Tag Archives: Golden Globes

blog, movies, news

Some thoughts on the Golden Globes…(updated)

Ah, the good old days. I remember when the Golden Globes could barely get coverage as an award show  that appeared on over-the-air UHF channels. This is all in the day when three-networks dominated everything and cable was just a wire you could hold in your hands.

Now as a demonstration of how our celebrity culture has risen, the GGs are big, big, big. The pre-Oscar/Emmys, and much ado about pop.

I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I’d call progress.

The programs I like to watch more often than not were rewarded on Sunday. AMC’s  “Breaking Bad,”  a great show.  Moviedom’s “American Hustle,” uneven but great acting. The HBO/Liberace biopic, “Beyond the Candelabra” well, read my review here: http://aaldef.org/blog/liberace-the-queer-for-non-queers.html

But as much as I like watching Michael Douglas and Matt Damon,  and even Bryan Cranston (with or w/o hair)  I like to watch women, and all my favorites won as well. (I don’t mean to be sexist. I appreciate a good acting performance, but is it wrong to say I tend to prefer watching women?)

Robin Wright who has been underrated on Netflix’ “House of Cards,” won a Golden Globe.  So did Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, who  both lifted “American Hustle” from the pedestrian.

But the best acceptance speech of the night  had to be the salty one from  Jacqueline Bisset right at the start.

I’m surprised that some didn’t like her bit and would disagree with me. But here’s the situation. You’ve won. You beat the odds. They sat you about a two miles away from the podium because no one thought you’d win.  But you’ve won. All eyes are on you. And now you get to tell off all your detractors.

Of course, perhaps, such a situation would call for a little grace.

But what the heck, you’re an older actress who some have left for dead. You’ve got a lot of fire left, show it. Why not?  Or not.

Listen, Amy and Tina are affable lap dogs. Cool, but not real. They ran amok within the confines of convention. JBisset was trying to prove she was not just a shadow of her former self. She was a winner. And she still had what she said after a lot of “p-ss and vinegar.”

To that, I say good for her. I liked it a whole lot better than the Woody Allen bit. But then I’m a Mia Farrow fan.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/jacqueline-bisset-acceptance-speech/story?id=21507966

 

The Oscar nominations come out later this week.

I have yet to see “12 years a Slave,” so I’ve refrained from commenting on its Golden Globe win for Best Picture. But the movie that I saw more than once this year likely won’t get nominated. I was on a 20 hour plane ride to Asia and managed to watch “Frances Ha” at least 4 times on the round trip.

“FH” is all about young people in New York. In Black and White. Starring a captivating Greta Gerwig.  She was nominated for a Globe for best actress but didn’t win. That was always the thing about the Golden Globes.  You could always count on some oddball winners and nominees compared to the other award shows.

Let’s see how traditional Oscar is this year.

 

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blog, diversity, race

“The Help,” the new help, and Dr. King: Still a lot of work to be done

 I was touched by Octavia Spencer’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday  as she mentioned Dr.King and domestic help.

Said Spencer: “…with regard to domestics in this country now and then, I think Dr. King said it best – all labor that uplifts humanity has diginity and importance. And I thank you for recognizing that with our film.”

Yes, all work has value. But why do certain people of certain races end up with the domestic jobs? I suppose that’s the indomitable spirit that we celebrate.  Some people just won’t take the jobs we will.  That’s the way it’s always been. But as Spencer talked of domestics, past and present, she didn’t really touch on the main difference among the help these days.

Like everything else, the help is a lot more diverse, with fewer American domestics. And a whole lot more immigrants.

In the 1900s, the help tended to be European immigrants and blacks from the South.

But nowadays, immigrants from around the world dominate, especially from Asia (most often the Philippines), Mexico and Latin America. And when it comes to the blacks, they aren’t from urban places or from the rural south. They’ve been replaced predominately by Caribbean immigrants.

The old South is just that, a dated notion of “the help” as nostalgic as “Gone with the Wind.”

The modern version would be a lot different movie.  The help? It’s Filipino or Latino definitely. They could have Salma Hayek play the part. The Filipina songstress Lea Salonga could do it on Broadway.

Recently, I went to a party at a college acquaintance’s home in San Francisco. I was the only non-white guest in the crowd. It was strange how I actually had more in common with the help than I did with the guests.

The help was a Filipino family that cooked and cleaned and worked for my college friend. They reminded me of my relatives.

When they saw me, they knew not to fraternize. I said a word or two I knew in Tagalog,  but they were total professionals who never broke character. They knew their place. This wasn’t a Filipino family party.

To them, I suppose I might have been a sign of progress.  A Filipino American on tonight’s guest list. How often does that happen?

But I looked at them all night hard at work and saw the opposite. Yes, all labor uplifts and all that.  Dr. King was right. But we were just an update of another kind of continuum.

The past was present, alive and well, with still much work to be done for us all.