An Honorary ...What? ...For Whom?
Thursday Thoughts
Angela Bassett is getting an honorary Oscar and it just doesn’t sit right with me. The Academy’s little stunt from last year is the precise reason why Beyonce stopped going to the Grammys. At a certain level of excellence, when you are the bar the girls can’t reach, you just don’t really need to subject your talent to opinions from the moldiest corner of the Academy member pool.
If Angela got a trophy every time she rightfully deserved one, there would be no Oscars left. Her talent is so specifically excellent that every role she plays feels like a continuation of the last. In my tribute to Tina Turner, I wrote about being young and believing Waiting to Exhale was the sequel to What’s Love Got To Do With It. With that logic, How Stella Got Her Groove Back is the sequel to Waiting to Exhale, right?
You can’t tell me we haven’t been watching a 30-year-long movie about the life of a woman who divorced the abusive man who made her a rockstar, then remarried another man (and set his car on fire after he cheated), and then escaped to Jamaica to heal before becoming a doctor, secret service agent, cop, and loving mother to a spelling bee champion. All before eventually becoming Queen of Wakanda.
It’s the same way that every Robin Williams role just felt like another chapter in a decades-long book about the same endearing man.
I was also today years old when I realized the iconic line, “I don’t want you, I don’t want you, I don’t want you no more,“ was not directed at Ike Turner, but to Joe Jackson:
Anyway, back to the honorary Oscar. From CNN:
“Across her decades-long career, Angela Bassett has continued to deliver transcendent performances that set new standards in acting,” Academy president Janet Yang said in Monday’s news release.
Honorary Oscar statuettes are awarded to a select few recipients, as voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors, for the annual Governors Awards to honor those with extraordinary distinction and exceptional contribution to the film industry.
The 2023 Governors Awards will be held in Los Angeles on November 18.
No ❤️.
She deserves her real moment on the real stage with her real trophy. You can’t snub the woman every chance y’all get and then expect me to applaud the merit prize.
*Rant ends*
*Angela Bassett appreciation post begins*
