Black/African-American

#ThrowbackThursday: Whoopi Goldberg Wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Ghost,” 1990

Whoopi Goldberg at the Oscars, 1991 (Leosigh)

Whoopi Goldberg at the Oscars, 1991 (Leosigh)

Actress/comedian Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for “Ghost,” the seminal Patrick Swayze movie where his character dies and comes back as, you guessed it, a ghost. (Shocker, right?) Goldberg played Oda Mae Brown, a psychic who helps Swayze’s character.

Goldberg won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the movie a the 63rd Annual Academy Awards in 1991. This was her second Oscar nomination: Goldberg had previously been nominated for Best Actress in 1986’s “The Color Purple.”

Until the 2017 Oscar nominations were announced, Goldberg was the only Black actress to be nominated for an Oscar twice. Now there’s a new record: Powerhouse actress Viola Davis received a nomination for her work in “Fences,” and she is now the only Black actress to be nominated three times for an Oscar.  Davis had previously been nominated in 2009 for “Doubt” and in 2012 for “The Help.”

Women Who’ve Headlined Coachella: By The Numbers

Bjork Headlining Coachella, 2002 (Snakkle)

Bjork Headlining Coachella, 2002 (Snakkle)

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (also known as…Coachella) runs over two weekends in April. Headliners were announced earlier this month, and music superstar/feminist/legend for our times Beyonce will headline each Saturday’s performance at the main Coachella stage.

Why is this significant?

Coachella festivals (#): 18

  • Founded in 1999

Total female headliners (#): 3

Bjork headlined in 2002 and 2007.

Unique female headliners (#): 2

  • Bjork and soon-to-be Beyonce

Female headliners (%): 16.67%

Main stage acts (approximate #): 135

*Source: Coachella Festival line-ups page on Wikipedia

 

 

 

#ThrowbackThursday: Beyonce and Solange at Coachella, 2014

Beyonce and Solange at Coachella, 2014 (Global Music Tribune)

Beyonce and Solange at Coachella, 2014 (Global Music Tribune)

Solange performed a set at Coachella in 2014. While singing “Losing You,” off her EP “True,” Beyonce joined her little sister onstage to dance to the song.

Beyonce will be headlining Coachella on Saturday, Apr. 15th and 22nd.

Sonequa Martin-Green Will be the First Black Woman to Star on a “Star Trek” TV Series

Sonequa Martin-Green (Audrey Can)

Sonequa Martin-Green (Audrey Can)

Once again, science fiction imagines a more inclusive world for all of us. This time, “Star Trek” is adding on to its storied universe, and creating its first new franchise in a decade. Sonequa Martin-Green, actress on “The Walking Dead,” will lead the cast as a lieutenant commander in “Star Trek: Discovery.”

Martin-Green’s lead character Rainsford is a first for the series: She’s the first Black woman to star in a “Star Trek” series. In-universe, the lieutenant commander is also a first. Previous to the new series, all the lead characters had been captains. Executive Producer Bryan Fuller has spoken on the need for context and a new perspective, as well as his desire to have a Black woman lead the series.

Martin-Green will lead an inclusive cast, which includes Asian actress Michelle Yeoh playing another starship’s captain and Anthony Rapp as the series’ first gay character on TV.

Black Women Nominees for the Best Actress in a Television Series — Comedy or Musical Golden Globe: By The Numbers

Tracee Ellis Ross with her Golden Globe award, 2017 (Wbli)

Tracee Ellis Ross with her Golden Globe award, 2017 (Wbli)

At the 2017 Golden Globe Awards, actress Tracee Ellis Ross won the Best Actress Television Series Musical or Comedy (BATSMC) for her role of Bow Johnson on the ABC comedy “Blackish.” Ross is only the second Black woman to win in this particular category.

If that doesn’t impress you enough, here are some numbers that put Ross’s win in the larger context (with Best Actress Television Series Musical or Comedy noted as BATSMC):

Number of total Black nominees for BATSMC: 14

Number of unique* Black nominees for BATSMC: 7

*I’m defining unique as actresses who’ve been nominated at least once.

Total nominees for BATSMC, 1963-2017: 54

Percentage of total Black nominees to total overall nominees, 1963-2017: 25.96%

Percentage of total Black winners to total overall winners, 1963-2017: 3.70%

Number of Black actresses who’ve won BTMSC: 2

  • Debbie Allen for “Fame,” 1983
  • Tracee Ellis Ross for “Blackish,” 2017

Number of Years between the first Black winner and second Black winner: 34

Year of the first Black nominee: 1970

  • Diahann Carroll for “Julia”

Number of TV Shows with more than one Black actress nominations:

  • “The Jeffersons:” 5 nominations – 1977, 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985
  • “Fame:” 3 nominations – 1983, 1984, 1985
  • “Gimme a Break!:” 2 nominations – 1983, 1985

Highest number of Black nominees in a single year: 3

  • 1983: Isabel Sanford, “The Jeffersons;” Nell Carter, “Gimme a Break!;” Debbie Allen, “Fame”
  • 1985: Isabel Sanford, “The Jeffersons;” Nell Carter, “Gimme a Break!;” Debbie Allen, “Fame” (No, this isn’t a typo; the exact same three actresses were all nominated again two years later.)

 Number of Black nominees, 2017: 2

  • Tracee Ellis Ross, “Blackish”
  • Issa Rae, “Insecure”

*Sources: Wikipedia’s list of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress page.

#ThrowbackThursday: Debbie Allen at the Golden Globes, 1983

Debbie Allen at the Golden Globes, 1983 (YouTube)

Debbie Allen at the Golden Globes, 1983 (YouTube)

Way back in 1983 (34 years ago!), actress-choreographer Debbie Allen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Musical or Comedy Actress. Allen starred in “Fame,” the TV series based off the 1980 movie.

She was the only Black woman to win this award until “Blackish” actress Tracee Ellis Ross (yes, Diana Ross’s daughter) won earlier this week during the

Tracee Ellis Ross Becomes the First Black Woman to Win a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Comedy Since 1983

Tracee Ellis Ross, Golden Globes 2017 (Elle)

Tracee Ellis Ross, Golden Globes 2017 (Elle)

Last night at the Golden Globe Awards, the always amazeballs Tracee Ellis Ross won the award for Best Actress — Television Series Musical or Comedy. Ross plays Bow Johnson, badass doctor and matriarch of the Johnson family in the ABC comedy “Blackish.”

Ross is also the first Black woman to win that category in 34 years. The last Black woman to win in that category was Debbie Allen for “Fame.”

In her historic moment, Ross’s acceptance speech celebrated inclusion, especially for women of color:

This is for all the women, women of color, and colorful people whose stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy and valid and important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you.

Congratulations, Tracee, and keep being you!

 

 

Civil Rights Activist Viola Desmond Will Be the First Woman on the Canadian $10 Bill

Viola Desmond (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Viola Desmond (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Canada has always been on the progressive side of things, and now it’s extended to their money. The country has elected to put a black woman on one of their bills.

Desmond will be featured on the Canadian $10 bill:

According to the Bank of Canada, there are 132 million $10 bills in circulation right now. The number of new banknotes printed annually fluctuates from year to year.

Said woman Viola Desmond was a civil rights activist. In Dec. 1946, she bought a floor seat in the main house of a movie theater. The main house was reserved for whites, whereas Black movie-goers were supposed to sit upstairs in the balcony. Desmond was arrested and jailed, on account of not paying the tax difference between the two seats. The tax difference was…one cent. One. Cent.

In 1947, Desmond tried to appeal the charge and lost. She dies in 1965 at age 50, and was granted a public pardon and apology in 2010.

It’s important to note that Desmond’s act came nine years before Rosa Parks gave up her bus seat in the United States, setting off the U.S.’s civil rights movement.

As Ryerson’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Staffer Darrell Bowden puts it:

“Viola was not the Rosa Parks of Canada. Rosa Parks was the Viola Desmond of America.”

Until this point, the only woman on Canadian money has been Queen Elizabeth of England. But Desmond is the first Canadian woman who will be on Canadian money. She’s also the first one who won’t be part of a group: Canada’s Famous Five suffragettes graved the $50 bill from 2004 until 2011.

Desmond beat out 26K+ submissions from the public. The bill with her face will go into circulation in 2018.

#ThrowbackThursday: “The Loving Story,” 2011

Richard and Mildred Loving, 'The Loving Story' (Documentary Daze)

Richard and Mildred Loving, ‘The Loving Story’ (Documentary Daze)

Documentary “The Loving Story” was released in 2011, and examined the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving. An interracial couple from Virginia, they were arrested for violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law shortly after their wedding in 1958. The film examines their struggle to remain married and able to live in Virginia, which led to the historic Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision of 1967.

The film was directed by Nancy Buirski, premiered in 2012, and won a Peabody Award.

Season 2 of Netflix’s “Jessica Jones” Will Only Feature Woman Directors

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones (IndieWire)

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones (IndieWire)

Hey Hollywood, you know all that bluster about how you can’t find female directors/writers, etc.? You know how you keep saying you want to diversify but you just can’t? Even though you’re trying really hard? Well, “Jessica Jones” is calling your bluff and raising it.

The Netflix series, which focuses on the Marvel character of the same name (played by Krysten Ritter), has been praised for its depictions of sexual assault and female friendship, among other aspects. And now showrunner Melissa Rosenberg has thrown down the gauntlet and declared that no one shall sit in the director’s chair unless their chromosomes are of the XX variety.

This isn’t the first time a TV series has hired solely women directors to direct its episodes. That would be “Queen Sugar,” co-produced and written by Ava DuVernay (who’s the first Black woman to direct a $100M movie). And that happened earlier this year.

No word yet on who’ll be gracing the director’s chair for the second season of “Jessica Jones” (and also no release date), but I can’t wait to find out.

But one thing’s for certain: Your move, Hollywood.