❤️Special Edition: Black-Ass Women and White Supremacists: A Hollywood Love Story ❤️
Welcome to the 34th installment of This Black-Ass Life and Happy Valentines Day! This love-themed newsletter explores Hollywood's obsession with giving us story after story of Black women falling in love with White supremacist men. Are we gonna sex racism away? We also have a Black love-filled Other Things because how else do you celebrate Valentine’s Day other than obsessing over Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance?
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l. The Facts
While early Hollywood explicitly forbade depictions of miscegenation (sex and relationships between White and non-White people) until the late 40s, many movies since have attempted with varying levels of success to depict interracial relationships on screen.
From Guess Who's Coming to Dinner to The Family Stone, Hollywood has attempted some semblance of progressiveness, but there are many instances where they just get it so wrong, especially when it comes to interracial love stories involving Black women.
Just last month, Netflix premiered Always a Witch (Siempre Bruja), a brightly colored chronicle of a BEAUTIFUL Afro-Latinx enslaved woman named Carmen from 1646 who magically lands in 2019 Cartagena. The premise of the show is Carmen’s desire to save Cristobal, the man of her dreams/the son of her master. MEANING SHE HAS TO AND WANTS TO GO BACK TO BEING A SLAVE! There is actually a scene where Carmen is on the auction block making googly eyes at her enslaver. And this is very much besides the point, but Cristobal is not even that cute!
Then there is Where Hands Touch, a war "romance" starring Amandla Stenberg, a biracial teenager in Nazi Germany who falls in love with a member of the Hitler Youth. Yes, this film actually premiered in the year of our Lord 2018. Y’all please look at the following excerpt from this discussion of the movie:
Very surprised that Where Hands Touch didn’t get all the awards because recent history tells us that Hollywood loves awarding these deeply problematic stories. Never forget, Halle Berry, the first Black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, got the award for Monster’s Ball, a movie where she falls in love with a virulent racist prison guard who helped in the execution of her husband.
Why is this important?
Romanticizing relationships between Black women and their abusers is a tale as old, if not older than, Thomas Jefferson, whose decades-long rape of his slave Sally Hemings is another love story Hollywood likes to tell.
These movies are dangerous because they insist on making Black women complicit in their own oppression and there is absolutely no reason for Hollywood to keep telling them.
In a world where Black women and girls are oversexualized and in a world where Black women disproportionately experience intimate partner violence and homicide, these stories are especially egregious.
Black vaginas are not the elixir to racism, these stories are played out, and it’s time for Hollywood to step it up.
What Can My Black Ass Do?
Watch The Sun is Also A Star on May 17. We stan an unproblematic interracial love story. And Nicola Yoon is EVERYTHING everything. Sorry, couldn’t help the literary pun. 😉
ll. Other Things
As the Carters say, “Everything is Love.”
Happy Black History Month! Show your love for Black people and check out The New York Times Overlooked series, which highlights the remarkable Black men and women who never received their much-deserved obituaries in The New York Times.
Y’all. Please check out this photoset of Angela “Arms Won’t Quit” Bassett and Courtney B. Vance over the years.
Viola Davis didn’t let bad credit get in the way of her happily ever after with Julius Tennon. Also, peep Viola’s grown and adorable explanation of menopause.
Actually, you should watch the whole OWN Black Love series or at least check out the clips. The creators of the show also have a beautiful Black love story and family.
Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Michelle Bathe started their on-again, off-again (but now very much on) relationship while studying at Stanford. A top 10 school Black love!
I (Mitu) was inspired by this Friendzone episode to take a look back at what I would argue is the epitome of Black love. You know Nene and Greg didn’t plan this routine yet when she told him to “honk the horn on they ass” at the RHOA reunion, he knew exactly what to do next. That’s the real love Mary was talking about!
Our Black-Ass song of the week (Mitu):
I wanted to theme this after the Carters and couldn’t choose between Love on Top and All Night (Beyoncé’s and my favorite song off Lemonade).
Things we are looking forward to / things we are not looking forward to:
I (Jumoke) look forward to Boomerang because I LOVED the original. I’m already hooked with the melanin I see in the trailer. Don’t mess this up, BET!
I (Mitu) look forward to finishing Pen15. This is not a Black-ass show, but I’ve never encountered media that so perfectly captures the specific discomfort of middle school.
lll. Text from a Black-Ass Mama
I (Mitu) did not know my mother needed to get her cavities filled. Please note the signature Black-Ass Mama guilt and escalation of an extremely routine dental procedure. And yes, I called my mama right after she texted me.
Stay Black, thrive, love on yourself this Valentine’s Day - and every day, and we’ll hit your inbox next on February 25.