wrong, the actors did a good job, but the story just is not believable.
As for the black women/white men/white women/black men thing, maybe it is a surprising thing in USA. I know it is not over here in Europe. It happens all the time. It is possible, if not a norm. So maybe that is what bugs me. That for somehow, in Deep South, a racist prison guard all of a sudden falls in love with a poor black woman, who falls in love with him, despite the fact that this is the guy who pulled the switch on his ole man.
Chuck says that they did not have a choice. How come? We are not told in the movie that there are no other women and men available. We are not told that in this county there are no more other women and men left to choose from.
I’ve been in few places after accidents, actually helped some victims, but none of them fell in love with me. And if I knew that some one, even as an officer of law or what ever, actually did an execution of my wife and mother of my child, no matter what she would have done, I would not nor I could ever love that person. Not in a million gazillion years. Never ever, no matter how pretty she would be. I might not kill that person on a spot, but loving her? I mean, that is a stretch for me.
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I must admit you got me interested in this movie. I guess I assumed what characters do is supposed to be strange, not rational. Like I sadi, I haven’t seen the movies, but according to my mother’s interpretation, we were supposed to see how numb they all are. Not much of a human spirit left in any of them. Also, Thornton’s character is supposed to be completely unsympathetic, and Berry’s desperate and numb.
But it all depends on the way they handled it in the movie. This like this can easily turn into white guy fantasy, and, judging by your answers, it’s exactly what happened here.
PS-I still don’t think there’s anything wrong about a movie or a book with unsympathetic protagonist. But it does make it a difficult read/watch.
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Chuck said:
“its implicit in the movie – from what I can tell – that these two flawed individuals only fell in love because they really had no other options. “
A woman as good-looking as Halle Berry has options. Plenty. She does not have to throw herself at a middle-aged white man she barely knows.
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“Monster’s Ball” only got made because white people have certain ideas about black women.
That can be easily proved: put Pamela Anderson in place of Halle Berry:
1. Thornton would be seen as a sleazy creep who is taking advantage of her misfortune.
2. Anderson would be seen as not right in the head: first for throwing herself at a middle-aged man she barely knows and then for not caring that he has been deceiving her and for not caring that this man killed one of her relatives, even if it was as an officer of the state.
3. Most people would hate the ending because Thornton gets away with being a sleazy creep.
In fact, it sounds like a Lifetime film with the last ten minutes cut out – the part where she gets wise and gets even.
Maybe there are women just that brainless and desperate and beautiful who fall into the arms of middle-aged men with little money, the world is big enough, but they appear on Jerry Springer for shock value and laughs, not as serious, dramatic characters in award-winning Hollywood films.
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I didn’t see the movie. I had no interest in it.
Thornton is a great actor and Halle is quite beautiful. But I found the premise unbelievable and somewhat troubling.
Can we imagine if the race and genders were reversed though?
Would Hollywood ever make a movie in which Scarlett Johansson or Gwyneth Paltrow play desperate confused women that fall in love with and have graphic sex scenes with a Forrest Whittaker or a Charles Dutton, who are later shown not only to be bigoted against whites but also executed the lead actress’ white husband. And despite this, the lead actress sticks by her new lover and becomes his, if not wife, kept woman?
That film would never be made or if made would not get any critical acclaim. The larger white market would not support it.
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LOL: Gwyneth Paltrow and Forest Whitaker! Thank you.
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Peanut:
Come to think of it, when it first came out on DVD back in 2002 or whenever, I could not bear to watch it all the way through. I saw it straight through the other day only because I am doing a post on Lee Daniels.
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“A woman as good-looking as Halle Berry has options. Plenty. She does not have to throw herself at a middle-aged white man she barely knows.”
Well, yeah in real life. In the movies everyone is good-looking except sometimes villains and peripheral characters.
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@Shady_Grady
LOL! You do make a good point. While it’s not a movie I have seen nor is it anywhere near MB, but “Black Snake Moan” is might be about as close as you’re going to get…
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“White men don’t think like that. Most of us white men are surprised when we find out that a black woman is attracted to us because we’ve been conditioned to think that that doesn’t happen.”
…Witchsistah, why are you making me agree with Chuck?
I hate when people do that.
You will pay for this.
😉
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I found the movie to be interesting as a story. I saw it in the theater, with no expectations or knowledge of what it was about, for the most part. The ‘make me feel good scene’, literally blew off, the back of my head;and not in a good way. I was with a blk female friend, and we both were none to pleased with that scene. If you take that five or six minute scene out, the story is intriguing; however, the scene’s graphic ‘sexual execution’ of this blk woman, appeared as a symbolism of the ‘slave-master/enslaved blk woman’ trope, which was very unpleasant.
I was as unhappy and disturbed with that scene, as I was with the interaction between the Thandie Newton character and Matt Dillon characters in ‘Crash’. Dillons’ character violates, humiliates, disrespects and sexually violates Newton’s character, and husband (Terrance Howard) in one scene, and then is ‘the hero’ in ‘saving her’ in the car crash scene later in the film. wtf!
The white male, can violate these blk female characters, murder the husband/significant male others’, person/dignity, and then the wm, is rewarded with the woman’s body or sense of self. I think that is how bm/blk community viewed certain aspects of blk female/children in the ‘welfare system’; forcing/pushing blk men out of the family context. The blk man is rendered hopeless/helpless, but the wm is essentially ‘responsible’ for the care of the blk woman;blk woman is at the mercy of the wm/white society.
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I’m inclined to think that the movie didn’t just accidentally turn out to be a white man’s fantasy. The role was offered to Vanessa Williams, Angela Bassett and Halle Berry; extreme physical attractiveness was a prerequisite for Leticia Musgrove’s character. Why wasn’t the same standard applied when casting the male lead? (Sorry Billy, I think you look great, just not on par with the others.) It seems like the casting crew attempted to draw in the white male audience by appealing to a fantasy of theirs (not that ALL white men secretly harbour this fantasy).
I don’t have a problem with “fantasy” shows per se. I just watched a Taiwanese drama the other day where a working class plain Jane gets courted by a Drop Dead Gorgeous Hot Shot Lawyer (check out Jerry Yan!); the show had fantasy written all over it, yet I thought it was pretty harmless fun. Monster’s Ball bothers me because the “fantasy” aspect wasn’t so overt (except mostly to the black audience), so some people walk away thinking that’s reality. Also, race is a pretty heavy topic, which just shouldn’t mix with “fantasy” love stories.
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The role was also offered to, brace yourself, QUEEN LATIFAH!(sp?) Thank god she didn’t get the role or it would have been more disasterous then Halle Berry. I also forgot to say I couldn’t believe a black man directed this movie. And that this movie was some sick white man fantasy.
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The movie was decently acted but badly directed and very badly edited. The underlying story is about two broken characters finding salvation and redemption through their love. It could have been a powerful story. The movie failed to tell that story in convincing fashion, focusing instead on the more lurid visual bits.
There was considerable controversy about Halle’s Oscar for this role. While I agree that Halle is not particularly strong as an actor and that it’s a travesty that other much better performances, by other much better African American actors, were overlooked prior to (and after) her award, I do think the criticism vs. Halle for taking the role based on its graphic nature is unfair to her. Look at Charlize Theron, who within a year or two of “Monster’s Ball” played a murderous whore, a role that netted her an Oscar (in a movie titled almost exactly the same — “Monster”). I saw very little of the same type of criticism of Charlize.
Halle has a parallel life (parallel to her film career) as a beauty queen/fashion model. She seems to enjoy taking on movie roles that are a contrast to her “beauty on a pedestal” real life, gritty characters that seem uncharacteristic for somebody like her. Halle’s breakout role as a crack whore in “Jungle Fever” was an early example. The “Monster’s Ball” role is consistent.
As to race, there is no question that the Academy has a long racist history, whcih continues to this day. On a personal level I have always felt that Alfre Woodard is one of the best actors to have ever come from Hollywood, yet she has never received an Academy Award (though she has received a nomination, as well as several Golden Globes).
Aside from race, Academy Awards are often given for political reasons — for example, giving an award to somebody who has been in the bizz for a long time based on a relatively weak recent role, which happens a lot, or giving a “documentary” award to Michael Moore, who does not produce documentaries, even when very worthy actual documentaries are up for consideration — as a result of which the award often does not reflect the actor’s best role or the most deserving candidate. I think there is a lingering sense that Halle’s award smacked of tokenism by the Acadmey, a sense that has been amplified by the dearth of subsequent awards for black actors.
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I haven’t seen the movie (except the sex scene), but LOL at the comparison to Lifetime! I love a good, cheesy Lifetime drama, and that’s what it sounds like, from the description–except the part Abagond described should’ve been compressed into an hour, then in the second half she should’ve discovered his secret plot to kill her, plotted revenge, and framed him for a crime that put him on Death Row. But I digress. 🙂
When you pare it down, the premise sounds interesting: a grieving woman falls in love with a guy, then finds out he “killed” her husband. What ended up on screen sounds like a mess–maybe LD tried to pull off one of those coveted “ambiguous morality” films, but from what I’m reading, it sounds like the character motivation aspect wasn’t very convincing. Lots of movies are like that, but I think the racial angle put this particular film in the spotlight.
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Jasmin:
LMAO. Right, on Lifetime she would find out the truth about him just before the top of the hour – to keep you from changing channels!
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Wow, I didn’t know it was offered to Queen Latifah; that puts the casting in a different light. (I think she’s attractive, but not exactly a siren like the other three actresses.)
But still, even if the role had gone to Queen Latifah, I find it irksome that the female lead is grappling with racism in society while the male lead gets to check black women off his sexual to-do list. If they had simply removed the sex scene, the movie wouldn’t have given me that vibe of appealing to audience fantasy.
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Jason said:
“Well, yeah in real life. In the movies everyone is good-looking except sometimes villains and peripheral characters.”
You would have a point if Thornton’s character was played by Brad Pitt – or even Sean Connery.
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“You would have a point if Thornton’s character was played by Brad Pitt – or even Sean Connery.”
I see what your saying, but I could name tons of movies where the female lead is way more attractive than the male lead. If your going to have a sex scene in a movie, the woman better be smokin’ as a rule, the dude just has to be in shape.
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sam:
You’re simplifying Berry’s character. You assume that she would just become bitterly angry at The Man and Thornton for executing her husband. Perhaps she’s more rational than that. Perhaps she *hated* her deceased husband for his criminality and for leaving her alone with a child that she doesn’t seem to love all that much. This movie tries to show that people are deeper than that; as I wrote in a comment above there are people in this world who *marry* death row inmates; there are women who love and adore men who beat them up.
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abagond:
Like I said, even though Berry is beautiful in the movie, we’re not necessarily supposed to view her that way within the movie. Her character isn’t supposed to be a 10.
Either way she’d likely have options. But how would she explore those options and select a mate? Would she perk up after her husbands death, leave her child home alone, and head to the club to pick up a guy? Would she slough off all of her emotional baggage to go on a date with a man she met at a grocery store and then move on to unrealistically eat ice cream? Likely not. It took something dramatic and life-changing for her to even contemplate “options”.
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Natasha W:
Just try it. It won’t hurt.
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Natasha,
We all know Chuck is about White men first, foremost and only. So this fantasy of a beautiful BW throwing herself at a mediocre, racist WM suits him to a T. After all, isn’t it supporting the idea of inherent White male desirability? As usual, he doesn’t give a shyt about the Black female character, just so long as the White guy gets the goodies.
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“I see what your saying, but I could name tons of movies where the female lead is way more attractive than the male lead.”
True. It’s not uncommon to see in real life either. But then we have to get into what is considered attractive and how that is all subjective. Billy Bob Thornon is puke-worthy IMO (in the screenshots he doesn’t look terrible though), Sean Connery wouldn’t be any better. He is ancient; then people would just focus on the “old white guy/younger non-white woman” angle.
As far as I can tell, this movie isn’t far from similar movies and shows, except the relationship is interracial. I have yet to see the movie, but I don’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction against it for that reason. It doesn’t seem extremely different from the relationship of Eric Foreman (Omar Epps) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) on House that commences as she is dying from Huntington’s chorea. They had a crazy make out session and were also shown in the bed together, but it’s television, so it’s not going to show them in action like a movie would.
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Witchsistah,
Lol.
But didn’t a black man produce this? That’s what I’m having a hard time understanding. If it’s a white man’s fantasy, what does it say that a black man produced it? There all kinds of implications from that fact which no one seems to be addressing.
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Speaking of overlooked black actors, Mos Def stole every scene he was in. This man has quietly crafted a a body of film work involving an eclectic mix of characters, in each instance expertly wrought. He deserves a vehicle in which he is the leading man (or would he become another Phillip Seymour Hoffman — always excellent in supporting roles but gets too hammy when he leads?).
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witchsister:
It’s not like Thornton’s character was Berry’s first choice or anything. Her desirability for him was a function of a lot of crappy events in her life. Not like she was beating down the door looking to “swirl” in this movie. You obviously have your own agenda here.
BTW, anyone seen “The Big C” on Showtime which shows Laura Linney who has skin cancer cheating on her husband with Edris Elba’s character? It is angering if only because a woman who is going to die thus leaving behind a grieving family is cheating with another man. But the point is that people are fucked up and do fucked up things.
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Shady_Grady,
“Would Hollywood ever make a movie in which Scarlett Johansson or Gwyneth Paltrow play desperate confused women that fall in love with and have graphic sex scenes with a Forrest Whittaker or a Charles Dutton”
As I mentioned above, the relationship in this movie doesn’t seem different from the relationship between Omar Epps’ character and Olivia Wilde’s character in House. Except this time, the black man is risking his job (a black man who would usually never takes risks, let alone one concerning his job, by the way) to save the dying, self-destructive, sexually confused white woman.
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Black folks make most of the rap out there pushing the gansta, “bling-bling” aesthetic complete with BW being nothing but “bytches an’ hoes” with said BW gyrating scantily clad in said videos. Don’t those images portray negative stereotypes of Blacks including the Jezebel one?
Problematic images and messages can come from members of the group those messages denigrate. So I don’t see the disconnect just because there was a Black producer on board.
And despite that, anyone knows most Hollywood projects START out one way and finish utterly different. Look at The Last Airbender and its unfortunate racial casting. They Whitewashed those characters (something similar happened to Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea when it was televised). And they not only got M. Night Shamylan to direct it but also speak up in support of what they did.
I don’t know how the story started or how much input this Black producer had. Black people are not a monolith and there are many that don’t see problems in Monster’s Ball (outside of the explicit sex scene but not because it was interracial and involving a Black person but because it was explicit). That person may have been one of them.
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Forgot to add, his job as a neurologist and chief of diagnostics at an internationally-recognized hospital
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Witchsistah,
What I’m wondering is why people aren’t taking more issue with the willingness of the producer to present such images. Producers are the bottom line with any film. And this isn’t the first time that this particular producer has made films that are seen as perpetuating negative stereotypes of black women.
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Case in point: Precious. Lee Daniels, a Black man was in charge of that. And he made a big casting change in almost direct opposition to what the book that movie is based on stated. Daniels cast Paula Patton as Precious’ literacy teacher. In the book, Sapphire has a dark-skinned, Black woman with dreds as the teacher.
Why? To counteract Precious’ colorism that is helping eat her soul alive. To Precious, bad things happen to her because she’s fat, poor and “ugly” here meaning dark-skinned. She thinks if she were at least light-skinned, she’d have a better life automatically. In her mind, light-skinned people, especially light-skinned women have wonderful, easy lives. She knows they are definitely preferred and privileged amongst the Black folks she lives with and among. They let her know that every chance they get. Precious even has fantasies where she’s loved by a light-skinned man (and it was stressed he HAD to be light) to feel worthy and lovable.
Sapphire made Precious’ teacher dark-skinned for a reason and on purpose. Ms. Rain (Blue Rain) shows precious that a decent life is NOT just for light-skinned folks. Precious finally sees a dark-skinned Black woman, WITH NAPPY HAIR who is PROUD of who she is to the point of not disguising her real hair texture. She sees this woman is educated and of a higher class than her. Precious starts to consider that maybe it is NOT the fate of dark-skinned Blacks to live on the bottom.
But Lee Daniels’ casting of Paula Patton snatched all that away. While Precious still learned much from Patton’s Ms. Rain, the connection to her as a fellow dark-skinned BW who’d be able to relate to being on the losing end of colorism was severed.
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Chuck,
You have the NERVE to talk to me about having AGENDAS? Please! Your whole mantra is poor White men are so put upon because they have actually to acknowledge “those people” as human, at least pay lip service to it.
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…I’m not saying I disagree that the film is stereotyping and belittling of black women. I haven’t seen it yet. What I’m wondering is why those who perpetuate stereotypes aren’t examined as closely as those who created said stereotypes. I’m not automatically willing to dismiss harm done by non-whites as brain-washing from white supremacy/white racism. Every person has agency.
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@ Natasha
He might have just taken a script he liked and put a BW in it instead of a white women.
You could probably pick 10 movies at random, swap out the white girl for a BW and marvel at all the creepy racial dynamics you just created.
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Natasha,
Oh believe me, I look at all perps of these images. I don’t give PoC a pass whether they’re pimping images of their people or of others. I don’t diminish the harm done either. If anything, I hold them to a higher level of responsibility because, especially if they’re a PoC in America, they ought to understand what controlling images do to folks.
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jas0n,
True.
But we don’t know that the script wasn’t written as interracial from the start. That seems like the likely scenario, seeing as so many other black women were recruited and turned it down; he could have just looked to a white woman then if the interracial aspect wasn’t crucial to the story. And we also can’t assume that the producer wasn’t aware of the dynamic created. Especially since he was well aware of the implications of his other controversial film.
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Natasha:
“What I’m wondering is why people aren’t taking more issue with the willingness of the producer to present such images. Producers are the bottom line with any film. And this isn’t the first time that this particular producer has made films that are seen as perpetuating negative stereotypes of black women.”
Not to worry. This post is leading up to one on Lee Daniels. And I agree with Witchsistah that because he should know better it is less excusable.
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“Daniels reveals that casting Berry in the title role was a challenge. “Initially, I didn’t want her for the role,” he says. “She’s so beautiful; I couldn’t see her as this beaten-down woman at the end of her rope.””
-Lee Daniels
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“Berry felt otherwise and lobbied hard for the role. “Practically every Black woman in Hollywood wanted this movie,” Daniels recalls. “She was the last to come aboard. Halle came in and I didn’t want her. Then she said, `Wait a minute, let’s back up here. You’re telling me that I am too pretty for this character?’ She convinced me she could deliver the emotional range of this character.”
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Lee Daniels also admitted in an interview to his own colorism issues.
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“Practically every Black woman in Hollywood wanted this movie” -Daniels
Are we supposed to believe this?
Somehow I very much doubt this. VERY.
Angela Bassett sure wasn’t clamoring for the role. And she’s one of the best black actresses in Hollywood. Neither was Vanessa Williams falling over herself for it. Are they not “beautiful” enough? He could see them playing the character instead?
I call BS.
Witchsistah,
“Lee Daniels also admitted in an interview to his own colorism issues.”
Hmph!
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Blanc2 said:
“I do think the criticism vs. Halle for taking the role based on its graphic nature is unfair to her. Look at Charlize Theron, who within a year or two of “Monster’s Ball” played a murderous whore, a role that netted her an Oscar (in a movie titled almost exactly the same — “Monster”). I saw very little of the same type of criticism of Charlize.”
Charlize Theron is not comparable.
First, white women win Best Actress regularly, black women do not. Theron is more than balanced out by Meryl Streep, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Faye Dunaway, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Susan Hayword, Joanne Woodward, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis and on and on and on all the way back to the 1920s.
Second, Hollywood has a much greater power to stereotype blacks than whites. So “Monster’s Ball” matters more than “Monster”. Angela Bassett understood that and so, presumably, did Queen Latifah and Vanessa Williams.
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Halle should have just claimed to be the first mixed woman to win the Oscar. It seems to that’s really what this is about. You just can’t win with some folks.
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Must be pretty hard to be a black actress in Hollywood. Not only are there few roles available to you, the ones that are out there portray blacks in stereotypical ways. I don’t think there’s much work out there for the socially responsible actor/actress of color.
You would think films made by POC would be a solution but Tyler Perry is proof to the contrary.
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To be honest, I’ve never heard of this “jezabel” stereotype before and I don’t think many white people are familiar with it. If people here were truly concerned with the propagation of anti-black stereotypes, they would be criticizing rappers, girls who star in rap music videos, etc. It is interesting that Angela Bassett did play the mother of “Notorious B.I.G.” in one movie.
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““I do think the criticism vs. Halle for taking the role based on its graphic nature is unfair to her. Look at Charlize Theron, who within a year or two of “Monster’s Ball” played a murderous whore, a role that netted her an Oscar (in a movie titled almost exactly the same — “Monster”). I saw very little of the same type of criticism of Charlize.”
This illustrates white privilege well.
The privilege to portray a loathsome character on film without worrying that it will perpetuate stereotypes about your race.
Nobody is going to walk away from Monster thinking less of white women as a group.
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witchsister:
Where have I displayed that mantra? Discussing race realism at my blog as I often do isn’t me dehumanizing black people. I’ve never espoused an idea of diminishing black peoples’ rights; you and I just have different definitions of what people are naturally entitled to as human beings and we have different ideas on how to solve social issues. That you contort my meaning means that you either DO have an agenda or you are incapable of acknowledging the black community’s organicly grown problems. I’m just not going to be shackled by political correctness which means that I say some things that aren’t exactly music to your ears.
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…you are incapable of acknowledging the black community’s organicly grown problems. I’m just not going to be shackled by political correctness …
This is something that I just can’t wrap my head around.
If you can look at the “black community” and say to yourself that you see problems that are unique to that community, then why can’t you take the next logical step and say that those problems exist because of racism. There would be no black community in America without racism, without white people. So all of those special problems you say are “organically grown” which I assume you mean homegrown originated with whites and our racism. There is just no other way to see it if you acknowledge that people are people.
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FG:
Agreed on anti-black stereotypes in rap. Those have been most damaging to images of black people. Which is why thuggishness is thrown back into black peoples’ faces so readily in racial discussion; that is the image of black people that is most portrayed and glorified, and the masses eat it up and even copy those images.
Anyway, on to “Notorious”. I watched that movie last week and was awe-struck by two things: first, the movie got good generally good reviews, second, it portrayed most of the women in that movie (Faith Evans and Lil Kim) as being stupid gullible children. Maybe it was true to life, but Biggie could sway his head side to side and coo at Faith Evans and she’d forgive all of his transgressions?
If I were a black woman it would be much less “offensive” to have a character depicted like Halle Berry’s character in that her mind wasn’t wiped clean by a little cooing and wooing. She *suffered*.
But what is most telling about the commenters here is that they place so much emphasis on Billy Bob Thornton’s character’s racism and are flabbergasted that Berry’s character would be with such a man, but they don’t raise one complaint when Faith Evans (in real life too) forgave Biggie’s philandering and lack of general commitment (not in this thread per se since this isn’t about ‘Biggie’ but in general discussion about the movie ‘Biggie’ in other venues) Thorton’s transgression deals with a generality – black people as a monolithic group; Biggie’s transgression is much more intimate and personal – it harms the individual Faith Evans. Since the transgression against Evans is more personal it would seem that she should be more pissed off about her partner’s behaviors and values.
Your arguments on this matter lump Berry’s character into a simplistic role. It chides her for not being a one-dimensional stereotypical black woman. I find that funny since a lot of the discussion on this board is disatisfaction with the stereotype that all black people act the same and value the same things.
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jas0n, I disagree. There are problems within the “black community” that have at the most, little to do with white racism. Furthermore, even with some of the issues that can be originally attributed to white racism, there has to be some level of accountability… But that’s neither here nor there because Chuck’s conclusions of Witchsistah’s motives are entirely off-base: she acknowledges internal issues all the time.
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Witchsistah says:
“Your whole mantra is poor White men are so put upon because they have actually to acknowledge “those people” as human, at least pay lip service to it.”
Chuck says:
“Where have I displayed that mantra?”
Chuck, you commented on the “Bethany Storro” post:
“i just happen to view our society as virulenty anti male and particularly anti white male.”
So at least the first part of her statement (“put upon white men”) fits.
I have to admit, that comment, in combination with Ankhesen’s response (“What…this society? Like…American society?… There’s not enough LOL in the world.”) still has me bursting out in laughter; one of the funniest stuff on this blog yet.
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I don’t what blog you all are looking at if you think the treatment of black women in rap/hip-hop and the larger community isn’t addressed. The objectification and/or degradation of black women, especially by black men, is a common discussion here even though it doesn’t have its own post.
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Hi Natasha , I don’t watch much TV and haven’t watched “House”.
That said I don’t think the relationship you mentioned is quite comparable. In the first place according to Wiki the two characters broke up. In the second place it sounds like there may have been some self-sacrificial elements involved on the part of the black character. Next of course, it IS television so it will not have the in your face graphic nature of a movie. But the most important thing would be was the white female character self-abnegating in the way that Berry’s character was? Is Epps’ character shown to have strong bigoted feelings towards whites that he puts aside temporarily only for a chance of physical intimacy? Does the Wilde’s character ignore these feelings for financial/personal gain?
I don’t know as I have only seen “House” a few times on late night reruns.
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Thank you, Natasha,
Just because folks here haven’t seen the whole “gangsta rap/video ho” debate discussions that happen among Black people, doesn’t mean they don’t exist and aren’t continuing to be held.
And I mentioned in this very thread in response to you about folks not taking the BM behind Monster’s Ball to task about how Blacks often produce cultural/ media artifacts that are detrimental to us. But some people want to miss that.
All that constitutes is the “Well, they do it tooooooo!!!” argument whenever you bring up White supremacist racism. Don’t want to hear it? Find some example of PoC intra or inter-racism and hype it up to be WORSE if you can.
But what is most telling about the commenters here is that they place so much emphasis on Billy Bob Thornton’s character’s racism and are flabbergasted that Berry’s character would be with such a man, but they don’t raise one complaint when Faith Evans (in real life too) forgave Biggie’s philandering and lack of general commitment (not in this thread per se since this isn’t about ‘Biggie’ but in general discussion about the movie ‘Biggie’ in other venues)
Like you said, Chuck. We’re not talking about Biggie, Faith or the eevul, nigrah rap music in this thread. We’re talking about one movie Monster’s Ball. So why would we suddenly mention rap music? And what makes you think we don’t discuss rap music in other places. Like I said, just because YOU haven’t been party doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
You sound like we have something to prove to you and didn’t because we didn’t talk about Biggie. Um, who told you we did? We don’t have anything to prove to you, Chuck as much as you’d like that to be true.
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” There are problems within the “black community” that have at the most, little to do with white racism. Furthermore, even with some of the issues that can be originally attributed to white racism, there has to be some level of accountability…”
I would be interested to hear about problems that are unique to the American black community that aren’t rooted in racism. I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
I think discussing a problems root cause is a different conversation from accountability. I’m all about accountability but it’s still important to understand the roots of inequality. It seems like people get caught up in an either/or dichotomy on this topic.
Knowing that a person was abused as a child wouldn’t get him off the hook for abusing his own children, but it would shed light on why he did it. And that understanding is necessary if the goal is to change destructive behavior.
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“I think discussing a problems root cause is a different conversation from accountability. I’m all about accountability but it’s still important to understand the roots of inequality. It seems like people get caught up in an either/or dichotomy on this topic.”
yes, Yes, YES!
I actually think some people seriously need to be more accountable, especially parents; when I look at the choices some young adults make these days, I really want to whack some of them on the head.
But equally, I’m so tired of meeting folks who are such fervent believers in personal accountability, that they refuse to see any larger picture. It’s so myopic and unnecessarily defensive.
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jas0n,
“I would be interested to hear about problems that are unique to the American black community that aren’t rooted in racism. I can’t think of any off the top of my head.”
That’s okay, I can:
(1) a 70+ percent out of wedlock birth rate.
The root of many other problems. Interesting fact: the black out of wedlock birth rate was much lower during the Jim Crow era.
(2) Rampant sexism and misogyny.
(3) Glorification of culture(s) that are detrimental to the “community” (linked to lack of two-parent households).
I can continue, but let’s not derail.
“I’m all about accountability but it’s still important to understand the roots of inequality. It seems like people get caught up in an either/or dichotomy on this topic. “
Blaming the “white man” for every problem under the sun that ails black people worldwide is ultimately a harmful practice. It can lead to either a general complacency or a refusal to critically analyze oneself and the larger community. It is necessary to acknowledge both the harmful effects of white racism and the harmful effects of self-inflicted, negative behavior remaining unchecked.
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Okay, I guess I have to take a one politically uncorrect look at this film:
“The role was also offered to, brace yourself, QUEEN LATIFAH!(sp?) Thank god she didn’t get the role or it would have been more disasterous then Halle Berry.”
Lets see what would’ve happened if Queen Latifah would have taken this role:
First, she would have taken over with HER production company. Then she would have taken that racist dick for a ride of his life. She would’ve said that ok, my husband did a bad thing and dies in prison, but you BeepBeepBeep will get your white mamas ass whupped for good. And then she would’ve beaten the prison dick into a pulp. And she would’ve taken her kids and told them that “in this world there are two kind of women; those who do what they want and when they want and those who don’t. Never be the second. I’ll refuse to be anybodys doormat anymore, specially of an white craker who executed your daddy.”
Okay, lets assume she would’ve kept the romance in there. The sex scene would’ve been like this: she would’ve told that white boy to get it on and better be good or I’ll kick your nuts across this trailer park. And she would’ve humped that poor ole red neck so well, that in the end of the movie he would’ve been carrying grocery bag and walk ten feet behind his black woman like a good obeying puppy does.
I understand if somebody gets annoyed by this, but I did not bring up Queen Latifah into this. Besides, I think she is good looking too!! If you think that the audiences were gasping at the steamy scenes, think about what they would’ve done if The Queen was there bare brested, smiling and saying: “okay, white boy, can you show me some loving or do I call your momma to take you back home?” That would’ve been something else! 😀
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Problems in the black community and gangsta rap are Chuck-induced derailments. I am deleting any further comments about them on this thread.
Those who wish to continue his derailments can go to these posts:
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ok sorry A
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Wow. I think it’s a given that no one posting here would enjoy seeing the Brazilian film Bendita Fruta then… 😀
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To Abagond:
A woman as good-looking as Halle Berry has options. Plenty. She does not have to throw herself at a middle-aged white man she barely knows.
I thought there deep flaws in the movie and with Billy Bob Thornton’s character but considering that he was married to Angelina Jolie in real life (and all of his other wives have also been lookers..) some women seem to find him desirable. In real life he and Berry are 10 years apart. (He was in mid-40s when the film was made and she was in her mid-30s…) Also it’s very common for Hollywood to put female characters on the screen who are better looking than the story would normally call for.
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Monster’s Ball was all about the sexualisation of white supremacy using Ms Berry as its ‘conductor’. See below:
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Menelik,
Check this video.
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@Sister La Reyna,
a very interesting video, indeed! I wonder, would it be worth some of the ladies on here watching it?
Hmmmm…
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Menelik Charles,
I think they’d have to convince white men first.
I still wonder whether the reaction would have been the same if they had cast someone like CCH Pounder.
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@ abagond:
aaah, i thought training day was a bit dodgy too! does this mean my brain is being scrambled by the interwebz?
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Hathor said:
@ Menelik,
I think they’d have to convince white men first.
Menelik asks:
“convince white men” of what, my dear?
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In short, “Monstrous Balls”.
I agree with Hathor that a less iconically beautiful female lead would have made this film a hell of a lot better.
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Shady_Grady,
So they don’t have the exact same storylines. Okay. What two films or shows have the exact same storylines?
All the details you presented seem irrelevant to the grand scheme of things: would the film have been more palatable if Berry and Thornton’s characters had a low-key break-up somewhere down the line?
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Let’s just cut to the meat of the matter: what irks everyone here is the fact that the white guy falls in love with a pretty black woman and she recirpocates.
If Thornton were black or Berry white, I very much doubt that half of the “issues” articulated above would even exist.
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^Agreed… somewhat.
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@Thad and Natasha
Maybe I need educating here but tell me of a Hollywood film film in which the actors roles were reversed in the way you both seem to agree with:
But, why leave it at that? Lets also have one where the white woman (in Berry’s role) also gets the acclaim of the Hollywood film industry by receiving an Oscar for it.
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Hint: Hollywood hasn’t made a box office film yet in which a major Male Black actor gets involved in explicit love/sex scenes with a major female white actor.
Excerpt of course in the porno industry!!!
This should tell you something about the racial dynamics at play here…
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My point is if the couple were not heterochromatic (figure it out), hardly anyone would complain. My point is NOT that a BM/WW film would receive universal acclaim.
Mmmmmm’kay, Kwamla?
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It would be a thoroughly forgettable movie if it were homochromatic.
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@ Bro Kwamla,
I gotta say this before your intellectual foes get on ya case: Jim Brown (who was a major sports star/actor at the time) had a virtual rape scene with the ‘hot’ actress of her day, Requel Welch in ‘100 Rifles’.
I remember watching it as a boy on late-night British tv, and I was pretty shocked by the scene. In later years, I noted that Ms Welch never again appeared in a major film. She was ‘damaged goods’, I guess.
Menelik Charles
London UK
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If the film were white-on-white most people would hate it. Because then white people would see what a sick sleazebag Thorton is. But because it is a black woman, he is “saving” her, not taking advantage of her. And she is being “sensible” not utterly brainless. There is no way it would have won an Oscar.
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Perhaps then if it had been “homochromatic”, as you say, it would have been more believable and could have taken on a more spiritual dimension where the various tragedies could have been worked out. For example as in the film “21 grams”.
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Yeah, Abagond, that’s just it: the relationship has the quality of a film in which the roles of paedophile and child-abuse victim are reversed! The film is deeply unsettling on so many different levels. Seriously, it was the mainstream equivalent of ‘Ghettogaggers’.
No doubt Hollywood’s Jewish male overseers will be making a film, any time soon, in which a German concentration camp guard responsible for flicking the switch in which 100s of Jews are exterminated, goes on to disguise his identity from a beautiful, grieving, Jewess (whose family he’d killed) with whom he shares explicit sex scenes.
Don’t hold ya breath, folks!
Menelik Charles
London UK
PS Angela Bassett has real dignity!
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Jim Brown (who was a major sports star/actor at the time) had a virtual rape scene with the ‘hot’ actress of her day, Requel Welch in ’100 Rifles’.
Ooh, cool! I remember him from “Kentucky Fried Movie”. 😀
If the film were white-on-white most people would hate it. Because then white people would see what a sick sleazebag Thorton is.
I’m confused as to why Thornton is supposedly sick here. Please it explain it to me. And seriously, this is a problem, because every Brazilian I knew who saw the picture, whatever their color, didn’t see this “sickness” y’all are talking about. They just thought it was a typical crappy movie.
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Well La Reyna, that video provides an interesting “black” (i.e. African American) ethno-authoritarian perspective on these matters.
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With regard to the video, it should be noted that the One Drop Rule and opposition to “interracial marriage” did not really target those we usually think of when the term “black people” is used but rather those who used to be referred to as “quadroon” and “octoroon.”
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This trailer confirms Jim Brown as a major star of the time (1969…I say it in the late 70s)
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Didn’t Brown do a boatload of blaxploitation flicks, too?
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Kwamla:
“O” with Mekhi Phifer and Julia Stiles. “Save the Last Dance” again with Julia Stiles. “Crazy/Beautiful” which featured Kirsten Dunst and a Hispanic man. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” featuring Sidney Poitier (which spawned the recent remake featuring the opposite pairing called “Guess Who”).
And how about counting television? All of the dating shows on MTV and VH1 feature black men picking from groups of mostly white women. “For the Love of Ray J”, “Real Chance at Love”, “Chad Ochocinco”, etc.
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“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” had explicit sex/love scenes in it?
Where can I get that director’s cut version? 😀
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I think the point here Chuck is that Hollywood isn’t yet prepared to show a white woman getting f***ed by a black man and enjoying it.
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Menelik Charles,
For that video to be true, it would have to be true that white men desire to have black women as wives. In the US this is not the case. Look at the statistics of Abagond’s last post.
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Let me get this straight…
1 in 35 black women has a white husband.
1 in 400 white men has a black wife.
There’re about 120 million white men in the U.S. and about 20 million black women.
So the rate is about HALF of what we might expect for white men. Still, that’s 7 million or so white guys married to black women. That’s hardly nobody, Hathor.
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@ Thad
“I think the point here Chuck is that Hollywood isn’t yet prepared to show a white woman getting f***ed by a black man and enjoying it.”
Right. Not wild about your choice of language but I agree. Which I think leads to weird situations in film where black men are somehow portrayed as the keepers of white women’s sexuality. Since WW-BM sexual pairings are seen as *unthinkable* a BM is a possible friend and accomplice to a WW, since the audience can be confident nothing sexual will come of it. ‘The Long Kiss Goodnight’ with Samuel L. Jackson and Gena Davis is an example of this – as is, weirdly enough, ‘Meet Dave’. In these movies the WW throws herself at the BM – but he is entirely unresponsive (of course, the fact that he’s actually an alien spacecraft in ‘Meet Dave’ slightly complicates stuff!). Something I find very offensive and demoralizing.
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Not wild about your choice of language but I agree.
Sorry. I try to avoid using terms like “black” and “white” to describe human ethnicity, but on this blog they’re inevitable.
I remember the Saturday Night Live sketch where “Morgan Freeman” did a voice-over plea for being cast in a torrid romance film opposite a white heroine. “Sharon Stone [or whoever]. What’s a brother gotta do do to get some of that? I don’t want to be driving Miss Daisy, I want to be f***ing Miss Daisy…”
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@ Thad: no, no – using ‘black’ and ‘white’ is fine: I agree with you that it’s annoying but inevitable.
I was referring to the “woman getting f***ed and liking it”.
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What? Women don’t like f***ing?
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Never saw this shameful movie and have no plans to do anytime soon, or ever.
Movies like this are why I call Halle Berry ‘white’ – no self-respecting black woman would star in this! Angela Basset has more talent in her littlest toe than Ms. Berry has in her entire body. I wish Ms. Basset had starred as Storm in the X-Men films; she looks much more like the African princess that Storm / Ororo is!
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I refused to watch this trash movie and Halle lost all my respect for that role. It was definitely racial propaganda reasons that she won Best Actress for that movie. Not Losing Isaiah or any other great role she did, but Monster’s Ball? Come on now!
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@Bronze,
your stance is correct!
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Monster’s Ball is one of my top two most hated films. I really wanted to bleach my brain and unsee the film. The disgusting “sex” scene was unnecessarily long. I thought that it would be over soon, but they kept at it for no reason but to be pornographic. It was really disgusting, because he is a racist white man taking advantage of a drunk black woman who is emotionally vulnerable because just lost her son, and she doesn’t know that he’s racist. This is rape.
There is a really depressing power imbalance in their “relationship”. He is a well-off white man, while she is a poor black woman. She “chooses” to be with him, because the other option is that she ends up homeless on the streets. But the point of the movie is the racist white man’s personal journey and racial “redemption” through interracial sex, since the poor black woman who has no choice but to do him or be homeless is just an accessory.
I literally felt nauseous for a few hours after watching this film. Don’t bother watching this, since you learn nothing. If you are unwise and decide to watch it anyway, make sure you have some kind of happy visual/audio chaser at hand to block out images of rapey, power-imbalance sexual intercourse.
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Yeah, Abagond, that’s just it: the relationship has the quality of a film in which the roles of paedophile and child-abuse victim are reversed! The film is deeply unsettling on so many different levels. Seriously, it was the mainstream equivalent of ‘Ghettogaggers’.
No doubt Hollywood’s Jewish male overseers will be making a film, any time soon, in which a German concentration camp guard responsible for flicking the switch in which 100s of Jews are exterminated, goes on to disguise his identity from a beautiful, grieving, Jewess (whose family he’d killed) with whom he shares explicit sex scenes.
Don’t hold ya breath, folks!
Menelik Charles
London UK
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Restructure! said:
“It was really disgusting, because he is a racist white man taking advantage of a drunk black woman who is emotionally vulnerable because just lost her son, and she doesn’t know that he’s racist. This is rape. “
Thank you for saying that. I was talking to a white woman about the film. She said I was being way too cynical, that I do not understand the Power of Love!
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“If you are unwise and decide to watch it anyway, make sure you have some kind of happy visual/audio chaser at hand to block out images of rapey, power-imbalance sexual intercourse.”
haven’t seen the film and don’t want to but I have to laugh at the term “power imbalance sex.” as if there is such a thing as (straight) power balanced sex.
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From a class standpoint, she upgraded…
Looks get women further, not men, as any weight study[There was a very recent one regarding women’s vs men’s weight in getting jobs] will show. If anything it’s sexism/classism, not racism.
Also, he DID marry Angelina, so more proof for the pudding.
Maybe if everyone here wasn’t so cynical regarding looks, you would understand the socio-economic factors that now have a higher roll in our society. There are also a boatload of disorders that contribute to this kind of behavior, just ask any psych major. That’s about as ‘real’ as it gets.
It’s funny that the people who tend to talk about options and ‘doing better’ looks wise, are the people who:
A.] Suck at all other areas of life.
B.] Are ugly.
C.] Are fat.
Have you seen most modeling judges/agents?
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I saw this movie on HBO the other day and I did not like it for two reasons. First, it was poorly made. I did not feel that the characters were fully developed and, as many mentioned before, the motivations of the characters seemed weak.
The other reason I didn’t like it was because I felt it perpetuated a stereotype that I’m seeing a lot of in the media. Before I saw this movie, I had watched a charity commercial asking people to donate money to send food to Africa or other country with starving people. I started thinking that all of the people in those commercials who desperately need our help are people of color. And invariably it seems that the spokesperson is always Caucasian.
It got me thinking that there is this subtle stereotype that is being pushed that people of color cannot handle their business and, therefore, white people must swoop in and save them from themselves.
Then I watched Monster’s Ball and I just felt like it perpetuated that same stereotype. She couldn’t handle her business and had to be saved by a white man both emotionally and financially.
I see what they were trying to do with the movie but I really think it was poorly put together and it gave off all the wrong messages. At least for me. Other people, of course, have a different view.
I also agree that Halle Berry should not have won an award for this movie. I saw her in the movie about Dorothy Dandridge. That’s the movie she should have won an award for. I thought she did a stellar job in that one.
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What is wrong with you people? All this negative criticism about Monster’s Ball. Its a MOVIE! Movies are not a fairytales with happily ever after endings! Movies are supposed to show us the good, bad, and ugly sides of life.
Halle Berry is an actress. She chose to portray a flawed woman. That is what she does for a living. She portrays people who are not her! Halle took a role and she made it believable. That was what she was hired to do, and she did it well.
Also all this stuff about racism etc… Berry and Thornton were two people in pain. It was that pain and loneliness that connected them. And let us not forget that Thornton was good to her in the movie. He bought her a car, and gave her a place to live. He overcame his prejudice, and really fell in love with her. His love was genuine. And he did not kill her husband. He was simply doing the job he was paid to do. And do remember that when his father said that crap about Berry, he quickly got placed in a nursing home. I think sometimes we overanalyze things too much. And let me tell you from experience that some of the most beautiful people in the world have the lowest self esteem. So her looks would not have necessarily kept her from dating someone like Thornton.
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Michelle W said:
And he did not kill her husband. He was simply doing the job he was paid to do.
Menelik asks:
and what job was he paid to do EXACTLY? A specific answer to a specific question would be welcome, thanks.
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@MichelleW.Iam so happy I read your comment.Now I don’t have to write what I was planning.You wrote bascially what I was going to write.Billy Bob character was in love with Halle’s character.Before he met Halle he was just as raciest as his dad.But when he found out what his dad said to her,he kicked his dad out.It sounds to me he cared enough for her to kick his own dad out the house.Iam so happy Halle Berry won the oscar for best leading actress in a flim.She deserved it.And her speech at the oscars had me in tears.
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I found monster`s ball disgusting.Halle`s overacting and southern black accent in the scene describing the fat son and talking about “red curtains on credit” was revolting.And interracial sex scenes are always disgusting,but jewish hollywood producers love to insert them wherever they can as part of their racial agenda.Black people criticize this film for portraying blacks negatively or stereotypically,but its been my observation that most hollywood films portray blacks just fine,often as the unrealistic “equals” or betters of whites.In fact,this film is really intended to portray whites stereotypically,as is the standard jewish hollywood formula in any films with a racial storyline.The southern “white racist” is typical of such films.Films like this arent just intended to entertain or appeal to the viewers compassion,but are often intended to influence their beliefs and opinions on racial matters and direct them toward the politically-correct consensus that whites are racist and that they can atone for this by running with blacks,or that whites and blacks are the same so its okay if they lay down on the same mattress.You get the idea.
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Yeah, good points…lets see a similar story involving a Nazi German officer and a Jewish women…so how far that idea goes lol
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I hated that movies I was with a friend and we just walked out of the movie theater with nothing to say. I remember this women had her young children with her, They were very noisy. I was annoyed that a mother would bring her young children to a film like that. smh.
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I will add that the characters were in pain and this is the way people in pain that are damaged behave.
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No they do not, Mary! Which why the story was so damned extraordinary!
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Well, since Mary was talking about this specific case i.e a fictitious film, she is wrong, so there lol
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Why is it becuse she initiated sex she is seen as throwing herself at him? I thought this movie was okay. She wanted to be with him before she found out about him becuse she felt a closeness from their shared experience of child loss. She grew attached to him in the coarse of the film and wanted to give him a change despite him being a seriously disturbed man. But you’re intitled to dislike the movie.
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