Oscars: Octavia Spencer Wins Big, Viola Davis Comes Up Empty
Sunday night, Hollywood’s elite came out for the biggest celebration of the year. The 84th annual Academy Awards saw many predictable moments, but it also saw a few surprises as well.
Although host Billy Crystal was sort of a last minute addition after Eddie Murphy dropped out, he garnered several laughs from the crowd in the Kodak Theater. However, Crystal received mixed reviews from critics, particularly for his race-based humor.
One of the night’s most emotional moments came as Octavia Spencer took home the award for best supporting actress for her role in ‘The Help.’ Spencer received a standing ovation from her peers and she admitted to “freaking out” about winning an Oscar just as she disolved into tears.
After her win, Crystal told the crowd he wanted to ”hug the first black woman that I saw. From Beverly Hills, that’s about a 45-minute drive.”
Spencer’s costar, Viola Davis, look absolutely stunning in an emerald green Vera Wang dress and short natural ‘do. But Davis, a heavy favorite, came up empty, losing to Meryl Streep who took home the best actress award for ‘The Iron Lady.’
‘The Artist’ was the night’s big winner taking home the coveted awards of best picture and director, and its star Jean Dujardin, won best actor. Martin Scorsese’s film ‘Hugo’ also took home five trophies.
‘Undefeated,’ a film produced by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, took home an award for best feature documentary.
Did you watch the Oscars? What did you think?
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Merryl deserved to win. She did a fantastic job in Thatcher. Viola was not robbed. You cannot compare the two roles. Merryl is a talented actress, Viola is also but Merryl was better. I cannot support an actress just because she is black. let’s look at content and acting chops firts. congrats to Merryl Streep.
Don’t blame Meryl or Viola, but the JEW Harvey Weinstein…
Not that Meryl Streep didn’t deserve to win, but I believe that the vote was split. The Academy voters were stumped between Viola and Michele Williams thus Meryl emerged as the winner. This entire awards season have been confused when it comes to Best Actress, every show it has been a different Best Actress.
I was happy with the winners, I did feel like Hugo took a few too many though… Spread the wealth Academy! lol
meryl streep is the best actress in the universe. whatever she is given, she rises to the occasion. and don’t ever tell her that she CAN’T do something because she will then take that role and make it hers. that’s what happened in bridges of madison county where she played an italian immigrant and nailed the accent and every nuance of such a woman. no. no one is saying that meryl should not have gotten it; it’s just that meryl is the best in the world and the only time anyone can ever win anything is if she is just not in the running. hollywood should recognize that no one can compete with her and just give streep a gigantic oscar that says FOR EVERY ROLE YOU HAVE EVER BEEN GIVEN AND EVERY ROLE YOU WILL EVER BE GIVEN. and then someone should just whisper to her, “now, meryl, just sit down.” because not only was viola davis robbed, but every other actress in the best actress category was robbed just because meryl streep was competing. this does not detract one iota from viola davis’ acting abilities; you know she HAD to had been good, no — GREAT — for her to have landed on the academy awards list in the first place. the academy ought to simply retire meryl streep for all the aforementioned reasons; people say just being nominated is an honor and others do not believe them; however, i do believe that it was an incredible honor for viola davis to have been nominated because i am certain she will get the award one of these days because ms. davis is just that good.the oscar will be hers one day, that is — if that meryl streep isn’t sneaking around the studios.
Does anyone know how many OVERWEIGHT white women have won Oscars for best supporting or lead actress?
four out of six black women to receive acting oscars have been overweight:
Best Actress in a Leading Role
- Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball (2001)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
- Hattie McDaniel Gone with the Wind (1940)
- Whoopi Goldberg Ghost (1991)
- Jennifer Hudson Dreamgirls (2006)
- Mo’Nique Precious (2009)
- Octavia Spencer The Help (2011)
That’s the image that whites are most comfortable with. Overweight, unattractive black women will always be the representative. If an actress is deemed pretty by white standards she will be mixed race like Halle Berry, Paula Patton or Zoe Saldana. Why can’t Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington and Sanaa Lathan get more exposure? There’s nothing like a beautiful real black woman to crack the veil of white supremacy.
+1
I agree with hilo..usually only those who play mammy-types or degrading stereotypes win on the Oscars. I don’t watch them and never will..BTW, I’ve never seen whoopie as overweight.
Do you really think Oscar noms and wins garner better opportunities for African Americans? I don’t. I wonder if Halle Berry and Cuba Gooding would agree with that assessment. I actually really like Meryl Streep, and I know that I’ll be bashed for saying this, but I believe that she plays herself in a lot of her roles. Not all, but a lot. I found it interesting when the makeup artist said that he didn’t want to lose Meryl Streep in the role. We weren’t supposed to be seeing Meryl Streep. We were supposed to be seeing the character.
Meryl Streep is a great actress, but I don’t think she is necessarily better or the best. The difference is the opportunity actresses get to portray their talent. Black actresses rarely have the opportunity to display their range. Even when there were more black roles out there they were never of the same caliber of say a Julia Childs or Margaret Thatcher. A lot of times, when we are measuring actors ability we are actually measuring the character. Sure the actor or actress matters, but its the character that gives them something to work with. This makes all of the difference.
have to agree, leelee, about the lack of roles for black actors — roles that will showcase a range of characters; this is one reason we all knew that angela bassett was such a terrific actress for she could play tina turner, daisy bates, violetta wallace, betty shabazz, katherine jackson and many, many others — each of whom was a completely different character from the other.it is unfortunate that all the good roles, however, go to one person while the other actors are relegated to servile roles that do not depict blacks in a good light.
Meryl Streep’s performance was much better than Viola Davis’. Viola is a great actress but paled to Streep’s spot on performance as Margaret Thatcher. No Weinsten. The woman is so talented and she is not the type that goes trying to buy her Oscars. Others do, she does not care or need, her acting speaks for itself.
Now, The Help was a much, much better movie than Iron Lady, but it is still called “The best Actress category”
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Halle Berry is the only African American actress to win the Lead Actress award, and all the black actresses that are nominated in the Leading category always lose to a white woman. The Academy are just stuck in the past and hollywood never offer any black actress a leading role almost everyday. Viola was robbed and the oscars know it.