A recent tweet claiming that Halle Berry began the erasure of fully Black women in Hollywood sparked a heated discussion on social media. While some people agreed with the claim, the majority of users jumped in to defend the actress.
“Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne were considered ‘white-passing’ in Hollywood long before Halle was born, and none of them started this. Hollywood has always slighted black women long before Halle was even thought of,” a comment read.
Part of the debate focused on Berry’s Oscar win in 2002 for ‘Monster’s Ball’ that named her the first Black woman to receive the award in Best Actress category. One user argued, “Only true if Halle’s choices led to ‘a Halle type’ taking all Black women roles. At Oscars, she thanked Vivica [A. Fox] (box office queen), Jada [Smith] (cast in every genre) & Angela Bassett (respected icon) for standing BESIDE her. Next Sanaa [Lathan], Gabrielle [Union], Viola [Davis] & Taraji [P. Henson] WORKED. Solely Black.”
“Man, ain’t nobody even think she was mixed til she said it,” someone else noted about the actress, whose mother is white English and father is African-American. “Girl was playing a fully black woman in ‘Boomerang’, and no one batted an eye. She looked no different than Nia and Regina, and was darker than Sanaa. Plus, we can’t act like there weren’t plenty of biracial before her.”
The main tweet and the general criticism directed at Halle Berry’s presence as a Black woman in Hollywood, partially stemmed from the Oscar statistics. It’s a fact that no Black actress has won the Best Actress category since Berry’s win, though she believed at the time that it would open the way for the community.
Throughout the 96-year history of the event, no woman of color apart from Michelle Yeoh received the award while five Black men won in the Best Actor category. Berry herself addressed this issue, expressing her disappointment over the lack of progress to Marie Claire in September.
“I’m still eternally miffed that no Black woman has come behind me for that best actress Oscar, I’m continually saddened by that year after year,” she shared. “And it’s certainly not because there has been nobody deserving.”
Before Berry, the only African-American actress to win an Academy Award was Hattie McDaniel, who earned hers for her supporting role in 1939’s ‘Gone with the Wind’. In the following years, a handful of Black women, including Jennifer Hudson and Lupita Nyong’o, kept receiving awards in the same category.
How the next ceremony’s nominee and winner lists will turn out is yet to be seen.
