Category Archives: Television

Of Obama, Oscar and the iPhone

26 Monday Feb 2007

Posted by in Apple, Blacks, Business, Entertainment, Gay, Lesbian, LGBT, Movies, Politics, Race, Tech, Television

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Obama RallyBy the time you read this Barack Obama, senator and candidate for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, will have spoken at a public rally in Cleveland, Ohio and I will not have attended. Frankly, I’m a little bit disappointed. I don’t really support Obama, but I don’t really oppose him either. Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind. Various news outlets have reported that blacks generally don’t support Obama’s candidacy because he didn’t go through the civil rights strainer of the 1950s to 1970s, but who in this generation did? We weren’t born in the ’50s and we were kids in the ’60s and ’70s, people! This analysis would suggest that the only qualified black candidates are those 60-years-old and above. I think said analysis is supremely faulty. Assuming this supposed lack of support is, indeed, real, I think another reason is more germane: Obama has a unique background that frightens some, less sophisticated, black people.

The good senator from Illinois grew up in Hawaii where discrimination has a long and dishonorable history, but primarily against Native Hawaiians and not as profoundly against blacks. His father was Kenyan and his mother was from Kansas, both educated at the University of Hawaii where they met. Obama’s father returned to Kenya after a time while and he and his mother remained in Hawaii with his grandfather, a World War II veteran, until she married an Indonesian. Obama has mixed-race Indonesian-Caucasian siblings. He received an Ivy League undergraduate (Columbia University) and graduate (Harvard Law School) education, serving as Harvard’s first black law review president.

Obama is an exemplary individual no matter what his race. I believe the primary obstacle to his acceptance by black voters is that he is in an elite class. By virtue of his accomplishments, he has surpassed the achievements of the average black American and that bothers some people. It also does not help that, traditionally, what is good for white people is not good for anyone else. Therefore, his support among large numbers of whites may be problematic for some, though not all, black folks. And here we run into a serious problem with the news media in general: the habit of monolithically classifying all black Americans. It’s a hell of a lot easier than doing the necessary background research, not to mention keeping an open eye, to learn we are as diverse as our skin colors. Broadcast media, especially, has a tendency to suffer from this myopia. Add the two together and you get a general pronouncement that blacks don’t support Obama.

There are plenty of reasons not to support the man. I’m not crazy about his positions on marriage equality, but I’m not crazy about any candidate’s position except that of Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). I believe he’s too moderate for my tastes as well. I want a left-leaning Democrat because I’ve had enough of the center. I’m not sure Obama isn’t saying one thing to his audiences in Iowa and New Hampshire and another to his audiences in Brooklyn and South Central. I have no evidence of this either way. I just have my suspicions because he can’t be all things to all people as he appears to attempt to be. I will wait and see.

. . .

I was so proud of Best Lead Actor nominee Forest Whitaker and Best Supporting Actress nominee Jennifer Hudson for their wins last night at the Oscars™! I was also very proud of Dreamgirls’ Eddie Murphy for his nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category, but he lost in an upset to Little Miss Sunshine’s Alan Arkin. I won’t say that Murphy was robbed because I think reasonable people could disagree. I will say, however, that his performance as James “Thunder” Early was far and away his best and proved that he is very capable of handling dramatic, non-action roles. The biggest upset for me was Melissa Etheridge’s win for Best Original Song with “I Need To Wake Up” from the Al Gore-inspired documentary An Inconvenient Truth. She was nominated with three songs from Dreamgirls, all written by Henry Krieger with different lyricists, and Randy Newman’s song “Our Town” from the animated movie Cars. I love Etheridge and Newman always writes fabulous music, but the odds were with Dreamgirls. Personally, I can kind of see it. With three songs from the movie nominated, Krieger canceled himself out and these were not the strongest songs in the movie. At least one of those, “And I’m Telling You,” was ineligible because it was from the Broadway play.

Etheridge & Michaels @ Oscars 2007Ten-year-old Best Supporting Actress nominee for Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin, was little-girl-elegant in a little pink dress with a flowered bodice, Swarovski crystal handbag, Jimmy Choo shoes and, get this, Harry Winston jewels. Even with the Jimmy Choos and the jewels, she was appropriately dressed for the occasion. On the other hand, I really do have to wonder what in the HELL the beautiful Penelope Cruz was thinking when she chose her dress. UGH! How many birds had to die to make that skirt? It was hideous to boot! Not too far away on the scale of Hideous Oscar Ensembles of 2007 was Cameron Diaz’s white Valentino gown. It was lovely until your eyes got to the hem. I get that it is supposed to be asymmetrical, but it looked as though someone should be arrested for drunk sewing. Yuck! Finally, behind Penelope and Cameron was the delightful Kirsten Dunst who wore a form-fitting, light blue tuille, embroidered gown from Chanel Haute Couture. If that’s what Karl Lagerfeld is designing these days, maybe it’s time he retired and Chanel hired some new talent. The neckline was all wrong and, again, there were feathers, although not nearly as many as Cruz’s dress. In addition, she needs to do something about her bangs. With that dress, as hideous as it was, and with the rest of her hair, bangs were simply a very bad choice.

It was nice to have two lesbians take center stage at this year’s ceremony. Host Ellen Degeneres did an admirable job given that she had to keep things rolling for approximately four hours. It’s true that some of her bits were serious misses–like the one where she could be seen vacuuming the first row of the auditorium in preparation for the long-awaited end of the broadcast–but she was mostly quite up to snuff. Aside from her monologue in the beginning, I loved the bit she did with Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg where she gave the latter a digital camera and asked him to take a quick snapshot of her with his fellow Oscar™-winning director. Degeneres’s partner, actress Portia de Rossi, was definitely one of the beautiful people of the evening. I don’t like skinny or thin women, but if she just had to be that way, her navy Zac Posen halter stood her in great stead.

The second upfront lesbian of the evening was the aforementioned Etheridge who, with her wife, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, formed the epitome of the Hollywood power couple in the Best Dykes To Watch Out For category. Etheridge wore a navy woman’s tuxedo while Michaels wore an ethereal black Pamela Roland gown with upswept hair. If I had to say one thing about each of their outfits I’d say that I would have liked Etheridge’s tux jacket to be more tailored and Michaels to have worn a different color with her pale complexion. Actually, I think I would have chosen another dress for Michaels altogether, although that one was not bad at all. I just think that it could have been better.

. . .

Apple iPhoneApple, Inc. began its advertising campaign for the new iPhone with two 30-second spots during last night’s Oscar™ broadcast on ABC. The ads featured clips from famous films of characters answering their telephones with “Hello” and ended with two black screens with white type that read, “Hello” and “Coming in June.” Now that Apple and Cisco have ironed out their trademark dispute over the “iPhone” name, let the marketing campaign begin!

The much-anticipated combination Internet device, telephone, iPod and, as the iPhone page says, “High Technology” product was introduced at Macworld San Francisco in January where it was demonstrated by keynote speaker, iconic Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. The iPhone brings with it a beautiful, crisp, 3.5-inch-wide touch-screen display that that can be used both horizontally and vertically depending on whether it’s being used to watch video, play music or games, dial the phone, type on the QWERTY keyboard or operate one of the ten applications included in addition to the Safari web browser and Mail. People practically salivated over the two prototypes on display after the keynote–only three in the entire world. Journalists had to practically sign over their first born child, their spouse and their income for the next 20 years just to get their hands on one so that they could at least tell readers they’d seen it up close. Time magazine writer Lev Grossman describes his pre-release visit to Apple’s Cupertino, CA headquarters to scope out the theretofore über-secret device.

“If you’ve ever wondered how it works, this is how it works: I don’t call Steve, Steve calls me. Or more accurately, someone in Steve Jobs’s office calls someone in my office—someone at a much higher pay grade —to say that he has something cool. I then fly to the metastasized strip mall called Cupertino, Calif., where Apple lives, sign some legal confidentiality stuff and am escorted to a conference room that contains Jobs, some associates, and some lumps concealed under some black towels. I stare at what was under the towels. Everybody else stares at me. . . . This is how Apple, and nobody else, introduces new products to the press. It can be awkward, because Jobs is high-strung and he expects you to be impressed. I was, fortunately, and with good reason.” Journalists after the introduction didn’t fare much better.

I don’t know if the “Hello” ads that appeared during the Academy Awards™ will be shown at any other time, however, I believe it was wise to start the campaign even though Apple can’t even take iPhone orders now because the device hasn’t been approved by the Federal Communications Commission as yet. The Oscar™ telecast generally garners one of the largest viewing audiences in the world and serves as a premier opportunity for Apple to keep the brand in consumer minds. Such an early launch campaign may also give potential buyers the opportunity to save their pennies because they’ll need a whole lot of them to acquire even the less expensive model–49900 of them, to be exact–that comes with 4GB of storage. The more expensive model will sell for $599 and will have 8GB of storage.

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Black Straight Man vs. White Gay Man

22 Monday Jan 2007

Posted by in Blacks, Entertainment, Gay, Politics, Television

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Jasmyne Cannick wrote today that the white gay intelligentsia/power structure is hypocritical for demanding actor Isaiah Washington’s head due to his use of the word “faggot” in reference to Grey’s Anatomy cast mate T.R. Knight, who has subsequently come out as gay, while failing to demand that supposed comic Charles Knipp’s performances of a blackface character he calls Shirley Q. Liquor be canceled whenever and where ever they may be. Isaiah WashingtonYep, I agree. The two are both vile, disgusting and have no place in modern society. I also agree that the white gay power structure in this country is often hypocritical, racist and dismissive of the concerns of black people in general and black gays in particular. Why, then, can’t I get all that upset about various white gay folks calling for Washington’s termination from a television show? Maybe it’s because I can’t see two wrongs making anything right here.

I think the petition demanding that ABC/Disney fire Washington for his escapades is overkill. That’s not to say that the option shouldn’t be open to the network; just that the petition, which isn’t really worded as a petition, requires far more energy than the incident warrants. Washington deserves censure, for sure. He probably needs to get himself into counseling as well, especially if Washington has a history of violence as the petition alleges. I’d even go so far as to say that ABC/Disney should make counseling a condition of future employment–ever–at the network and at Disney Studios and its subsidiaries. Washington is a man with a problem. In fact, I think it’s the same problem that plagues actor/comic Michael Richards: rampant bigotry. Both men display a rage toward their objects of derision that is pathological, destroying themselves and everything (or everyone) around them. Bigots have a bad habit of thinking that it is only the people toward whom their hatred is directed who are hurt. That’s not at all true. They also hurt all of the people who look like or identify with their targets, people who are higher on the intellectual evolutionary ladder, friends and family on both sides as well as any witnesses to their hateful diatribes. In this case, as in the Richards case, that includes millions of people–and that’s only in the U.S. If one includes those around the world, that’s tens of millions of people. That’s an awful lot of hurt folks.

Cannick has written about “comic” Charles Knipp for some years now, as has author/lecturer/activist Keith Boykin, as have a host of others. I have yet to see Knipp’s act, but can draw some conclusions about it by reading news accounts of his shows being canceled in Boston and New York City and the negative press he has garnered thus far. Oh, and there is that MySpace page.

The first thing I gather is that the character Shirley Q. Liquor is egregiously offensive to a great many people. Knipp says the character is based on a woman he’s only barely smart enough not to call his “Mammy”–his childhood housekeeper in Texas. His reflections on pleasant childhood memories are stomach-churning in their familiarity based on movies like Gone With the Wind. “While there were many factors leading up to the creation of the character, Knipp said that Shirley Q. Liquor’s voice is partly inspired by Fannie Mae, his family’s housekeeper when he was growing up,” reads a 2002 Daily Free Press article written shortly after the Boston show was canceled. “Fannie had 16 children and taught me to say ‘how you durrin’ just like she did when I was five years old. She thinks my character is hilarious,” says Knipp. The character Liquor frequently misuses and mispronounces words and is mother to 19 children. She’s also big, fat and juicy in a mumu that serves as a dress. I have nothing against fat women, since I am one. However, I do have something against fat women who are made to look sloppy and slovenly as Knipp does with his character.

The comic says that he has many supporters, including RuPaul, Patti LaBelle, the Dixie Chicks and others. I write RuPaul off right away given her penchant for straight, blond wigs. I do, however, have to wonder why LaBelle would be supportive. Is she really, or is she just too polite to tell this guy that he’s an ass? Only LaBelle knows for sure.
Shirley Q. Liquor
The second thing that I can conclude is that Charles Knipp is a purposeful racist. At this point, I have to believe that he continues to perform his offensive act out of sheer spite. There have been too many protests and articles written in the press for him to be unaware of how hurtful and hated he is. There is no higher message here. There is no redeeming value. The mere fact that his act is performed in blackface is a major clue that this guy is an arrogant, willful racist who has every intention of demeaning black people. His act is not a loving homage to Southern black women. It is an insult. There is no doubt that the South is filled with black women who didn’t have the advantages that black women in the North had then or now. They didn’t have the access whites and many Northern blacks had to education and birth control. Therefore, it wasn’t uncommon for them to have very little book knowledge but a great deal of common sense. The one thing most of them had in common was the desire to keep their own children from having the lives they had. They wanted better for their children and worked very hard to make that happen. These are the qualities worthy of emulation, but they aren’t funny. No, those are deeply serious hurdles black women had to overcome to hold their heads up high. So although she may have raised some white chick’s kids because their mother couldn’t be bothered, Knipp’s black housekeeper did so in order to give her own a better life. Frankly, it pisses me off that Knipp would dare make fun of that.

Today, there is a black straight man who is a homophobe and a white gay man who is a racist. Both forms of bigotry are evil and insidious in our society. Knipp will be performing at the Factory in West Hollywood on February 11; The Bourbon Pub/Parade during Mardi Gras in New Orleans on February 15 and 20 and; Chez Est in Hartford, CT on February 23. It is my dearest hope that civil rights groups, gay rights groups and outraged citizens will protest each and every one of this man’s performances, raising a nasty stink that will make promoters think twice about hiring this racial assassin again. It’s not like the guy doesn’t have other characters, he does, but Shirley Q. Liquor is the one that gets him hired.

In contrast, Isaiah Washington only has his own intrinsic talent with which to earn a living as an actor. I think it is good and healthy that his despicable actions and words are being challenged. I also think that termination of employment should be an option that is put on the table for serious discussion. However, in the end, I think Washington may be redeemable given time, education and counseling. It is in Disney’s best interests to do so given their family image. By “family image,” I do not mean “family” as in Focus On the Family. I do mean “family” as in accepting of people who are decent, contributing members of society in all their varied forms. I also mean “family” as in LGBT people who go down to Disney World every year, pouring millions of dollars into corporate coffers and the local economy. In this case, money should talk while the bullshit that Washington has spewed should walk, even if he doesn’t.

The homophobe and the racist are both bad actors (pun intended). Neither one of them should get away with their misdeeds. In reading about Knipp, I learned that the overall gay community hasn’t been completely silent about the offensiveness of Knipp’s act, but they haven’t been very vocal either, with few exceptions. The way to solve that problem is not to give Washington a pass because that just perpetuates the wrong he’s already done. The thing to do is to hold groups like GLAAD, HRC and others accountable to black LGBT for their lack of presence in the Shirley Q. Liquor debate. The very last thing these groups want is to be held up to be racists themselves. That, frankly, would do a heck of a lot more damage to them as organizations than Charles Knipp can ever do to us as black people.

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