Angela Bassett Hounds Halle Berry For 'Slutty' Role-Accuses Oscar Winner of Prostituting Herself

NY Post, MSNBC.com and Newsweek ^ | June 23, 2002 | Bill Hoffman

[codebreaker]

Angela Bassett has come out swinging against Halle Berry and her Oscar winning performance in 'Monsters Ball'-saying that iit demeaning for black actresses to play sluts.

Bassett tells Newsweek she turned down a chance to play the lead because 'I wasn't going to be a prositute on film.'

'I couldn't do that because it's such a sterotype about black women and sexuality.'

Berry made history as the first black woman to win a Best Actress Academy Award, as a waitress who has a tortured affair with the racist, death row prision guard who executed her cop killer husband.

[Gumlegs]

Those lips! Those eyes! Those ... those ... posts!

[Conservative til I die]

Bassett is right, although I think she is off on the racial aspect of it. Berry is just a whore using her nudity to make money. She never did nude scenes until she was paid six figures just to expose her breasts in Swordfish. Then came Monster's Ball. Her game is pretty obvious.

[Conservative til I die]

Big difference between letting your boobs and ass flop out in an obvious case of self-exploitation to sell tickets and portraying an abused wife in a BIOGRAPHICAL film.

[Conservative til I die]

Will Smith is the tool of the white man.

[Conservative til I die]

Wow, look at the fanboys come out of the woodworks! Geez, see a couple of nipples in a movie, and all of a sudden any critics are the debbil!

BTW, it's funny to watch FReepers totally overreact, in typical hyperpolitical tones about this: "Angela must be a white people hater!" "HAlle is colorblind!" Gag.

[Conservative til I die]

But see, she doesn't show her boobs, so she is anathema, apparently.

[codebreaker]

I don't see it that way, in fact it may be worse because Julia Roberts and her liberal ilk are so selfrighteous when she exposes her boobs the whole movie then criticize Halle for Swordfish.

[Conservative til I die]

"What's Love Got To Do With It" says hi.

[codebreaker]

If being a 'sell out' making 15 million a picture is being a tool for the white man, count me in!

[Dr. Frank fan]

Wow, look at the fanboys come out of the woodworks! Geez, see a couple of nipples in a movie, and all of a sudden any critics are the debbil!

You've really got the wrong "fanboy" (which, of Halle Berry, I'm not, by the way).

The only reason I chimed in on this thread was to take the oh-so-serious-(overrated IMHO) actress Angela Bassett down a notch from her high horse. I didn't do it to defend the honor of Halle Berry or even her looks. I don't even like Halle Berry all that much. The "best" movie I can think of with her in it was The Last Boy Scout. She played a stripper, as I recall. Bruce Willis kicked butt, he killed a guy by punching his nose clear into his brain. Or something like that. I would also list X-Men which I generally liked, but not because of Berry, whose character could just as well have been done with computer graphics with no loss in quality of the picture.

So, you see, I can criticize Angela Bassett without being a Halle Berry "fanboy". :)

[codebreaker]

I liked 'Boomerang' with Eddie Murphy.

[Dr. Frank fan]

"What's Love Got To Do With It" says hi.

Completely overrated melodrama that really should have been nothing more than a made-for-Lifetime movie, by all rights. I don't believe more than a handful of people honestly, sincerely enjoyed watching that film. People "liked" it and cite it and say it was good and Bassett was great primarily because they think they're Supposed To have these opinions. Maybe even because Bassett is black and Turner is black and Turner's husband hit her, and all that. (I mean, how can someone not claim to like that movie among "sophisticated" people? It would take guts.)

But if I evaluate the movie on its own terms? I can't say I'd ever want to see it again. I'd rather see Strange Days again, and that's saying something. Bassett's character was more three-dimensional and more interesting in The Score, and that's saying something.

Really, I'm tired of hearing about What's Love Got to do With It and how great Bassett was. She's gotten enough mileage out of that flick already. It's time for people to stop repeating how great it was just cuz they think they're Supposed To. It's been, what, almost 10 years already?

Don't entirely-PC-based opinions have a limited lifespan? You'd think.

[Dr. Frank fan]

I liked 'Boomerang' with Eddie Murphy.

That's cool, I'm glad you got enjoyment out of it. Only recent Murphy movie I've liked at all was Bowfinger.

[zarf]

just leave something for dessert.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Can Conservatives ever leave the politics behind????? Yeesh, people would like the film because it's about a black woman? No, they'd like it because it's a good film

But, it's not. That's the problem.

BTW, Tina Turner is one of the least racist black stars out there,

Couldn't care less, I was talking about the movie. I like Turner's (earlier) music all right, I s'pose. I was talking about the movie though.

If anything Berry is the racial one. Her embarassing Oscar speech about blazing trails was horrid,

No argument. I say you win the great debate "who's more racist, Halle Berry or Tina Turner?".

That's not what I was talking about. I was trying to explain the overblown exaggerated positive reactions to a battered-woman-Lifetime movie. In other words, I was talking about the racial attitudes of the audience and chattering classes, not of the movie's star(s). My only problem with the movie's star (in this case Bassett) is that she's completely overrated as an actress, not whatever racial attitudes she may or may not have.

[NYCVirago]

Yep, Hollywood rarely has the guts to actually have someone unattractive play somebody unattractive. Look at the movie "Shallow Hal," where instead of having a real fat woman play a fat woman, Gwyneth Paltrow plays the role. Or how about Janeane Garofolo in "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," where she was supposed to be really ugly. Granted, by Hollywood standards Ms. Garofolo is no beauty queen, but she's hardly the ugliest-looking woman on the face of the earth, either.